Governing Europe

Discourse, Governmentality and European Integration

William Walters, Jens Henrik Haahr

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• eBook ISBN: 9781134354931
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Governing Europe is the first book to systematically link Michel Foucault's hypotheses on power and 'governmentality' with the study of European integration. Through a series of empirical encounters that spans the fifty-year history of European integration, it explores both the diverse political dreams that have framed means and ends of integration and the political technologies that have made 'Europe' a calculable, administrable domain.

The book illustrates how a genealogy of European integration differs from conventional approaches. By suspending the assumption that we already know what/where Europe is, it opens a space for analysis where we can ask: how did Europe come to be governed as this and not that? The themes covered by this book include:

* the different constructions of Europe within discourses of modernization, democratization, insecurity and 'governance'
* the imprint of modernism, liberalism, ordoliberalism, neoliberalism and crime on the identity of the European Community/European Union
* the historical relationship between European government and specific technologies of power, technologies as diverse as planning, price control, transparency and benchmarking.

1 Governing Europe

On February 15, 2000, Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, spoke before the European Parliament. The event was to mark the start of his term in office, a moment that, he observed, coincided with the ‘dawn of the third millennium’ (Prodi 2000). In this speech he set out what he saw as the main issues facing his presidency. Since its inception European integration had accomplished much including fifty years of unprecedented peace and prosperity. With the completion of the single market and the launch of the euro, the European Union (EU) was well set to meet what he saw as ‘the challenges of globalisation’. But despite these notable successes, the EU continued to be met with scepticism and anxiety on the part of ‘Europe's citizens’. People have lost faith in European institutions, Prodi lamented, in their ability to engineer a better future for Europe. To be successful in the third millennium the European project would have to meet two kinds of ‘needs’. First, there were the needs of Europe. These included ‘vigorous and sustained growth’, ‘external’ and ‘internal security’, a greater ‘sense of purpose and meaning’, and a more prominent role as a ‘global civil power’ operating for good within the wider world. Second, there were the needs of the EU itself. These would have to be met if the EU was to serve these European ‘needs’. Amongst the EU's most pressing needs, as Prodi saw it, were an improved and cohesive decision-making process within and between the European institutions and the member states, more accountable institutions and improved policies in a number of areas.

Prodi has no doubt reiterated these themes on many occasions in numerous other speeches. Many others who have expressed concern over the current state of the European project share his views. And no doubt some analysts would want to emphasize other needs — whether the need for a coherent constitution, improved economic productivity, greater multicultural understanding or a more secure external frontier. Europe and its governing agencies, as policy experts never cease to remind us, has many needs.

But the point that interests us here is not to identify which of these needs is the most pressing or most attainable. Instead, we want to ask what is at stake when people speak of Europe in this way? Prodi's speech involves a certain way of talking about Europe that has become second-nature. Implicit in this speech — and the countless others which take up its themes whether to amplify, contest or even reject its points — is a set of assumptions. It is that Europe exists as something which has needs, that certain authorities can identify these needs, and devise policies that will address them.

This way of speaking about Europe is one that, as R. B. J. Walker observes, knows what and where Europe is. Europe exists within its parameters as a ‘known quantity/quality’.

Europe, as so many analysts insist, is changing, growing, developing. Frequent references are now made to the New Europe: to somewhere — a geographical place — or something — a cultural, political, economic or military presence, or achievement, or possibility — that is bold and dynamic, its revered traditions now tinged with auras of millenial or globalizing innovation.

(Walker 2000: 14)

A great deal of research done under the heading of EU studies assumes we know where and what Europe is. Europe is a space of transnational economic activity where flows of capital and people challenge the sovereignty of bounded nation-states and call for new forms of politics and regulation. Europe is the site of a multi-level polity, a space where complex processes of intergovernmental, interregional and supranational bargaining give rise to novel patterns of governance. Europe is an actor that, following the end of the Cold War, finds itself searching for an appropriate role in world politics, an economic superpower that must acquire the corresponding political muscle if it is to bring a modicum of balance to a dangerously unipolar world.

But what would accounts of European integration look like if they did not depart from the assumption of a Europe that, if not already there, is, at least, emergent? How would they appear if they didn't presuppose a fullness, an objectivity of interests, institutions and identities that determine its evolution? How might we study European integration if, as Walker puts it, ‘Europe is not where it's supposed to be’? What might we learn from an inessential perspective on European integration?

DENATURALIZING EUROPE

It is precisely the givenness of this Europe, a conspicuous feature within discourses of European integration, that we want to address in this book. If we cannot assume that Europe is somehow already there then a series of questions are brought to the fore. How did Europe come to have needs? On what basis did Europe become something that could be said to experience economic ‘growth’ or suffer from deficits of ‘internal security’ and ‘democracy’? How did Europe become the site of its own ‘economy’? How do certain persons like Romano Prodi and the institution he represents come to pronounce authoritatively about those needs? Within what kind of a politics, and by what means has it been possible to propose solutions to those needs?

