Hundred Shades of the EU. Mapping the Political Economy of the EU Peripheries

transform! europe presents a comparative study on the political economy of the contemporary European Union with an emphasis on southern and eastern Member States. The study concentrates on the economic, political, and ideological aspects of peripherality in the EU. Watch here the webinar’s recording.

The study is based on the interdisciplinary approaches taken from economics, political science, sociology and history. The study pays attention to the interplay between the economic system, politics and government to understand how they influence each other, while also being sensitive to ideological and symbolic aspects. The core and periphery dynamics represent a perspective that analyses power (economic, political, ideological) inequalities or asymmetries and critical dependencies in the EU. The study concentrates on two euro-peripheries, Southern Europe and Central and South East Europe. It covers 17 Member States analysed from economic, political and ideological perspectives and compared with each other, including their relations to the core. The key aim is to understand how core-periphery dynamics shape the EU and what it means to be a peripheral state in the EU. We concentrate on limits, constraints, opportunities and the historical embeddedness of peripherality, and on problems stemming from the peripheral position in the EU. These questions are answered by focusing on several dimensions of peripherality in the EU: economic peripherality, political peripherality and ideological/symbolic peripherality, and mutual interactions.

Language: English