Governing Europe's spaces: European Union re-imagined 9781784991821

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European Policy Research Unit Series

Governing Europe’s spaces European Union re-imagined

Edited by Caitríona Carter Martin Lawn

Governing Europe’s spaces

European Policy Research Unit Series Series Editors: Simon Bulmer, Peter Humphreys, Andrew Geddes and Dimitris Papadimitriou The European Policy Research Unit Series aims to provide advanced textbooks and thematic studies of key public policy issues in Europe. They concentrate, in particular, on comparing patterns of national policy content, but pay due attention to the European Union dimension. The thematic studies are guided by the character of the policy issue under examination. The European Policy Research Unit (EPRU) was set up in 1989 within the University of Manchester’s Department of Government to promote research on European politics and public policy. The series is part of EPRU’s effort to facilitate intellectual exchange and substantive debate on the key policy issues confronting the European states and the European Union. Titles in the series also include: Globalisation and policy-making in the European Union  Ian Bartle The Europeanisation of Whitehall  Simon Bulmer and Martin Burch The agency phenomenon in the European Union: Emergence, institutionalisation and everyday decision-making Madalina Busuioc, Martijn Groenleer and Jarle Trondal (eds) EU enlargement, the clash of capitalisms and the European social dimension Paul Copeland The power of the centre: Central governments and the macro-implementation of EU public policy  Dionyssis G. Dimitrakopoulos Creating a transatlantic marketplace  Michelle P. Egan (ed.) Immigration and European integration (2nd edn)  Andrew Geddes The European Union and the regulation of media markets  Alison Harcourt Children’s rights, Eastern enlargement and the EU human rights regime Ingi Iusmen Managing Europe from home: The changing face of European policy-making under Blair and Ahern  Scott James The politics of fisheries in the European Union   Christian Lequesne The European Union and culture: Between economic regulation and European cultural policy  Annabelle Littoz-Monnet The Eurogroup  Uwe Puetter EU pharmaceutical regulation  Govin Permanand Regulatory quality in Europe: Concepts, measures and policy processes  Claudio M. Radaelli and Fabrizio de Francesco The European debt crisis: The Greek case

Costas Simitis

Unpacking international organisations: The dynamics of compound bureaucracies  Jarle Trondal, Martin Marcussen, Torbjörn Larsson and Frode Veggeland

Governing Europe’s spaces European Union re-imagined

Edited by Caitríona Carter and Martin Lawn

Manchester University Press

Copyright © Manchester University Press 2015 While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author and publisher. Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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ISBN 978 0 7190 9185 8 hardback First published 2015 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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To Edinburgh: Where we all learned the meaning of Europe.

Contents

List of figures page viii List of contributors ix Acknowledgmentsxii Introduction: Governing Europe’s spaces: European Union re-imagined  Caitríona Carter, Richard Freeman and Martin Lawn

1

I  Spaces revisited 1 Performing Europe: backstage versus frontstage politics in the European Parliament  Ruth Wodak 2 Interpreting Europe: mainstreaming gender in Directorate-General for Research, European Commission  Rosalind Cavaghan

27 56

II  Spaces reconciled 3 Modelling Europe: the political work of impact assessment  Diego de la Hoz del Hoyo 4 Referencing Europe: usages of Europe in national identity projects  Jenny Ozga and Farah Dubois-Shaik

83 111

III  Spaces revealed 5 6 7

Consulting to Europe: knowledge agents and the building of Europe  133 Bruce Ross Measuring Europe: making sense of Europe through data and statistics  153 Sotiria Grek and Martin Lawn Depoliticising Europe: collective private action and sustainable Europe  172 Caitríona Carter

Index195 vii

Figures

1.1 The theoretical cornerstones of ‘politics as usual’ 1.2 The co-decision procedure, adapted from J. Pollak and P. Slominski, Das politische System der EU (Vienna: WUV (UTB), 2006), p. 137 2.1 Participants in the negotiation of the Framework Programme 2.2 Mainstreaming gender: documents and groups inside DG Research 

viii

34 38 63 68

Contributors

Caitríona Carter is Research Professor in Political Science at Irstea, Bordeaux. She has researched and published on the political sociology of territorial politics and institutional change within the European Union. Her research focuses on interdependencies of territory, regulation and knowledge, in particular with respect to the s­ustainable development of capture fisheries and aquaculture and ecosystem management. Most recently she has published in the journals Marine Policy and Environmental Science and Policy and she is preparing a monograph whose working title is: ‘Aquaculture and the politics of sustainable interdependence: territory, knowledge and regulation’. Rosalind Cavaghan works at Radboud University Nijmegen as a Marie Curie Post Doctoral Researcher. Her forthcoming research examines how the EU has implemented its gender mainstreaming policies within its responses to the financial crisis. Recent publications include ‘Gender mainstreaming as a ­knowledge process: Epistemic barriers to eradicating gender bias’ (2013) in Critical Policy Studies and ‘Bridging rhetoric and practice: new perspectives on barriers to gendered change’ (2015, forthcoming) in the Journal of Women, Politics and Policy. Karl Cox is Oracle’s Vice President, Global Public Affairs. He leads Oracle’s international public policy team engaging with governments and stakeholders across the globe. Before joining Oracle, he held a number of public affairs ­positions in the information technology industry over a period of 25 years in both Brussels and Paris. He is currently serving as the Chairman of the Board of the American Chamber of Commerce to the EU and also holds a number of other leadership positions in various industry and trade bodies at European level including Vice Chair of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Migration. Mr Cox is a graduate of the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium and the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

ix

x

List of contributors

Diego de la Hoz del Hoyo has recently completed his doctorate in Science and Technology Studies from the University of Edinburgh. His thesis examined how the technologies conceived to de-politicise decision-making work, using the case of the management of EU fisheries. He has not only studied the European project but also experienced it first hand while working for the European Science Foundation in Strasbourg. Farah Dubois-Shaik is a Post Doctoral Researcher (FP7, Marie Curie Actions) in Sociology, at the Social Sciences and Humanities Department at the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL), in Belgium. Her PhD was conducted at the Department of Education at the University of Edinburgh. Richard Freeman teaches theory and method in the Graduate School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh. His work is concerned with knowledge and practice in policy making, combining comparative social and public policy with the sociology of knowledge. He is co-editor of Critical Policy Studies, of the book series Palgrave Studies in Science, Knowledge and Policy, and most recently, with Steve Sturdy, of Knowledge in policy: Embodied, inscribed, enacted (Policy Press, 2014). Sotiria Grek is a Lecturer in Social Policy at the Graduate School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh. She works in the area of Europeanisation of education policy and governance with a particular focus on transnational policy learning and governing knowledge. She has recently co-authored (with Martin Lawn) Europeanizing education: Governing a new policy space (Symposium Books, 2012) and co-edited ‘Governing by inspection (with Joakim Lindgren, Routledge, in press). She is currently writing a monograph on ‘Educating Europe: EU government, knowledge and legitimation’ to be published by Routledge in 2015. Martin Lawn is an Honorary Professor, University of Edinburgh, an Honorary Senior Research Fellow, University of Oxford and a Visiting Professor, Centre for Reserach on Lifelong Learning and Education (CELE), University of Turku. He researches European education policy and the history of the educational sciences across Europe. Recent books include The rise of data in education systems: Collection, visualisation and use (Symposium Books: Comparative Histories of Education Series, 2014); and Europeanizing Education: Governing a new policy space (with Sotiria Grek) (Symposium Books, 2012). Jenny Ozga is Professor of the Sociology of Education in the Department of Education, University of Oxford. Her current research investigates governing forms and relations in education in Europe. Her most recent book (edited with Tara Fenwick and Eric Mangez) is Governing knowledge: Comparison,

List of contributorsxi

knowledge-based technologies and expertise in the regulation of education (Routledge, 2014). Jenny is a Fellow of the British Academy. Bruce Ross manages the independent, Brussels-based consultancy Ross Gordon Consultants. The consultancy specialises in the agriculture, food and forest industry sectors. It advises its clients on the future development of relevant European Union policies and legislation, including trade-related questions; analyses the possible impact of such developments on its clients’ businesses; and assists those clients in creating strategies to deal with change. He has also worked for several Commission departments and for the European Parliament. In addition he writes for farming journals, and does some part-time lecturing. He is a past Director of the Oxford Farming Conference. David Thual is the Managing Director and Publisher of viEUws.eu, the EU Policy broadcaster. He has been working in the EU sphere for more than twenty years. He is an EU consultant in the agriculture, intellectual property and communications spheres and, in the past, has worked for European Commission’s DG Trade and the Commission’s Secretariat-General. Ruth Wodak is Distinguished Professor of Discourse Studies at Lancaster University, UK, since 2004; she has remained affiliated to the University of Vienna as Full Professor of Applied Linguistics (since 1991). Besides various other prizes, she was awarded the Wittgenstein Prize for Elite Researchers in 1996 and an Honorary Doctorate from University of Örebro in Sweden in 2010. She is past-President of the Societas Linguistica Europaea. In 2011, she was awarded the Grand Decoration of Honour in Silver for Services to the Republic of Austria. She has researched and extensively published on discourse studies; gender studies; language and/in politics; prejudice and discrimination; and on ethnographic methods of linguistic field work. Recent book publications include Analyzing facist discourse: European fascism in talk and text (edited with John Richardson, Routledge, 2013) and Rightwing populism across Europe: Politics and discourse (edited with Majid KhosraviNik and Brigitte Mral, Bloomsbury, 2013).

Acknowledgments

The origins of this book lie in two seminar series convened in 2009 and 2010 at the University of Edinburgh: ‘Practising EU Government’, funded by the Europa Institute (University of Edinburgh), and ‘Policy as Practice’, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). We would like to thank both the Europa Institute and the ESRC for their financial support. As we set out in detail in the Introduction, this book seeks to fill a particular gap in our understanding of Europe and the European Union (EU). The interdisciplinary discussions produced over time during the seminar series and supported by the editors began to understand the problem of Europe as a problem of dominant ontological interpretation, and began to construct a view that this was a problem of imagination. Europe could be clearly seen as a complex and fluid space of action, and not just envisaged as a supranational or intergovernmental, multi-level or monotopia, federal or economic union. This re-imagination of Europe and its Union would not have been possible, however, without the critical contribution of invited guest speakers who came to Edinburgh and presented ‘their’ political sociology of the EU. We are extremely grateful therefore to Andy Smith, Craig Parsons, Cris Shore, Chris Rumford, Virginie Guiraudon and Adrien Favell for having stimulated and encouraged our collective discussions, causing us all to question our working assumptions about what exists to be known about the EU. We also wish to acknowledge the valuable contribution made by Richard Freeman, in the Department of Politics, University of Edinburgh, to our discussions. In addition, we would like to thank Tony Mason at Manchester University Press and the anonymous reviewers for their comments on this manuscript and for their overall support for this book project. Finally, our methodological approach depends heavily upon those, who are in the process of making Europe, agreeing to be interviewed about their daily work. We would therefore like to finish by thanking all those actors interviewed, without whose participation a ‘Europe reimagined’ could not have been demonstrated. Caitríona Carter and Martin Lawn Bordeaux and Edinburgh September 2014 xii