To seek answers to these questions we turn to what we consider one of the most exciting and challenging developments within post-structuralist political analysis. This is the advent of studies in ‘governmentality’. This neologism was coined by Michel Foucault in reference to a domain he called ‘governmental rationality’ (Gordon 1991: 1). Under this heading he conducted research into the history of government, embracing a period that begins with the Ancient Greeks through to the emergence of modern neo-liberalism. Foucault's focus was not government understood in an institutional or philosophical sense but the history of the art of government.

Due to his untimely death, Foucault never developed this research into a major publication project.¹ Nevertheless, many of the seminal themes, concepts and hypotheses he sketched have proved highly influential. They have been taken up by Foucault's colleagues but more recently a wide assortment of scholars in disciplines as diverse as human geography, finance and management, anthropology, sociology and political science.² As a research agenda, governmentality has been especially influential in Britain, Australia, Canada, and Scandinavia. At least as far as political studies are concerned, governmentality research has been particularly focused on the analysis of liberalism and neoliberalism as arts of government (Barry et al. 1996a).

In this book we call for much greater connection between governmentality studies and research on European integration. To date there has been remarkably little crossover between these two areas.³ We think this is unfortunate and seek to demonstrate the potential of bringing a governmentality lens to bear on themes and problems of European integration.

We offer a fuller account of our understanding of governmentality below. But before doing so we wish to emphasize that Europe may be a known quantity/quality for many practitioners of EU studies, but by no means all. Governmentality is not the only research paradigm capable of exploring the constructedness of Europe. On the contrary, it might be better to situate it alongside a series of approaches which are all, in different ways, contributing to the denaturalization of the idea of Europe, and the task of fashioning a more reflexive and critical tradition within EU studies.

Perhaps the most influential of recent developments within EU studies, at least within political science, is the development of ‘social constructivism’ as a perspective on European integration theory. Social constructivism has arisen within International Relations out of a move to explore a ‘middle ground’ between rationalist and positivist approaches on the one hand, and postmodernism on the other. (Adler 1997). Most theorists within this area emphasize a commitment to the study of ideational and identity-related elements in their explanations of social change. According to the editors of a volume dedicated to studying ‘The Social Construction of Europe’, a constructivist approach stresses the impact of ‘social ontologies’, ‘social institutions’ and ‘intersubjectivity’ on European integration (Christiansen et al. 2001; see also Jørgensen 1997).

It should be mentioned, however, that there is considerable variation amongst those associated with this approach. A more conventional strand is interested in studying ideas and identities as a sort of missing variable which, once factored into the explanatory mix alongside interests and institutions, will yield more powerful causal explanations. For instance, this is evident in work which examines different normative conceptions of Europe held by political elites in order to account for national divergences in policy-making around issues like the Economic and Monetary Union (Risse et al. 1999). On the other hand there is work which is much closer to post-structuralism. Here one sees a move to treat EU studies itself as a participant in the construction of Europe. As Diez has forcefully argued, inasmuch as they are active in the naming of Europe, the social sciences are not beyond power relations; they are not ‘politically innocent, and may themselves become the subject of analysis’ (Diez 1999: 599). Notwithstanding these significant epistemological differences, by attending to the different conceptions of ‘Europe’ which social actors mobilize, social constructivism has challenged the notion that Europe is simply there. On the contrary, the idea of Europe is shown to be implicated in political and representational struggles.

The notion that Europe is a stable identity has been unsettled in other ways. The work of political theorists and intellectual historians on the idea of Europe is notable in this respect (alf Malmborg and Stråth 2001; Delanty 1995; Pagden 2002a; Wilson and Van der Dussen 1993). This research expands our temporal horizons, drawing attention to the very long history of thinking about Europe, a history that includes the medieval concept of Christendom and the Napoleonic vision of a quasi-imperial confederation of states. In this way it reminds us that the EU is not Europe per se — a point that is often overlooked by those for whom the spread of EU policies is synonymous with a process of ‘Europeanization’ (cf. Olsen 2003). Rather, the EU can be seen as merely the most recent political project to speak in the name of Europe. In terms of its institutional capacities and powers it is a particularly successful project. But as with the Papacy in the fifteenth century, or Napoleonic France, the EU defines a particular Europe in such a way that its claim to represent that Europe appears quite natural.

But equally noteworthy is work by practitioners of critical geopolitics and political geography. According to Agnew and Ó Tuathail, critical geopolitics investigates ‘the spatialization of international politics by core powers and hegemonic states’ (Ó Tuathail and Agnew 1992: 192). Work in this area has traced the changing geopolitical meanings and spatial identities of Europe (Heffernan 1998). It has mapped the changing political spatiality of Europe, revealing that this has at different times been imagined as a space of empires, states, regions and, most recently, networks (Anderson 1996; Jönsson et al. 2000). But it has also emphasized how understandings of Europe have always been structured by certain constitutive Others. The EU's version of Europe is thus not self-identical but constituted through shifting oppositions, including the ideological Other of an unfree, communist ‘Eastern Europe’ and the more-recently revived civilizational and cultural Other of a ‘non-Western’ and ‘un-modern’ Islamic world (Neumann 1999; Taylor 1991; Tunander et al. 1997).

