The politics of reluctance: A socio-political study of Sweden: Why resist? 2004 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor)Student thesis

Abstract [en]

In 1995 Sweden, after years of reluctance, Sweden entered into the European Union. The question is, why did it take so long? As a small, export orientated country it made little sense to stay out of the Union - at least in economic terms. There were though extenuating circumstances - namely the policy of neutrality (or perhaps better defined as índependence´) and the belief in advanced, rational state intervention. Though Sweden was extremely active in the pursuit of trade associations she was always wary of the political implications of integration into a Union with a clear partiality in the East/West divide; but also, perhaps, because she was reasonably successful in economic and political terms and pursued many alternative ways of solving problems that the rest of the world did with deregulatory reform. However, as the author argues by implementing a neo-Gramscian approach to integration, eventually the camels back broke and the ´third road´ policies seemed to be becoming increasingly untenable. Also changing political conditions - namely the end of the cold war - meant that Sweden perhaps had more room for manoeuvrability; though it was entering into a vastly more ´federal´state than that it had ássociated´with for many years. However while politicians and economic leaders eventually acquiesced, the Swedish public was a difficult one to persuade - and, the author argues, still is - as to the benefits of European integration. A metastudy coupled with a short piece of empirical research tries to reveal the main factors behind initial and continued resistance, coming to the conclusion that the factors are of a strong cultural nature relating to a historically crafted belief in the virtues of the Swedish state as well as some aspects of Swedish identity. As an aside the author also tries to link elite and non-elite discourses by way of integration theories and by reflecting upon the extent to which the ´experience´ of the pre-ascenden Sweden affects current public opinion residues.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages

2004.

Keywords [en]

Sweden, politico-cultural analysis, European integration, resistance, neo-Gramscianism, sovereignty, identity

Identifiers

URN: urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-12168Local ID: U11209OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hh-12168DiVA, id: diva2:367314

Uppsok

Social and Behavioural Science, Law

Note

Denna uppsats kan beställas från arkivet / This paper can be ordered from the archive. Kontakta / Contact: arkivet@hh.seAvailable from: 2010-11-09 Created: 2010-11-09Bibliographically approved

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