Introduction: Governing Europe’s spaces: European Union re-imagined Caitríona Carter, Richard Freeman and Martin Lawn

Introduction: re-imagining Europe and its Union What do we imagine when we imagine Europe and the European Union (EU)? To what extent is our understanding of the EU – of its development, its policies and its working processes – shaped by unacknowledged assumptions about what Europe really is? The image we have of Europe can be sustained in many ways. Take for example two quintessential images often evoked in general commentaries on both Europe and the EU – the organic Europe and the mechanical Europe.1 The organic image of Europe/EU has it as a living thing – a growing together of countries with common roots. Tended by conscientious gardeners, its shape is a result of where it was first planted and how it was first pruned. Over time it has grown sturdier and ever more complex, its roots reaching wider and deeper into other parts of the garden to the extent that in some places they risk undermining what were once strong walls. Meanwhile, it has become difficult to do anything else in the garden without taking either shade, trunk or root system into account. Ecologically, tree and garden have become indistinguishable. But, perhaps we do not imagine Europe as organic. Perhaps we see it more as mechanical. This image of the EU has it as a made or manufactured thing, a ship-like construction of strangely engineered units bolted together. The whole is an array of tanks, cylinders, pipes, switches, buttons, levers and doors, some of which swing wildly with the motion of the ship while others have rusted over. It has a powerful engine room and is steered, somewhat uncertainly, by a rarely seen group assembled on the bridge. Passengers, of course, have no access to the bridge. Orders shouted over an ancient tannoy are heard by some but not others. Sometimes, it seems, Europe is carried forward by little more than its own momentum.2 Each of these general images of Europe and the EU is compelling in different respects, partly because of the varied ways in which they can be interpreted and understood, thus shaping our imagined understanding of what Europe and the EU really are. But, perhaps one’s vision of Europe/EU comes not from general 1

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Governing Europe’s spaces

commentaries, but rather from social science and more precisely from EU studies. Of course, social science has certain responsibilities when it comes to generating images of Europe, which require to be less metaphorical and instead grounded in a cumulative knowledge about its various workings. Indeed, EU studies literature is rich with such competing visions of both Europe and the EU. For example, early images of European integration as a snowballing elite-driven process towards a ‘supranational Europe’ (neo-functionalism – Lindberg, 1963; Haas, 1958), were soon challenged by alternative images of an intergovernmental Europe, constructed ‘in Brussels’ under the rational control of national governments (liberal intergovernmentalism – Moravcsik, 1993). Yet these too were questioned by the evocation of an image of Europe as multilevelled, not intergovernmental. This Europe was represented as being at the centre of a multi-level system of governance, at times creating opportunities and at times creating problems for national and regional governments (multilevel governance – Marks et al., 1996). Or take, for example, the literature on Europeanisation (Börzel and Risse, 2007; Graziano and Vink, 2007), which has proposed yet another image of Europe/EU, this time not one which is contained in Brussels, but rather one which is found also ‘at home’, incrementally embedded within national organisational and policy practice. Finally, renewed pictures of Europe and the EU have been offered to us by scholars working within the field of critical social theory. Here we find, for example, images of Europe as monotopia (Richardson, 2006), or as a set of multiplying spaces or borderlands (Delanty, 2006; Rumford, 2006) or as inessential, discontinuous and contingent (Walters and Haahr, 2005). It appears, therefore, that there are many ways of imagining Europe. Yet, as can be seen from the above, both within general commentaries and EU studies, dominant visions have tended towards imagining Europe as an object – an entity of one sort or another, but an object nonetheless.3 Moreover, clashes over which image is ‘correct’ have for the most part been both fought along theoretical lines and kept alive in theoretical debates (and this is also how we have presented them above). The argument which we want to make in this book and in this Introduction is that these continued theoretical debates, although important, are nonetheless camouflaging a more fundamental divide about how we can and should imagine Europe. And this is an ontological divide about ‘what’s out there to know about [this Europe and its Union]?’ (Hay, 2006: 85). Indeed, we go further to argue that it is only through identifying an ontological divide about Europe that scholarship is enabled – if it so desires – to move away from imagining Europe as an object of almost material reality and think of Europe differently. But what do we mean by an ontological divide when we think of Europe? We contend that underlying each and every image of Europe are core assumptions about ‘what exists to be known’ (Hay, 2006: 83) about Europe and the EU. In the next section, we expand upon this by presupposing that there are two categories of being about the reality of Europe which debates over theory within EU

Introduction3

studies have tended to obscure. Following arguments advanced by Kauppi, we assume further that these two categories of being or ‘underlying construction presuppositions of the EU as an object of knowledge’ (2010: 19) hold competing premises about the reality of Europe. The first groups together a collective of assumptions which Kauppi terms ‘exclusive’. These are assumptions about the construction of Europe which tend towards an individualist and naturalist ontology, with a focus on the autonomy of the individual. The second brings together a more process-orientated, collectivist and interpretivist set of ontological assumptions termed ‘inclusive’ or ‘reflexive’ (Kauppi, 2010), with a focus on the socialisation of individuals. We illustrate both in the next section. The changing of the starting point for analysing Europe from a theoretical one to an ontological one would, we suggest, radically shift the debate over core lines of division within social science accounts of European integration. This is because for a long time EU studies debates have been dominated by discussions over whether the EU is supranational or intergovernmental or multi-level with the primary divide frequently assumed to be a theoretical one. Starting with ontology first potentially changes the terms of the debate and gives rise to a different set of questions. Rather than asking if Europe is supranational or intergovernmental, we ask is Europe/EU’s reality considered natural or coproduced? Rather than asking whether the European Commission is really an integrative and independent entrepreneur (e.g. Hooghe, 2012; Thomson, 2008), we ask whether Europe’s creation is the outcome of the actions of rational actors pursuing materially given interests, or does it result from the public action of groups of actors whose interests are socially constructed? Rather than asking which Member States dominate in the Council of Ministers (e.g. Hosli et al., 2011; Mattila and Lane, 2001), we ask whether categories of territory (global, EU, nation state, region) are settled or whether we should problematise the notion of territory in any account of European integration. We develop these points further in the next section. Setting out the respective terms of each ontological tendency, we suggest that there has been a preponderance in both general commentaries and EU studies to assume Europe from within exclusive ontological assumptions and that this has led to its being imagined as an object and reified as an entity. Positioning the work of this book by contrast within an inclusive ontology, we suggest further that the holding of inclusive assumptions enables us to think about Europe differently. Here we conceptualise Europe/EU not as an object, but as a simultaneously real and imagined space of action which exists only to the extent that Europeans and others act in and on it. This Europe is conceptualised as constantly being made in particular spaces, through specific actor struggles, whose interconnections are often ill-defined. We ask how do those concerned with building Europe, with extending and elaborating the EU, think of where they are and what they are doing? In the third section, we turn to our concepts and how we can go about acquiring knowledge about this Europe/EU. We argue that the contingent nature of the

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interactions anticipated by an inclusive/reflexive ontology demands a systematic approach to demonstrate both where and how actors interpret, reference and articulate Europe and give it meaning. To develop one here, we not only use but seek to refine the concept of ‘space’ (Rumford, 2006). Problematising space is fundamental to our ontological positioning. For example, the spatial turn within social sciences more generally is predicated upon the understanding that spaces are neither natural nor pre-given: e.g. Europe is seen as many possible spaces (Delanty, 2006; Lawn, 2006). This stands by contrast with those operating from within an exclusive ontological framework, for whom the spatial (and territorial) categories of Europe and the EU are already assumed and defined – supranational; intergovernmental; multi-level. From an inclusive ontological perspective, this is not the case. Rather, the spaces of EU government are not assumed, but are to be identified through empirical research of the kind which follows in this book. In this section, we elaborate upon our treatment of space. More precisely, we problematise its real and imagined properties and its action, limits and power. In the final section, we then go on to introduce the chapters in this book. In each case, contributors identify and explore different ways of approaching an examination of the spaces of Europe. Some of these spaces are familiar places revisited, e.g. the European Parliament (Chapter 1), the European Commission (Chapter 2). Some show practices of reconciliation, e.g., fishers’ and scientists’ knowledge over European fish stocks with European Commission interests (Chapter 3); or national identity projects with European-wide policy agendas (Chapter 4). Others are newly revealed e.g. the working practices of European consultants (Chapter 5); the European education policy space (Chapter 6); the self-regulatory practices of collective private actors in European markets (Chapter 7). Each chapter describes specific people in specific places and discusses what they do there. Studying and revealing the micro-processes of the work of governing Europe/EU in this way thus stems from our ontology of the EU. We demonstrate through empirical evidence how deeply institutionalised the EU can be in the daily work of different actors and in different places, yet also how radically unfinished and essentially contested. To be clear, the book does not aim to show the depth of Europe and the EU in terms of territorial or policy scope, but rather its depth in terms of the range of spaces and actors who articulate Europe and give it meaning on a daily basis. In proceeding thus, our overall ambition is to question current dominant assumptions about what Europe is, can or might be, and to extend its range of study.

Approaching Europe and the EU: stating one’s ontology Why ontology? In this book, we wish to present and substantiate a particular way of thinking about Europe and the EU. In order to bring this about, we start with ontology.

Introduction5

In beginning in this way, we are aware that critical reflections on ontological assumptions are almost entirely absent from political science debates on the EU. So why have one here? There are two main reasons why we start with ontology. First, in developing new research agendas one cannot avoid ‘doing ontology’ (Wendt, 1999): ‘any interpretation of the facts entails committing oneself, whether one likes it or not, to ontological/ontic assumptions’ (Hay, 2009: 896). Even in the absence of an ontological discussion, one is still ‘doing ontology’ and for this reason we do not start out in this book by arguing merely in favour of doing ontology, but rather for stating one’s ontology. As Hall argues, acknowledging our ontology means acknowledging the fundamental assumptions we hold about the world and especially its causal relationships: ‘an ontology consists of premises about the deep causal structures of the world from which analysis begins and without which theories about the social world would not make sense’ (2003: 374). Only by stating our fundamental assumptions can we hope to make clear ontological statements on ‘what’s out there to know about [Europe and the EU]’ and then proceed epistemologically and methodologically to ask ‘what can we hope to know about it?’ and ‘how can we go about acquiring that knowledge?’ (Hay, 2006: 85). Stating our ontology enables us therefore to be clear on our research focus and lines of enquiry and identify our collective distinctiveness. Moreover, when starting with ontology first, theory and discipline come second. This is important for the image of Europe to be presented in this book because its contributors come from a range of disciplines and sub-disciplines – sociology, political science, science and technology studies, anthropology, educational sociology. Through presenting their work we hope to demonstrate that thinking in terms of an ‘ontological distinctiveness’ allows us to find common ground, even when operating from within different (sub-) disciplines and theories. But stating one’s ontology is not just important for making sense of one’s own work. Critically, the second reason we start with ontology is to argue that debates over theory within EU studies have tended to obscure the extent to which conventional wisdom on Europe and the EU is premised upon one set of ontological assumptions at the expense of another.4 In his article on the political ontology of European integration, Kauppi’s ultimate purpose in analysing EU studies ontologically is not simply one of categorisation (2010). Rather, he argues that EU studies scholarship has tended to operate from within the exclusive framework and that what are required are new research projects premised instead on an inclusive ontology: ‘in diffused ways, EU studies are still ruled by ontological individualism, substantialism and naturalism’ (Kauppi, 2010: 33).5 This has produced a body of work premised upon a set of assumptions about Europe and the EU which are individualist and naturalist in their ontology, with a focus on the autonomy of the individual. More precisely, these related ontological understandings of Europe are that ‘[its] reality is natural’; ‘[its] institutions are viewed as somehow detached from individuals’; ‘[its] political action is guided by “rational” individuals’; ‘there is a production and

