Discourses of globalization and the social construction of European identities

Debates within international political economy have revealed the problematic nature of the relationship between globalization and regional economic integration. The literature in European Union studies has tended to treat global context as external and structural to the processes of integration and the Europeanization of governance functions. This article develops a constructivist position on this issue by investigating the operation of discourses of globalization within selected EU policy circles. It explores the proposition that - to an extent - globalization can be a powerful component of the social construction of external context that in turn helps to legitimate certain sorts of policy at the EU level. The article explores the types of knowledge about globalization at work in EU policy-making and how and why this knowledge is used. It suggests that a narrow, economistic conception of globalization dominates, but that this can lead to a variety of policy pathways.