We offer these three areas as examples of exciting research which is challenging and destabilizing the notion that Europe is already there. We do not view these approaches as competing paradigms but as intellectual fields which are in many cases complementary to a perspective of governmentality. If we choose to focus on governmentality in this book it is for two reasons. First, to make the case for its utilization within EU studies since it has so far been curiously overlooked. But second there is a question of conceptual orientation and focus. Governmentality can be viewed as a form of political analysis, as we argue below. But, unlike discourse analysis, for example, it also has a conceptual-empirical orientation which we find particularly valuable. Governmentality combines discourse analysis with a focus on the history of governing. As such it allows us to situate the study of European integration in relation to the much broader history of rationalities, arts and techniques of government.

In the following section we set out the four aspects of studies in governmentality which inform this book. Governmentality is open to diverse interpretations and uses (O'Malley et al. 1997), and we do not present our version as definitive. We approach governmentality as a tool kit rather than a theory. There are four kinds of tools which we take from it. Our use of governmentality is as: 1) a particular form of critical and reflexive political analysis which focuses on mentalities of government; 2) an historicized investigation of changing forms of power; 3) a thematization of the relation-ality of power and the identity of the governed; 4) a concern with the technologies of power. In the following section we will discuss each of these in turn, identifying each with a particular research theme. We should emphasize that our aim is not to present some kind of systematic governmentality theory, but to open up useful analytical possibilities. We illustrate each of these themes with certain brief historical observations.

GOVERNMENTALITY AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION

Governmentality as political analysis

Governmentality can be understood as a critical approach to political research. Whether it is the class struggle, institutional dynamics or rational choice-making individuals, each different theory or method has its particular objects and variables which it privileges. Studies in governmentality pay special attention to mentalities of government (Dean 1999b: 16). They are interested in the changing ways in which political authority, as well as those who contest that authority, pose the questions: How should we govern? What should we govern? Why do we need to govern? Whether it is looking at poverty policy in the nineteenth century, or economic competitiveness policy at the end of the twentieth century, governmentality research pays close attention to the language, mentality, and idiom through which political problems and aspirations come to be expressed. What kind of problem did the poor present to social reformers? What kind of economy is it that today's gurus of competitiveness exalt?

But why this concern with mentalities and language? Mentalities of government are studied not out of a concern to reconstruct the past more accurately, nor to reveal how language somehow distorts true realities. Instead, these studies are motivated by a concern with political reason. Political reason is embedded in the ways we are governed, but often in ways that we are not fully conscious about. Governmentality research is a critical, diagnostic practice because it seeks to make political reason more intelligible, and thereby more available to political practice. The point is that power and government are never exercised in general terms. As Foucault put it, ‘at least in this respect, political practices resemble scientific ones: it's not “reason in general” that is implemented, but always a very specific type of rationality’ (Foucault 1988: 73).

Where do we find these mentalities of government? How does one research them? It is important to note, as Rose and Miller put it, that ‘Government is a problematizing activity … The ideals of government are intrinsically linked to the problems around which it circulates, the failings it seeks to rectify, the ills it seeks to cure. Indeed, the history of government might well be written as a history of problematizations …’ (Rose and Miller 1992: 181; original emphasis). It is in acts and moments of problematization that mentalities and their forms of reason can be identified. It is in all those sites where a given policy or practice is called into question, identified as deficient, failing, too costly, unethical — it is in these places that mentalities of government lend themselves most readily to our scrutiny.

But the study of problematizations, mentalities and rationalities involves something else. The subtitle of this book refers to Discourse, governmentality and European integration. We want to emphasize that we take governmentality to be continuous with, and indeed inconceivable without the work of post-structuralist discourse analysis (Howarth et al. 2000; Laclau and Mouffe 1985; Milliken 1999; Carver et al. 2002). To reconstruct governmen-talities, to excavate the forms of political reason embedded in them, requires that we take language as an irreducible medium. As theorists of discourse have emphasized, we need to understand language not as a mere reflection of an underlying ‘real’ world, but as a constitutive dimension of reality. Political struggles are also conflicts over meaning.

At the same time, we note that governmentality pushes discourse analysis in new di...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Routledge Advances in European Politics
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface and acknowledgements
• 1 Governing Europe
• 2 ‘Seeing like a high authority?’: High modernism and European government
• 3 The Common Market: Governing Europe through freedom?
• 4 Of democratic deficits
• 5 In/secure community: Governing Schengenland
• 6 Benchmarking Europe: Advanced liberalism and the open method of coordination
• Conclusion: On the governmentalization of Europe
• Bibliography
• Index