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maintenance of dualisms, e.g. rational/irrational, national/supranational’ (all from Kauppi, 2010). That EU studies is abundant with work premised upon naturalist, ­individualist and rationalist assumptions about the world is also a view held by scholars whose own work falls within this category (Pollack, 2007; Hix, 2005).6 For example, Hix’s account of the scope of EU studies has it as ­consisting of work dominated by Liberal Intergovernmentalism, Rational Choice or Governance – the first two approaches falling within the exclusive ontological framework, and the third author-dependent (Hix, 2005). More fundamentally, taking on exclusive assumptions about Europe can also be seen to transcend classical European integration theories, even if this is not how these theories are normally categorised. To begin with, Andrew Moravcsik’s (1993) Liberal Intergovernmentalism was clearly developed from within an exclusive ­ontology and this was the expressed foundation of his theory. Yet one can argue that ­neo-functionalism too – the first political theory of European integration developed by Ernst Haas and Leon Lindberg (1958; 1963) which Moravcsik explicitly set out to critique – was also premised upon exclusive assumptions. This is because critical economic and political interests of elites understood to be building Europe were analysed as materially given, as distinct from socially constructed (Pollack, 2007: 36). Ontological readings of subsequent approaches developed to study Europe also reveal that work whose appearance was to challenge the rationalist approach also remained bewitched by functionalist assumptions. For example, the multi-level governance approach, developed by Marks et al. (1996) as a powerful critique of Liberal Intergovernmentalism, ­nonetheless analysed actor motivation for choosing European solutions to identified problems in terms of rational cost-benefit calculations (Carter and Smith, 2008; Keating, 2001). Other approaches developed for studying Europe, for example, the literature on Europeanisation and the early social ­constructivist work by Christiansen, Jørgensen, and Wiener (2001) also cannot be entirely categorised as ontologically alternative. Initially these approaches set out to challenge the mainstream and offer us new ­descriptions of Europe. Yet both approaches have proved capable of ­accommodating work ­premised on exclusive as well as i­ nclusive ­ontological assumptions (Bulmer, 2007 on Europeanisation), ­questioning whether they can be considered ‘approaches that share much at all’ (Smith, 2001: 190 on Christiansen et al., 2001). Finally, when one considers EU studies’ textbooks from an ontological perspective, although frequently not explicit on their assumptions, the majority of them could be classified as grounded in an exclusive ontology concerning their assumptions about Europe and the making of the EU. Kauppi (2010) in fact cites a well-known textbook by Bomberg, Peterson and Stubb (2008) as exemplary of political analysis of the EU premised upon un-stated exclusive ontological assumptions, and we might list others, e.g. Lelieveldt and Princen, 2011; Ginsberg, 2007; Thomson et al., 2006. In short, there is a dominance of work within EU studies which adopts either exclusive ontological assumptions about Europe/EU’s reality or a rather

Introduction7

confusing mixture of both exclusive and inclusive assumptions – even if for the most part these assumptions are implied rather than clearly stated. Over time, this collective work has stabilised into producing a powerful set of images about what’s out there to know about the EU. These are, for example, images of a single or universal rationality of Europe/EU which is understood to be natural – even if scholars then debate whether that reality is supranational or intergovernmental or multi-level etc.7 These are images of EU institutions as referring to EU public organisations – the Council of Ministers, the European Commission, the European Parliament – rather than as meaning ‘more or less sedimented systems of discourse … partially fixed systems of rules, norms, resources, practices and subjectivities that are linked together in particular ways’ (Howarth, 2009: 312). These are representations of EU institutions sodefined being used instrumentally by actors to realise their materially given interests analysed from within functionalist accounts of EU policy-making.8 These are images of the EU as a set of rules to be adapted to, rather than a set of ideas which can be mobilised by actors in their daily policy-making. These are images of a Europe whose effects on national organisations and policy practice can be controlled by gatekeepers. These are images of Europe as an object with intrinsic properties and where dominant categories of analysis are ‘the EU’ versus ‘the national’ or ‘the regional’ (Smith, 2009). Overall, and to paraphrase Bevir talking about the state, this is a reified Europe/EU used to explain outcomes or causes ‘operat[ing] independently of the actors’ beliefs’ (Bevir, 2011: 189). In a situation where these are the dominant images of Europe/EU, stating one’s case ontologically therefore becomes an essential and unavoidable exercise not only for making sense of one’s own work but critically when seeking to replace these images of Europe with alternative ones. Which ontology? Being explicit and stating our ontology matters, therefore. So what is our ontology within this book? Which ontological assumptions do we hold about Europe and the EU? Termed ‘inclusive’ or ‘reflexive’, the alternative ontological tendencies which underpin the contributions in this book are process-orientated, collectivist and interpretivist, with a focus on the socialisation of individuals. Represented as a set of ‘powerful counter-presuppositions to the exclusive framework’ (Kauppi, 2010: 28) these are: ‘reality is not natural, but co-produced by people as groups’; ‘institutions are not detached from actors but their interactions are critical’; ‘political action is guided by individuals whose interests are socially constructed’; there is an ‘emphasis on the ties between the macro and micro, institutions and power and actions of individuals and groups in more or less structured social spheres’ (all from Kauppi, 2010: 28–31). This means that first, we do not assume a single or universal rationality of Europe and the EU. Rather, we assume that individuals and groups hold

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Governing Europe’s spaces

varying subjective and inter-subjective representations and social constructions of Europe’s and the EU’s realities. For example, we cannot assume rationales for choosing European solutions and setting EU-wide instruments from imagined cost-benefit analysis. This is because from a constructivist or interpretivist perspective, there is no presumed single or universal way through which actors are assumed to understand the problems which they face on a daily basis. Rather, the emphasis is placed on studying how actors interpret the dilemmas they are confronted with in their daily work, how and why they choose ‘European’ solutions to those dilemmas and how they then seek to persuade others of their view of the world – and how, in this process, Europe and the EU are constantly produced and co-produced. Second, drawing on scholarship seeking to refine our understandings of processes of institutionalisation (Jullien and Smith, 2014; Fligstein, 2008), an inclusive/reflexive ontology does not conflate an organisation such as the European Commission with an institution. Rather, it conceives of an institution as a rule, or an expectation, or a norm – and the institutionalisation of Europe and the EU as a growing interdependency on an EU-wide scale of institutions and actors, more or less stabilised through interactions, practices and political work (Fligstein, 2008). Institutions are not therefore ‘[just] things’, but are ‘socially embedded processes’ and ‘what people do’ (Cleaver and Franks, 2005: 3). Drawing on work by scholars such as Parsons (2003), prominence is given to ideas – conceptualised as social representations – as sources of power. Social representations are understood to be mobilised by actors who work within specific environments seeking either to change their environment or justify its continuity. This means that whereas in some cases new European spaces of action are ad hoc or unstable, for others routinised behaviour and established hierarchies of actors create continuities of action and stabilised interactions between groups. Capturing these interactions is therefore critical to this approach whereby actors not only seek to stabilise any compromises reached but to legitimise them (Smith, 2009). Interpreting symbols, discourses and the power dynamics of political communication therefore forms part of our research enquiry (Krzyz˙anowski and Oberhuber, 2007). Third, in terms of strategies of action – or agency – we assume an interaction of the ideational and organisational, or the symbolic and the physical. For example, we position ourselves with others (in this case operating from within constructivist institutionalist approaches) to argue against the notion of materially given interests and see interests instead as social constructions (Rowell and Mangenot, 2010). This does not mean that interests are independent of power relations; on the contrary, social constructions are constituted by, and constitutive of, power relations. Accordingly, Europe is conceived as socially constructed and institutionalised through discursive practices and myriad forms of political communication in which power dynamics are ongoing (Muntigl et al., 2000). Neither do we assume individuals necessarily to act irrationally.9 Rather actors’ social representations and constructions of their reality and their

Introduction9

perceptions of their interests condition their choices in developing strategies of engagement. Our third line of enquiry is consequently to identify processes by which actor interests are framed, aligned with others, and possibly re-cast, and in so doing, to reveal actors’ collective strategic action. This places an emphasis on the social and political mechanisms through which interests are shaped, for example, by challenging reductionist applications of processes of socialisation (Shore, 2009) or by analysing the production and maintenance of tacit knowledge which sustains political action (Wodak, 2011). Fourth, moving away from national/supranational dichotomies, or binary ­distinctions, allows for a problematisation of space to be realised. This is an argument recently advanced by Parsons, namely that one of the distinctive features of a sociological school is its problematisation of the spatial context. Rather than talking in terms of supranational or intergovernmental Europe we must ask instead ‘how people in the European Union perceive their evolving practical spaces of action’ (Parsons, 2010: 149: see also Smith, 2009; Rumford, 2002). Problematising the concept of space is therefore critical to this approach and enables us to connect the macro and micro levels of analysis (Guiraudon, 2009). Of course, we are not suggesting that the holding of this ontological positioning is new in studies of Europe and the EU. On the contrary, it is consistent with a growing scholarship advancing a political sociology of Europe and the EU (Rowell and Mangenot, 2010). This is a rich scholarship which has been developed and applied by scholars to Europe/EU for some time now (Jullien and Smith, 2014; Wodak et al., 2013; Saurugger and Mérand, 2010; Smith, 2010 [2004]; Zimmerman and Favell, 2009; Vauchez, 2008; Krzyz˙anowski and Oberhuber, 2007; Guiraudon, 2003; Rumford, 2002; Georgakakis, 2002; Muntigl et al., 2000; Shore, 2000). Although varied, scholars therein share these basic ontological assumptions, even if this is not always explicitly stated in this way. Our ultimate aim in this book is consequently to build upon and add to this scholarship by developing and refining how the holding of these inclusive ontological assumptions enables us to re-imagine Europe – what it was, is and can be.

Conceptualising Europe’s multiple spaces and their government Having stated our ontology, in this section we go on to state our approach which uses and refines the concept of space (Delanty, 2006; Rumford, 2006; Ferguson and Jones, 2002). Of course, space is another essential image which tries not to be an image at all. Even in taking our first step, therefore, we find this space is already occupied by those who think of Europe as an arena. Drawing on an old cultural resource, they conceive of Europe as something like a classical amphitheatre or forum with a defined set of actors and a distinctive architecture. It is a space for sport, talk and sometimes battle. More recently, however, scholars in sociology, geography and anthropology have begun to develop a different sense of this space. This is one which is

10

Governing Europe’s spaces

essentially ill-defined, necessarily underdetermined. Conceptualising Europe as a space and not as a thing, we understand that it exists only to the extent that Europeans and others act in and on it. We are interested, therefore, in the multiple ways that Europe is done, achieved, conducted, enacted, carried out and imagined. Europe comes together as European actors come together, collaborate and make sense of their worlds. In this way, we ask first, ‘How should we think of this space called Europe?’ – and second, ‘How do those concerned with building Europe, with extending and elaborating the EU, with making it and making it work, think of where they are and what they are doing?’ In raising these questions we understand that the space involves varied kinds of actors, involved in the construction of Europe to a greater or lesser extent, with formal roles or none, and at times without a clear consciousness of their engagement and its effects. To explore these points further we ask what are the spaces of Europe and the EU and what goes on there? Consistent with our ontology, our answers are provisional, indicative, suggestive – and they are developed in the contributions to this volume. Here, we want to begin by elaborating our concept of space. Problematising real and imagined spaces Firstly, obviously, space is physical, actual, where things happen. It is specifiable as a reference on a map, a street address, a room number. It is measurable, most often in metres squared, a European standard. But note how what we think of as the absolute of physicality, often expressed in the numerical terms of weighing and measurement, is in fact relative. The space we use is identifiable only in relation to other spaces: we can only find our way to room 5.2 in the Commission Directorate-General because we expect to find level 5 above level 4 and below 6, and room 5.2 just as we enter the main corridor on level 5, just after room 5.1. This is at least in part because space is not only physical; it is also always imagined. Space is located, divided up and connected to other spaces ­according to norms and conventions which make those divisions and ­connections meaningful and recognisable to others. This is what it means for space to be socially constructed. Beyond that, of course, some spaces acquire particular symbolic value, such as rivers and mountains, churches and stadiums, war cemeteries and public squares. In this way, ‘Brussels’ is not only a city located on a map, but a sign standing for the EU, its politics and administrative processes. Similarly, the space to which a decision made in Brussels applies may be territorial, but it is at the same time substantive, a space shaped by our conception of a particular thing. ‘European agriculture’ begs all sorts of questions not only about what Europe is but also about what agriculture is or might be. In this book, of course, we are interested in the domain of EU policy and politics, and note how the latter is used both literally and metaphorically. As Kauppi explains: ‘political reality is symbolic, immaterial and virtual, but it

Introduction11

requires physical props, individuals, actions, stationery, buildings and the like to really exist’ (2010: 28). Our fundamental purpose is to note the existence of these two worlds of politics, the physical and symbolic, material and immaterial, and to argue that Europe consists in particular configurations of each and in the relationship between them. Our sense is one of actors in a constant process of communication through which they negotiate the identities and interests which are the object of their politics. Our argument is that they are at the same time negotiating the identity and interest of Europe and the EU. Representations of Europe are material to the representation of sectoral interests in European politics, and vice versa (Carter and Smith, 2008). Re-conceptualising space and action This perspective draws us to classic microsociological concerns of action and interaction. Consistent with our ontology, we begin with action rather than with actors, not least to displace any realist conception of interest. For interests are not essential or exclusive but socially constructed and relative. Like the spaces in which they operate, interests (inter-ests) only exist in relation to some other actor or thing (Callon, 1986). The assumption of interests depends, firstly, on some means of assessing and calculating them, and then on the forms of action available for representing and expressing them (Hindess, 1986). That those means of calculation and modes of representation are increasingly somehow European provides much of the impulse for this book. Space, meanwhile, is where things are, where people sit, where events happen. Take the smallest and most mundane of events, the meeting, and note how we think of meetings taking place. Attending to where things happen draws our attention to what happens in new and unexpected ways. There is no meeting without the office, committee room or café, for example, and we wonder how they contribute to its process. Would the meeting have happened differently if it had taken place elsewhere? Can we really distinguish between the meeting and the space in which it happens? A parliament might be shaped like a theatre, for example, as it is in Strasbourg, with an audience sitting in the stalls watching and listening to a speaker on a stage or platform, or it might be set up like a battlefield, with armies ranged against each other as in Westminster. What conceptions of politics are embedded there and how are they realised in its practices? To know that a decision was taken in committee tells us something about that decision and that committee, but to ask where it met seems to beg questions about who was there and what they did and, more especially, how they did it (Weihe et al., 2008). In this more methodological sense, space specifies. ‘Space is a practised place’, as de Certeau has it: ‘the street geometrically defined by urban planning is transformed into a space by walkers’ (1984: 117). What, then, are the equivalents of the street and of urban planning in the European polity? Who walks there? The different forms of action or practice produced in European/EU spaces are outlined in the chapters which follow. Their titles are led by present participles, in order to capture Europeans in the

12

Governing Europe’s spaces

process of making Europe: of performing, interpreting, modelling, referencing, consulting, measuring and depoliticising Europe. Though we focus on action, clearly there is no action without actors. Political space is peopled. Europe/EU is made up of – and made up by – particular people in particular places – women and men with first and last names (Genieys and Smyrl, 2008). This is to take issue with a way of thinking and writing about Europe which reifies the EU as itself capable of knowing, deciding and acting. For example, we are much taken with Rumford’s observation that the EU creates spaces which only it is capable of governing (Rumford, 2006: 128), but want to ask more specifically who does that and how. In this we draw on a much older and more established tradition of writing about European public policy as the business of European actors (Bulmer, 1994; Wallace et al., 1977). Yet our asking about spaces not only forces us to re-examine well-studied actors anew, but also reveals new kinds of actor – as well as new kinds of agency – not included before. By beginning first with space and then with action, our scope extends to all those who reference and articulate Europe/EU in their daily work, and not only to European actors and organisations. We want to know simply who does what in and on Europe (as well as to and for Europe, by, with or from Europe). Yet our ontology leads us to expect that they do not do it simply. Our sense is of an EU of committees, working groups, inter-service meetings, trialogue discussions, advisory groups, inter-sectoral dialogue, external consultation exercises, conferences, consortia and projects – in short of conventions of multiple actors brought together in both routinised and flexible, often ill-defined ways, and of Europe/EU as such emerging in the course of their interactions. The spaces they create in which to work may be more or less durable, more or less regular, more or less open to and known by others. Groups of experts may act in full consciousness of their contribution or they may not even know they are actors in this Europeanising process. They are attracted to this European space yet varying in their contributions, their expertise, their purposes and their opportunities. As an area of governance, it may not be visible or even disciplining to its members, who are nevertheless creating it. (Lawn, 2006: 280)

We understand further that European/EU action is organised around objects and instruments: drafting an EU document, creating a database, devising an indicator or standard, constructing a survey tool. Each in turn is linked to a programme, budget line and accounting or inspection regime. Sometimes these are sophisticated technologies, sometimes simple material objects and artefacts; our argument is that what actors do in European spaces may be a function of the tools they have to hand and/or demand. For standards are not just treated as regulatory; rather we understand that actors may request them, framing them as a strength in the construction of common European meanings, ­simultaneously

Introduction13

building the space and shaping the action within it (Lawn, 2011). Their action generates artefacts – documents and databases – which in turn shape and structure future actions. In this way, we might understand spaces by understanding the technologies by and through which they are created. And to do that we must draw on a wider range of disciplinary resources than is usual in policy and politics: on the material culture of social anthropology, for example, or the boundary objects of Science and Technology Studies.10 For the construction and regulation of European/EU space must somehow manage or contain diversity at a distance. Its instruments must be made to work across a range of contexts and cultures. They must be highly ­standardised yet very flexible: ‘immutable mobiles’ in Latour’s phrase (1987). That said, we are struck by how much of the activity we explore later in this book comprises information gathering and processing. Its principal technologies are observatories, research projects, surveys, evaluations, indicators, figures and tables, among which ‘knowing Europe’ and ‘making Europe’ appear as a single, contiguous activity. The work of governing European space is invariably a kind of mapping or surveying of it, an attempt to construct a single point of reference from which it can be seen and by which it might be steered. Borders and spaces Space – physical and imagined and known in this way, and however newly created – is also necessarily bounded. It is borders which identify and create spaces by separating them one from another, and there is an important tradition in European scholarship which has explored how we might understand the space we call Europe by investigating its borders and the ways they have been made (Delanty, 2006; Lawn, 2006; Rumford, 2006; Anderson and Apap, 2002). Much political and policy-making activity consists in marking, defending and invariably extending the boundaries of legitimate action. This applies both to the territorial borders of an imagined ‘Fortress Europe’, for example, and to the substantive and imagined borders of regulatory sectoral spaces such as agriculture, fisheries or wine (Carter and Smith, 2008). They are produced ad hoc, in action and because of this they are invariably irregular, overlapping and constantly re-produced. Crossing borders – gaining access to the privileged spaces of EU trading, citizenship and decision-making – is credentialed or made legitimate in the way that borders themselves are, through possessing the appropriate papers or the making of appropriate arguments. Because they are such powerful distributive devices, borders remain essentially contested, key points of entry not only to Europe but also to its social and political processes. These spaces, as we have sought to show here, are several, multiple. They are the spaces of territory (national and European, domestic and maritime), jurisdiction (EU/Europe-wide, state-wide, regional and local), issue (health, agriculture, environment) and arena (parliamentary and ministerial, of ­organised

14

Governing Europe’s spaces

lobbying and public protest). For political activity in any given domain occurs in a number of spaces, the connections between them being determined by that activity – collectively posited, contested and assumed by myriad political actors, and they are real if not physical. Over time, these spaces of Europe/EU and the connections between them become normalised: routinised and institutionalised, recognisable to and occupied by people governing the EU in what become taken for granted ways. They become normal to the extent to which they are practised on a daily basis or are universally local, in the way there is now a European officer in almost every municipal administration, a European reference section in every local library. For example, ‘Protected Geographical Status’ is meant to reinforce the very specific qualities of local foods in a standard way across Europe. Yet, however taken for granted, every institution is provisional, its existence and effect ­contingent upon its repeated enactment. We find our actors less following rules than discovering them. For Europe/EU, increasingly familiar, remains radically underdetermined. It is governed through bids, proposals and projects, its every action a tentative colonisation of a possible future space with its policy processes and even outcomes constantly being redefined and reformulated. So what and where are these spaces of European/EU government: physical, symbolic, peopled, technical, bounded, multiple and normal? In concluding this section, we reflect that we are drawn to the concept of space precisely because it is ill-defined, at least in the fields of policy, politics and public action. Our work, too, is undetermined: ‘space’ is an invitation to think again about what we do and the terms in and on which we do it, just as Europe is for our actors.

This book This book consists of seven chapters each exploring the above lines of enquiry in respect of different spaces of Europe/EU and based on empirical research. We have further divided the book into three parts. The first part, entitled ‘Spaces revisited’, presents research critically examining actor practices within familiar spaces of action – the European Parliament (Chapter 1) and the European Commission (Chapter 2). The second part, entitled ‘Spaces reconciled’, presents research showing how, through their political work, a range of i­ndividuals and groups have sought to reconcile Europe with social ­representations of their industry (Chapter 3) or their nation (Chapter 4) to bring about change. The final part, entitled ‘Spaces revealed’ explores practices of EU government which either have been under-explored hitherto or are newly emerging – the knowledge work of a European consultant (Chapter 5); measurement work to define and create a European education policy space (Chapter 6); collective private action to give social meaning to sustainable Europe (Chapter 7).

Introduction15

Spaces revisited The first chapter, ‘Performing Europe: backstage versus frontstage politics in the European Parliament’, questions to what extent our imagination of Europe depends upon our imagination of politics. How can we re-imagine Europe and its Union through re-imagining its politics? Ruth Wodak explores these questions through a critical reflection of the meaning of politics as practised within the European Parliament. Applying a discourse-historical approach (DHA), she defines politics from within an inclusive ontology; sets out discourse-analytic tools to study political communication; and makes the case for the salience of research which distinguishes between spaces of ‘frontstage’ and ‘backstage’ politics and shows the interactions between the two. She then illustrates her arguments through a DHA analysis of different types of conversation held by an MEP during one day. She shows how this MEP (Hans) uses discursive strategies and tactics to repeat his ‘message’ and convince other MEPs and members of the European Commission of his standpoint. A central argument throughout is that many of the communities of practice where Hans implements his strategies and pushes his agenda are ‘backstage’ and hence are potentially invisible practices. Rendering these micro-processes of politics more visible is thus one important contribution which an inclusive ontology of the EU can make to ongoing discussions on European democracy. The second chapter ‘Interpreting Europe: mainstreaming gender in Directorate-General for Research, European Commission’, critically examines the European Commission’s work of governing. Taking the policy programme of gender mainstreaming (GM) as an example, Rosalind Cavaghan shows how officials in different units within DG Research interpreted their policy work and the consequences these interpretations subsequently had on governing practices. Her starting point is to argue that existing analyses of EU gender equality policy which have taken an exclusive ontological focus on legal norms or on formalist accounts of Europeanisation have missed important practices of interpretation. Drawing upon a combination of gender theory, Interpretive Policy Analysis and Sociology of Knowledge literatures, she argues that we cannot understand how EU GM policy really works unless we engage with the processes and actors involved in the constant renegotiation and remaking of the EU and the policies it undertakes. Overall, her findings highlight how European Commission policy is re-made and experienced through interactions between documents and persons which vary across different locations and between subunits within the same DG. By contrast, an understanding of DG Research as a uniform space would gloss over these processes of contestation and the different mechanisms observable across them. Spaces reconciled The third chapter, ‘Modelling Europe: the political work of impact assessment’ conceptualises the regulatory tool of Integrated Impact Assessment (IIA) as a space for political action and presents a case study of impact assessment

16

Governing Europe’s spaces

of ­flatfish stocks in the North Sea. The starting point for this chapter is that one way to re-imagine Europe is to re-imagine science and technology policy instrumentation as a moment when actors come together and enact ‘their’ Europe. Drawing on empirical material gathered through both interviews and observation of meetings, Diego de la Hoz del Hoyo presents two acts of modelling around which different groups of fishers and marine biologists, as well as Commission officials, mobilised to agree the setting of fishing thresholds. In showing the detail of actor arguments and practices in the course of IIA, he argues that far from being sites of mere technical regulation, IIAs provide critical new spaces for European political work. More precisely, he demonstrates IIAs as ‘political’ in two ways: first, in the course of IIA, important value judgements are made, not only about the content of fisheries’ policy, but about the very nature of Europe itself; second, IIAs confront actors with issues of distribution of power and authority. In this way, the chapter contributes to the cross-fertilisation of Science and Technology Studies with a political sociology of the EU. The fourth chapter, ‘Referencing Europe: usages of Europe in national identity projects’, works with the idea of conceptualising Europe organically as a simultaneously real and imagined space of action that comes into being through the actions of groups of actors whose interests are socially constructed. In this instance, the actors in question are pursuing regional interests, and the work they do in referencing Europe promotes agendas in the ‘home’ contexts of Scotland and canton Zurich through the deployment of discursive resources that present Europe as embracing and sustaining their domestic interests. Jenny Ozga and Farah Dubois-Shaik contend that this potential of Europe is often invisible or overlooked in conventional, hierarchical conceptualisations of territorial relationships within and across Europe. Through presenting empirical material on the work of the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) government in Scotland and Zurich’s cantonal administration in Switzerland, they reveal a complex mix of inward and outward referencing by actors who simultaneously reconcile the ‘re-making’ of the region with the ‘making’ of Europe. In Scotland, actors play both to the exigencies of the global knowledge economy and to local civic tradition in their concern to make education policy both more ‘Scottish’ and more ‘European’; Zurich’s cantonal administration in turn uses references to European-wide indicators to bring about changes in integration practices in schools. The chapter therefore offers a flexible view of the potential of Europe as an imaginary for categories of political organisation. Spaces revealed The fifth chapter, ‘Consulting to Europe: knowledge agents and the building of Europe’, contributes to the book’s agenda to re-imagine Europe and its Union by putting in evidence the various practices of consultants whom, Bruce Ross argues, perform a critical, albeit informally defined role in the

Introduction17

construction of the EU. Indeed, although consultants have become actors in European integration processes, their work in the governing of Europe has seldom been ­analysed. Drawing upon a conceptualisation of consultants as ‘knowledge agents’ working in a knowledge-based economy, Ross argues that a consultant (and a consultancy firm) does not merely perform a ‘neutral role’, moving knowledge from one place to another. Rather, consultants can both produce knowledge and use it strategically. Applying autobiographical methodology, he describes how, in advising either clients or EU public actors, a consultant can modify the latter’s positions and behaviour by deploying knowledge about the EU and its policies, thus contributing to the very construction of policy ideas. This vision of the consultant as knowledge agent is directly linked to our re-imagination of the building of Europe and its Union. This is because the metaphor of building Europe can be mechanical or technical, i.e., building links, creating actions, but it can also be political and organisational, i.e., the way it is being built. This chapter reveals the latter process and a Europe built through a constant series of informed, expert and ‘knowledgeable’ movements and consequent actions in which the consultant plays a pivotal role. The sixth chapter, ‘Measuring Europe: making sense of Europe through data and statistics’, argues that, for a long time, dominant approaches ­examining education policy have largely studied this as a domestic matter. By contrast, through building upon a political sociological approach grounded in an inclusive ontology of Europe, Sotiria Grek and Martin Lawn argue that education in Europe can and should be seen through a different lens. First, they conceptualise education in Europe as an autonomous policy space that is both common and complementary and built on historical and contemporary exchanges of ideas and practices. Second, and this is the very focus of this chapter, they argue that the physical properties of this policy space are not so much formal rules, but data, indicators and benchmarks. Indeed, measurements in all their various forms both create and sustain this space. It is over these that primary actor interactions and struggles take place; it is the way in which these conflicts are resolved that hierarchy and political ordering of actors are determined. Overall, by stressing the importance of critical assessments of measurement – and, in particular, of measurement’s constitutive properties – they show how Europeans make sense of Europe through ­measuring it. In the seventh, and final, chapter, ‘Depoliticising Europe: collective private action and sustainable Europe’, Caitríona Carter asks what ‘awkward knowledge’ about the governing of Europe is excluded or unacknowledged in conventional accounts of the EU’s Sustainable Development Strategy? To answer this question, her starting point is to replace realist assumptions about this strategy with constructivist ones and argue that, like Europe itself, sustainable development is not a thing. ‘Sustainable Europe’ only exists to the extent that ‘Europeans’ and others act in and on it, and are shaped through it. Through

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Governing Europe’s spaces

presenting empirical research on how actors have given social meaning to sustainability in European fish farming, she shows the multiple ways in which sustainable development has been done and carried out. In particular, she unpacks varied actor interpretations of the meta-narrative of ‘ecological ­modernisation’ – which she does not treat as a single approach. She shows how, for this industry as least, European sustainable development is omnipresent, not absent; is co-produced and unfinished, not natural and failed; is the result of action, not non-action; its value choices depoliticised, not ‘a-political’ and ‘technical’. She finishes by contending that she could only have come to these conclusions through grounding her research in an inclusive ontology and reimagining Europe. Overall, and taken together, as we trust the above discussion has emphasised, these contributions seek to convince others that a new way of imagining Europe and the EU is not only possible, but essential for challenging current visions of what Europe is and was and can be.

Notes   1 We take these from Tönnies and Durkheim, of course, who used them in rather ­different ways. For Tönnies (1887), the organic world of community (Gemeinschaft) gave way to the mechanical one of society (Gesellschaft) in the process of economic and industrial development. For Durkheim (1997), a mechanical society composed of like members or units gave way to a more organic one of differentiated roles and functions.   2 There is an obvious resonance here with the standard metaphor of the ‘ship of state’; for discussion, see Leibfried, Gaines and Frisina (2009).   3 For example, Delors famously referred to the EU as ‘an unidentified political object’ (Delors, cited in Lelieveldt and Princen, 2011: 31).  4 It is not just in EU studies that focus on theory has over-shadowed a focus on ­ontology. In International Relations too, scholars have argued that all too frequently academic controversies ‘become fixated on epistemological and/or methodological matters at the expense of ontology’ (Wight, 2006: 209).  5 Kauppi critically appraises work by Schimmelfennig, Checkel, Flockhart and Trondal and reveals that, perhaps in despite of appearances to the contrary, each of these works implicitly endorses an ‘exclusive ontological framework’ of European integration. He then goes on to make the case for choosing an inclusive/reflexive ontological positioning for studying Europe and the EU.   6 To give examples, some of the most obvious research conducted from the exclusive ontological positioning are Andrew Moravcsik’s analyses of European integration or Simon Hix’s work on the European Parliament or Mark Pollack’s work on the European Commission.   7 Indeed, scientific controversies are frequently centred upon questions about whether the EU is a supranational (and multi-level) or an intergovernmental political entity. For example, we can find evidence of a whole host of articles whose Introductions start with either one or the other or set out to demonstrate one or the other (e.g. Beyers and Diericks, 1998 on the Council of Ministers’ working groups).

Introduction19  8 For example, Manners cites Hix’s controversial statement on the ‘fundamental equation of politics: preferences + institutions = outcomes’ (Manners, 2007: 90).   9 Indeed, the rational/irrational dichotomy is one which is upheld by the exclusive ontological framework (Kauppi, 2010). 10 ‘Boundary objects’ are ‘objects which both inhabit several intersecting social worlds and satisfy the informational requirements of each. Boundary objects are both plastic enough to adapt to local needs and constraints of the several parties employing them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites’ (Star and Griesemer, 1989: 393). They include forms, databases and repositories, but also models and ideal types.

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Delanty, G. (2006) ‘Borders in a changing Europe: Dynamics of openness and closure’, Comparative European Politics, vol. 4, pp. 183–202. Durkheim, E. (1997) The division of labor in society, New York: The Free Press. Ferguson, Y. and Jones, R. (eds.) (2002) Political space: Frontiers of change and governance in a globalising world, Albany, NY: SUNY. Fligstein, N. (2008) Euroclash: The EU, European identity and the future of Europe, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Genieys, W. and Smyrl, M. (2008) ‘Inside the autonomous state: Programmatic elites in the reform of French health policy’, Governance, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 75–93. Georgakakis, D. (ed.) (2002) Les métiers de l’Europe politique: Acteurs et professionnalisations de l’Union européenne, Strasburg: Presses Universitaires de Strasburg. Ginsberg, R. (2007) Demystifying the European Union: The enduring logic of European integration, Plymouth: Rowman and Littlefield. Graziano, P. and Vink, M. (eds.) (2007) Europeanization: New research agendas, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Guiraudon, V. (2009) ‘Societal effects of European integration: what can political sociology offer?’, Paper presented to Europa Institute seminar series ‘Practising EU Government’, Edinburgh University: Edinburgh (9 October). Guiraudon, V. (2003) ‘The constitution of a European immigration policy domain: A political sociology approach’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 263–282. Haas, E. (1958) The uniting of Europe: Political, social and economic forces, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Hall, P. (2003) ‘Aligning ontology and methodology in comparative politics’, in Mahoney, J. and Rueschemeyer, D. (eds.) Comparative historical analysis in the social sciences, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 373–404. Hay, C. (2009) ‘Your ontology, my ontic speculations … : On the importance of showing one’s (ontological) working’, Political Studies, vol. 57, pp. 892–898. Hay, C. (2006) ‘Political ontology’, in Goodin, R. and Tilly, C. (eds.) The Oxford handbook of contextual political analysis, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 78–96. Hindess, B. (1986) ‘“Interests” in political analysis’, in Law, J. (ed.) Power, action and belief: A new sociology of knowledge?, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 112–131. Hix, S. (2005) The political system of the European Union, 2nd edition, New York: Palgrave. Hooghe, L. (2012) ‘Images of Europe: How Commission officials view their institution’s role in the EU’, Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 88–111. Hosli, M., Mattila, M. and Uriot, M. (2011) ‘Voting in the Council of the European Union after the 2004 enlargement: A comparison of old and new Member States’, Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 49, no. 6, pp. 1,249–1,270. Howarth, D. (2009) ‘Power, discourse, and policy: Articulating a hegemony approach to critical policy studies’, Critical Policy Studies, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 309–335.

Introduction21

Jullien, B. and Smith, A. (eds.) (2014) The EU’s government of industries: Markets, institutions and politics, Abingdon: Routledge. Kauppi, N. (2010) ‘The political ontology of European integration’, Comparative European Politics, vol. 8 (Special Issue), pp. 19–36. Keating, M. (2001) ‘The politics of the European Union regional policy: Multi-level governance or flexible gate-keeping?’, Common Market Law Review, vol. 38, pp. 1,326–1,327. Krzyz˙anowski, M. and Oberhuber, F. (2007) (Un)doing Europe: Discourses and practices of negotiating the EU constitution, Bern: Peter Lang. Latour, B. (1987) Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lawn, M. (2011) ‘Standardizing the European education policy space’, European Educational Research Journal, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 259–272. Lawn, M. (2006) ‘Soft governance and the learning spaces of Europe’, Comparative European Politics, vol. 4, pp. 272–288. Leibfried, S., Gaines, S. and Frisina, L. (2009) ‘Through the funhouse looking glass: Europe’s ship of states’, German Law Journal, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 311–333. Lelieveldt, H. and Princen, S. (2011) The politics of the EU, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lindberg, L. (1963) The political dynamics of European economic integration, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Mangenot, M. and Rowell, J. (eds.) (2010) A political sociology of the EU: Reassessing constructivism, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Manners, I. (2007) ‘Another Europe is possible: Critical perspectives on European Union politics’, in Jørgensen K., Pollack, M. and Rosamond, B. (eds.) Handbook of European Union politics, London: Sage, pp. 77–95. Marks, G., Hooghe, L. and Blank, K. (1996) ‘European integration from the 1980s: State-centric versus multi-level governance’, Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 34, no. 3 pp. 341–378. Mattila, M. and Lane, J. (2001) ‘Why unanimity in the Council? A roll call analysis of Council voting’, European Union Politics, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 31–52. Moravcsik, A. (1993) ‘Preferences and power in the EC: A liberal intergovernmental approach’ Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 473–524. Muntigl, P., Weiss, G. and Wodak, R. (2000) European Union discourses on un/ employment: An interdisciplinary approach to employment policy-making and organisational change, Amsterdam: Benjamins. Parsons, C. (2010) ‘How – and how much – are sociological approaches to the EU distinctive?’, Comparative European Politics, vol. 8 (Special Issue), pp. 143–159. Parsons, C. (2003) A Certain Idea of Europe, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Pollack, M. (2007), ‘Rational choice and EU politics’, in Jørgensen K., Pollack, M. and Rosamond, B. (eds.) Handbook of European Union politics, London: Sage, pp. 31–55. Richardson, T. (2006) ‘The thin simplification of European space: Dangerous calculations?’ Comparative European Politics, vol. 4, pp. 203–217.

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Rumford, C. (2006) ‘Rethinking European spaces: Territory, borders, governance’, Comparative European Politics, vol. 4, pp. 127–140. Rumford, C. (2002) The European Union: A political sociology, London: Blackwell Publishing. Saurugger, S. and Mérand, F. (eds.) (2010) ‘Mainstreaming sociology in EU studies’, Comparative European Politics, vol. 8 (Special Issue). Shore, C. (2009) ‘“Socialization” to Europe as enculturation: European integration and transnational elite formation revisited’, Paper presented to Europa Institute seminar series ‘Practising EU Government’, Edinburgh University: Edinburgh (1 May). Shore, C. (2000) Building Europe: The cultural politics of European integration, London: Routledge. Smith, A. (2010 [2004]) Le gouvernement de l’Union européenne: Une sociologie politique, 2nd edition, Paris: LGDJ. Smith, A. (2009) ‘Studying the government of the EU: The promise of political sociology’, Paper presented to Europa Institute seminar series ‘Practising EU Government’, Edinburgh University: Edinburgh (20 February). Smith, S. (2001) ‘Social constructivisms and European studies’, in Christiansen, T, Jørgensen, K. and Wiener, A. (eds.) The social construction of Europe, London: Sage, pp. 189–198. Star, S. and Griesemer, J. (1989) ‘Institutional ecology, “translations” and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley’s museum of vertebrate zoology, 1907–39’, Social Studies of Science, vol. 19, pp. 387–420. Thomson, R. (2008) ‘National actors in international organisations: The case of the European Commission’, Comparative Political Studies, vol. 41, pp. 169–192. Thomson, R., Stokman, F., Achen, C. and König, T. (2006) The European Union decides, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tönnies, F. (1887) Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, Leipzig: Fues’s Verlag. Vauchez, A. (2008) ‘The force of a weak field: Law and lawyers in the government of the European Union’, International Political Sociology, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 128–144. Wallace, H., Wallace, W. and Webb, C. (eds.) (1977) Policy-making in the European Community, 1st edition, London: J. Wiley. Walters, W. and Haahr, J. (2005) Governing Europe: Discourse, governmentality and European integration, London: Routledge. Weihe, A., Pritzlaff, T., Nullmeier, F. and Baumgarten, B. (2008) Entscheiden in Gremien: Von der Videoaufzeichnung zur Prozessanalyse, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Wendt, A. (1999) Social theory of international politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wight, C. (2006) Agents, structures and international relations: Politics as ontology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wodak, R. (2011), The discourse of politics in action: Politics as usual, 2nd edition, Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Introduction23

Wodak, R., KhosraviNik, M. and Mral, B. (eds.) (2013) Rightwing populism across Europe: Politics and discourse, London: Bloomsbury. Zimmermann, A. and Favell, A. (2009) ‘Public sphere, political field or ­governmentality? Mapping the new political sociology of European Union’, Paper presented at the European Sociological Association Conference, Lisbon (2–5 September).

I Spaces revisited

1 Performing Europe: backstage versus frontstage politics in the European Parliament Ruth Wodak Introduction1 Politics is for the most of us a passing parade of abstract symbols, yet a parade which our experience teaches us to be a benevolent or malevolent force that can be close to omnipotent. Because politics does visibly confer wealth, take life, imprison and free people, and represent a history with strong emotional and ideological associations, its processes become easy objects upon which to displace private emotions, especially strong anxieties and hopes. (Edelman, 1967: 5)

Our imagination of politics and our imagination of Europe and the European Union (EU) are inter-connected cognitive and discursive processes. Although this might seem self-evident, in fact there is very little discussion in conventional EU studies scholarship on politics’ various meanings – and this even though a range of different definitions of what counts as ‘politics’ fills vast amounts of scholarly literature (Bourdieu, 2005; Mouffe, 2005; Laclau, 1994; Laclau and Mouffe, 1985). This is particularly striking when it comes to analyses of the European Parliament (EP) which often seem to take politics’ very definition for granted. In this chapter, and in line with this book’s general agenda to ­re-imagine Europe and its Union from within an inclusive ontology,2 I ask what are the consequences for our conceptualisation and study of politics – and hence of the working practices of MEPs and EP officials? Or, to turn the question around, how does re-conceptualising politics enable us to simultaneously re-conceptualise Europe? The chapter explores these general questions through the making of three analytical shifts. First, we propose an inclusive ontological definition of politics from within a discourse-analytical approach. Starting with the work of Edelman (1967; see citation above), we understand that he captures salient characteristics of politics, drawing our attention to the manifold positive and negative uses of political symbols and to the ubiquity of their various effects on all our lives. Accordingly, politics pervade our lives – even if we are not always aware of it. For example, Bourdieu argues that: ‘politics is a struggle to impose the legitimate principle of vision and division, in other words, the one that is 27

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dominant and recognised as deserving to dominate, that is to say, charged with symbolic violence’ (2005: 39). A similar focus on politics, seen as consisting of struggle, has been elaborated by Laclau (1994) who views politics as a matter of exclusion and decision, as that type of social action which aims, ultimately, at implementing one single perspective/narrative as hegemonic (see also Mouffe, 2005; Laclau and Mouffe, 1985). Other theorists too have acknowledged the plurality of perspectives as a constitutive factor of modern day societies (and thus politics) but do not view politics in terms of an agonistic struggle between these positions. Instead, authors such as Arendt (2009 [1963], 1993) define politics as the activity of coming together, finding a common understanding and jointly conducting one’s life. This emphasis on cooperation is further elaborated by Habermas (2002, 1997) who goes beyond Arendt’s conception, linking understanding and cooperation to procedures which should warrant a deliberative exchange of arguments and the ability to discuss one’s interests in the light of norms which should be acceptable to all those involved and affected. Ultimately, bringing these two views on politics together, Chilton states: ‘On the one hand, politics is viewed as a struggle for power … On the other hand, politics is viewed as cooperation, as the practices and institutions that a society has for resolving clashes of interest’ (2004: 3). Among researchers, politicians and others, there is also a fairly broad ­plurality of opinions as to how tangible the boundaries of the concept of ‘politics’ are. For such purposes, Jessop’s view of (state) politics as a set of practices linked to power seems useful for a discourse-analytical approach re-imagining Europe: Politics refers to formally instituted, organised or informal practices that are directly oriented to, or otherwise shape, the exercise of …. power. In other ­contexts, one might refer to office politics, domestic politics, and so on. In ­contrast to the presumed relative stability of the polity as an instituted space, ­politics refers to dynamic, contingent activities that take time. They may occur within the formal political sphere, on its margins, or well beyond it. (2015 forthcoming)

Against this briefly summarised background, I define politics – for the purposes of this chapter – as that kind of human activity which revolves around dealing with diverging interests (differences in opinion, scarce resources, etc.). Importantly, these can either result in imposing a particular perspective which is subsequently recognised as ‘the legitimate’ by others or reaching a collectively binding understanding of what to do through means of deliberation. Both perspectives, however, concern formal and informal practices which address the demarcation between public/private, the debate about the definition of what is (or might be) a legitimate (public) topic, the use and ­distribution of resources and the attempt to affect the balance of forces within political organisations, such as the EP, but also outside of that and within dif-

Backstage versus frontstage politics in the EP29

ferent groups involved in these activities (Forchtner, 2011; Alexander, 2006; Benhabib, 1985). Having defined politics, my second analytical shift concerns how to study politics. Here, I do so by integrating social theories with critical discourse studies and in particular with the use of the discourse-historical approach (DHA) (Weiss and Wodak, 2003a, b). I explain this in more detail in the first section. In general, this approach focuses upon aspects of political communication in context and more specifically of doing politics in context. Some examples can be given to illustrate how this approach has been applied in other situations. For example, Holzscheiter’s investigation into decision-­ making procedures about legal requirements of child protection for the UN allows important insight into the debates of NGOs and their impact on government officials (2005). Duranti’s participant observation of a US senator’s election campaign trail raised the awareness of the many discursive practices and persuasive devices required to keep such a huge campaign and related persons on track (2006). Decision-making processes involving both written materials (such as minutes, statements, and programmes) and debates in ­committees lie at the core of qualitative political science research into Israeli community centres (Yanow, 1996) and of text-linguistic and discourse-­analytic ­investigations in EU committees such as the Competitiveness Advisory Group (Wodak, 2000). These collective works and others show the importance of salient knowledge in political communication. Indeed, much knowledge is regularly presupposed in every interaction (Wodak, 2011a; Goffman, 1981). Sharing presupposed and inferred meanings and hence including or excluding others in strategic ways is, I believe, constitutive of political power-play and of achieving one’s aims in the political arena (Jäger and Maier, 2009). Many scholars working within critical discourse studies have developed essential tools for the systematic and detailed analysis of these shared and inferred meanings in political text and talk (Wodak and Richardson, 2013; Wodak et al., 2013; Flowerdew, 2012; Krzyz˙anowski and Wodak, 2009; Heer et al., 2008; Reisigl and Wodak, 2001). In this vein, Reisigl (2008a, b) has proposed adopting a transdisciplinary, politolinguistic approach that combines rhetoric, political science and discourse analysis. He further proposes that when analysing political communication, we should differentiate between a variety of ‘fields of political action’ (e.g., the law-making procedure, the organisation of international relations, and political advertising), as well as subgenres (e.g., parliamentary debate speech, inaugural address and election speech) (Jarren et al., 1998). In this chapter, we will deploy some of these methods to analyse three kinds of conversation held in the course of one day in the life of an MEP. A third analytical shift which I make in this chapter is to alter my focus on the place of politics to include not only the ‘frontstage’ but also the ‘backstage’ and to show the implications of this shift for our understanding of the working practices of the EP. Indeed, in the aforementioned studies, the interdependence

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of frontstage and backstage is truly apparent, including how much was being decided on backstage first, before negotiations and compromises were staged and enacted thereafter on the frontstage. These observations are of particular relevance to ongoing research on the EP, whereby many scholars now identify the salience of informal practices as defining its politics, and in particular following the implementation of the co-decision procedure. Yet the frontstage has been documented much more thoroughly than the backstage, with a concentration on political speeches, TV interviews, policy documents and parliamentary debates (to name just a few genres) which are widely available and thus usually form the backbone of research into political discourse and communication. In the first section of this chapter, I summarise recent research on the procedures and workings of the European Parliament from a political science perspective, before going on to present my own work to illustrate what a study of politics on the backstage can be. In general terms, this implies investigating the daily work of politicians in their respective workplaces, i.e. here, the EP, and use of ethnographic and qualitative research methods, as such accounts are difficult to access and thus rarely documented and analysed. In this chapter, I draw on extensive fieldwork conducted in EU organisations in recent years (2008–9; 2002–3; 1996) (see Wodak et al., 2012; Wodak, 2011a, b; Krzyz˙anowski and Oberhuber, 2007; Muntigl et al., 2000 for more details). It is also worth mentioning at this point that – apart from Abélès’s famous and inspirational study of the EP in the late 1980s (1992) – no similar ethnography combined with the systematic analysis of text and talk has been conducted, in respect to the everyday life of MEPs.3 Due to space restrictions, I focus only on some brief vignettes: the time when the agenda for the entire day was negotiated and prepared and some ­conversations in the corridor (the politics du couloir) as examples from the backstage – and on extracts from a committee meeting as an example from the frontstage.4 The data from the morning provide relevant insight into the logistics and strategies of politicians throughout the particular day as these depend largely on adequate briefing and preparation in the early morning, before the hectic sequence of meetings which characterise the daily agenda. Hence, many relevant aspects of organisational discourse studies also have to be considered.5 Throughout, my main questions are: what do politicians actually do? How is the profession of politics organised, apart from scarce impressions which are sometimes accessible to laypeople? And what is the role of the complex and multi-layered structural and situational contexts when doing politics? The opacity of politics as usual has severe consequences, as Hay (2007) has rightly claimed: disinformation and non-information about the work of politicians might be some of many factors leading to disillusionment and depoliticisation – or to what in the EU is labelled as ‘democratic deficit’.

Backstage versus frontstage politics in the EP31

Re-imagining politics, re-imagining the EP? Politics on ‘frontstage’ and ‘backstage’: an interdisciplinary, discoursehistorical approach to political communication In our daily lives, we are confronted with many genres of political discourse: political speeches of all kinds, televised press conferences, broadcast or televised interviews with politicians, snippets on the internet (e.g. YouTube) or reports on political events in the press.6 Moreover, slogans and advertisements confront us when we are walking down the street, leaflets from political parties or interest groups are delivered by mail and during election campaigns, and we are able to listen to politicians campaigning at election rallies. Political parties have their own home pages, logos and brands; we are thus able to download relevant documents and photos as well as party programmes. If we wish to contact, for example, MEPs, we are able to email them or chat with them on discussion forums specifically constructed for such purposes. The above examples all shed light on the life and work of politicians from the outside. These are official genres, designed for the public and demonstrating the many ways in which politicians like to present themselves, stage their work and ‘perform’, and therefore how they like to be perceived by their various audiences (‘frontstage’; see below). These activities follow specific norms and rules, are part of the ‘field of politics’ (in Pierre Bourdieu’s sense) and are ritualised (Edelman, 1967). We rarely if ever, though, have access to the ‘backstage’, to the ‘politics du couloir’, and to the many conversations and gossip in the corridors when politicians meet informally (see below). The notion of performance is necessarily and inherently related to the metaphor of ‘being in the theatre and on stage’. Goffman distinguishes between ‘frontstage’ and ‘backstage’; these two concepts are central for the analysis and understanding of politicians’ behaviour. Frontstage is where the performance takes place and the performers and the audience are present. Front, then, is the expressive equipment of a standard kind intentionally or unwittingly employed by the individual during his performance. For preliminary purposes, it will be convenient to distinguish and label what seem to be the standard parts of the front. (Goffman, 1959: 17)

Backstage is where performers are present but the audience is not, and the performers can step out of character without fear of disrupting the performance; ‘the back region is the place where the impression fostered by the performance is knowingly contradicted as a matter of course’ (Goffman, 1959: 112). It is where facts suppressed in the frontstage or various kinds of informal actions may appear which are not accessible to outsiders. The backstage is completely separate from the frontstage. No members of the audience can or should appear in the back. The actors adopt many measures to ensure this; thus access is ­controlled by gate keepers. It is, of course, much more difficult to perform once a

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member of the audience is in the backstage; politicians would not want the audience to see when he or she is practising a speech or being briefed by an adviser (see Wodak, 2011a: 7–11 for an extensive overview of Goffman’s approach). To capture these different aspects of politicians’ everyday performances and activities, I integrate various social theories with critical discourse studies (Wodak et al., 2009 [1999]; Bourdieu, 2005; Weber, 2003; Weiss and Wodak, 2003a, b; Lave and Wenger, 1991) to analyse politicians’ socialisation into the rules and conventions of the field of politics and thus the dynamics of acquiring the habitus of a politician. Specifically I adopt a discourse-historical approach (DHA). This approach provides a vehicle for looking at latent power dynamics and the range of potentials in agents, because it integrates and triangulates knowledge about historical, intertextual sources and the background of the social and political fields within which discursive events are embedded (see four-level context model below). Moreover, the DHA distinguishes between three dimensions which constitute textual meanings and structures: the topics which are spoken/written about; the discursive strategies employed; and the linguistic means that are drawn upon to realise both topics and strategies.7 In this approach, two concepts emerge as salient for analysing political events: first, ‘intertextuality’ refers to the linkage of all texts to other texts, both in the past and in the present. Such links can be established in different ways: through continued reference to a topic or to its main actors; through reference to the same events as the other texts; or through the reappearance of a text’s main arguments in another text as well as certain syntactic (grammatical) and also rhetorical parallelisms and other tropes. The second important process is labelled ‘recontextualisation’. By taking an argument, a topic, a genre or a discursive practice out of context and restating/realising it in a new context, we first observe the process of de-contextualisation, and then, when the element is implemented in a new context, of recontextualisation. The element then acquires a new meaning, because, as Wittgenstein (1967) has rightly claimed, meanings are formed in use. Whereas I will illustrate how an MEP and his assistant deploy these linguistic practices in detail below, here I elaborate further upon methods. Analysis of the intertextual dimension of discursive practices is conducted by exploring the ways in which particular genres of discourse are subject to change through time, and also by integrating social theories to explain context. For example, following Foucault (1972) ‘historical context’ can be taken to mean the history and sub-system of meetings and narratives in an organisation or any other everyday event. Consequently, ‘history’ can involve studying how languageuse changes over shorter timescales, for example, during one meeting (over a certain amount of time) or over several meetings, as part of latent and manifest rules and norms that serve to rationalise, explain and make sense of organisational events. Or ‘history’ can indicate how perceptions of specific events have changed over time due to conflicting narratives and accounts of a specific

Backstage versus frontstage politics in the EP33

experience – a phenomenon which can be frequently observed in the discursive construction of national or transnational identities (see also Flowerdew, 2012). As a result, conceptually, the empirical event under investigation is viewed as a phenomenon that has discursive manifestations across four heuristic levels of context: i. the immediate text of the communicative event in question (a particular detailed transcript of talk); ii. the intertextual and interdiscursive relationship between utterances, texts, genres and discourses (e.g. other conversations with the same participants in different settings); iii. the extralinguistic social (e.g. physical gestures, facial expressions, postures, etc.) and environmental (e.g. room size and layout) variables and institutional frames (e.g. latent or formal hierarchical structure, informal power relations in a friendship, cultural constraints and conventions, etc.) of a specific ‘context of situation’ (derived, for example, from observer notes and reflections on direct observations of the communicative event); and iv. the broader sociopolitical and historical context which discursive practices are embedded in and related to (e.g. knowledge derived from ethnographic study of the relationships, aspects of the broader social and cultural macroenvironment that influence the talk and conversations). (Wodak, 2011a)

Another important concept for our study of the EP is ‘community of practice’ (Lave and Wenger, 1991). As MEPs, for example, move in and across various collectives throughout their day, this concept seems adequate to grasp the conventions, rules, traditions, jargon and functions of each group. Specific committees meet on a regular basis and are staffed with a stable number of MEPs. Hence, these committee members create and establish their own history, their intertextual references, and their common ground and knowledge. Each MEP belongs to several such committees, apart from the political party and their group meetings, and possibly also nationally organised meetings. MEPs shift and accommodate their behaviour quite automatically when moving between these various communities of practice (as MEPs have been socialised into these communities of practice by experience). Thus, as will be elaborated below, the EP cannot be regarded as one big community of practice; rather, this huge organisation consists of many communities of practice which all have their own dynamic. Finally, researching instances on backstage usually requires a different theoretical and methodological approach than that of frontstage phenomena. In this chapter, I primarily view ethnography as an intricate and complex process that guides research across the four different levels of context presented above. Thus, the definition of ethnography goes beyond its common definition as ‘fieldwork’ or as just a ‘method’ or ‘data-collection technique’ (Hammersley, 1992). Instead, the approach taken by Brewer argues that ‘ethnography is not one particular method of data-collection but a style of research that is distinguished by its objectives, which are to understand the social meaning and a­ ctivities

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of people in a given “field” or setting’ (2000: 11, emphasis in the original). Hence, ethnography should be understood as a complex and ordered, though not ­necessarily linear, research process which informs research. Ethnography is thus analytically mobilised in this research as an overall framework which allows triangulating between a set of stages of analytical research and between different sets of data (genres, publics). Figure 1.1 provides a heuristic (and thus necessarily crude) summary of the theoretical cornerstones of this approach labelled as ‘politics as usual’ (adapted from Wodak, 2011a: 192).

1.1  The theoretical cornerstones of ‘politics as usual’.

Backstage versus frontstage politics in the EP35

The European Parliament We now go on to consider how this approach can contribute to the current literature on the EP. As has been widely documented, the EP is the only directly elected body of the EU (Ginsberg, 2007: 192–199). Together with the Council of the EU, it forms the bicameral legislative branch of the Union’s public organisations and the highest legislative body within the Union. The EP is composed of 785 MEPs, who serve the second largest democratic electorate in the world (after India) and the largest transnational democratic electorate in the world (390 million eligible voters in 2009). Much research has already been conducted on the EP as an EU-wide and multilingual organisation, including on modes of decision-making in the EP from a political science view (rational choice approaches), on power structures and negotiations in the European organisations and also inside the EP, on the professional trajectories of MEPs, and finally, from a more qualitative discourse-analytic perspective as presented below. However, first, I briefly summarise some relevant research from a more social science angle. In recent years, large-scale political changes in the EU have empowered the EP by comparison with other EU public organisations. The rapid transformation that the EP has undergone poses, as Yordanova rightly argues (2011) a great challenge to researchers, as it means that accounts and explanations can become outdated very soon. Much of these transformations can be traced back to the introduction and wide-spread adoption of the co-decision procedure, introduced first in 1993 under the Treaty on European Union and refined and extended under both the treaties of Amsterdam (in force in 1999) and Lisbon (in force in 2009). Effectively, the co-decision procedure means that, in the policy areas where it is applied, both the EP and Council need to deliberate and vote on any proposals made by the Commission (Wodak, 2011a: 67–69; Pollak and Slominski, 2006: 137; Figure 1.2). In the EP, this procedure works via a stageby-stage system, where two readings of a proposal are done, and in case the EP and Council do not agree, a third conciliatory reading is conducted before the proposal is passed or rejected. This procedure implies a major change from the consultation procedure where the EP had a much more passive role, as it could be overruled by the Council on most matters. While this of course meant a clear limitation for MEPs, it also gave them a great amount of freedom in some cases. For instance, when analysing the LIBE committee (Justice and Civil Liberties), Ripoll-Servent (2012) detected that the committee had a consistent and marked left-wing tendency and an extremely antagonistic relationship with the Commission and Council. In many cases, these positions have now been mitigated to recast the EP and its committees as more serious characters on the EU policy-making stage (Ripoll-Servent, 2013) In response to the possible consequences of co-decision, scholars have focused extensively therefore on the changing working practices of committees. These are important bodies within the EP as they enable a more small-scale

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and focused treatment of policy proposals which takes place before plenary sessions, and where individual MEPs sometimes have much greater influence on the contents of proposals (Hurka, 2013: 274). Thus, the allocation of seats on committees is perceived as a matter of great interest for political groups, in some cases even regarded as a way of rewarding loyal group members (Yordanova, 2011: 602). However, while reviewing much recent research, Yordanova (2011) maintains that, with the maturing of the EP into a strong legislature, and the professionalisation of the MEPs, the role that political loyalty plays in allocating committee seats has indeed become of secondary importance, with – in contrast – seniority the most important factor. The analyses of committees have frequently drawn parallels with the US Congress and its committees, as ‘scholars have examined whether the EP committees are high-demanding organisational units serving special interests, representative units serving the informational needs of the plenary, or arenas for party group leaders to discipline their members and enhance group cohesion’ (Yordanova, 2011: 599). However, Yordanova also challenges such accounts of trying to organise the development of the EP into relatively stable ‘epochs’, while the EP clearly has a more dynamic development, necessitating a more fluid approach to analysis of practices (2011: 607). Within committees, policy proposals are assigned to rapporteurs, individual MEPs who are tasked with compiling a report, incorporating any amendments made at committee level, and finally guiding the policy through the readings at the plenary sessions and any potential reconciliation. These actors too have been a focus of research, in particular concerning their ability to perform as policy entrepreneurs. For example, reviewing the potentials of the role of rapporteur, Benedetto (2005) has emphasised that the rapporteur has become a crucial figure of EU politics, as these individuals wield a high amount of influence as opposed to ordinary committee members or MEPs. In important cases the rapporteur negotiates with the leadership of the different political groups and key national party delegations, the group co-ordinators on each committee and with officials in the Commission and on the Council, so as to build as broad a consensus as possible … As the issue is discussed in committee, the rapporteur incorporates any amendments in the text which is sent on to plenary. The rapporteur presents the committee’s recommendations to the full plenary meeting of the Parliament and guides the process as it is voted through. (Benedetto, 2005: 69)

He thus argues that ‘rapporteurs have the power to affect outcomes in EU legislation, according the ability to bridge partisan divides and build alliances within the Parliament and in other institutions’ (2005: 73). Not only do rapporteurs most often get their way with any amendments at committee level (Hurka, 2013), they are also rarely opposed at plenary sessions, as the debate and votes there tend to follow decisions made by committees (Ripoll-Servent, 2012: 69).

Backstage versus frontstage politics in the EP37

Another role of rapporteurs consists of facilitating dialogue between EU institutions, as illustrated by Benedetto’s analysis of the SOCRATES project (aiming to enhance higher education links across the EU) where, when the EP and Council clashed over budgeting, the rapporteur was able to facilitate reconciliation and an eventual compromise over the funds to be assigned to the project, thus illustrating that potential influence is related to the consensus-building qualities of the rapporteur (Benedetto, 2005). Finally, Yordanova (2011) is able to provide evidence that the selection of rapporteurs has been increasingly influenced by party affiliation, with a marked tendency for the biggest party group to be assigned most rapporteurs (reflecting a larger shift from consensual decisionmaking towards competition between party groups), while the internal selection of rapporteurs has become a mechanism of promoting group cohesion as more loyal MEPs are preferred for the positions by group leaders. Another important area of research on the EP linked to the co-decision ­procedure has focused on emergent informal practices of the early agreement procedure. For, in order to avoid possible complications caused by inter-­ institutional conflict at the first and second readings under co-decision (see Figure 1.2), and any eventual reconciliation process, a great increase in the use of the early agreement procedure has been observed (Huber and Shackleton, 2013: 1,047). This procedure entails a trialogue between organisations taking place before the first reading in the EP in the backstage, which takes policymaking into what Yordanova terms ‘secluded inter-institutional settings’ (2011: 598).8 Burns et al. (2013) find that while the spread of co-decision to a wider array of areas has had the consequence of including more actors in the political process, an essential compromise on democracy has been made in favour of efficiency. While early agreement does speed up the process substantially, it also presents a major issue in terms of transparency and democracy, as many agreements are struck completely out of public view, and actors such as rapporteurs and committee members wield a disproportionate amount of power due to their engagement in such backstage deliberations (Huber and Shackleton, 2013: 1,048–1,049). Another consequence of early agreements is the particular nature of debates in the EP plenary sessions. In spite of the now common conflict between national and European party interests causing MEPs occasionally to oppose the position of their EP group (Slapin and Proksch, 2010), and the traditionally high levels of debate and argumentation quality (Lord, 2013), the debates seem to have a tendency to be rather lukewarm and predictable, as they are in most cases merely playing out and staging the democratic procedure where all decisions have already been made before entering the parliamentary process (Huber and Shackleton, 2013: 1,049). Ripoll-Servent (2013) also states that while the work of EP committees has become more conciliatory and constructive in nature, it has also meant that some previously held positions have been strongly mitigated for strategic purposes (of institutional influence). She gives the example of the Data Retention Directive in the LIBE committee, where the

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1.2  The co-decision procedure, adapted from Pollak and Slominski (2006: 137).

committee members, under the pressure to act in a less confrontational manner under co-decision, made big compromises on their previous positions about data protection in favour of setting a precedent for the EP to be involved in similar issues.

Backstage versus frontstage politics in the EP39

A similar problem that the EP has faced in recent years is the ever-increasing amount of lobbying, which, according to Huber and Shackleton (2013), has two effects: on the one hand providing detailed first-hand information to MEPs about policy issues, on the other, representing a potential influence on policy which is not transparent and difficult to track. Lobbyists and influence groups play a significant role within the committees and exert a huge amount of influence on which amendments are tabled and passed (Hurka, 2013). This becomes even more salient when lobbying is done by unexpected actors. The administrative staff is managed by the EP secretariat, and is generally found to have primarily institutional, rather than political, concerns and interests (Egeberg et al., 2013). However, Marshall (2012) argues that, in cases where experts are loaned to EP committees by the Commission, the independent nature of their advice can be challenged, and that there is a real risk that rapporteurs can come under implicit institutional pressure when compiling their reports. As discussed above, these rapid changes in practices cause any empirical research on the EP to become obsolete within a relatively short time-span (Yordanova, 2011). A key issue is the unique nature of the EP as a part of a complex bicameral legislature, which – according to Yordanova – requires an ‘explicit examination of how the internal parliamentary setup has responded to the increasing necessity to form bicameral coalitions and the composition of these coalitions, the intertwining of intra- and inter-chamber dimensions of conflict, and the shift from formal to informal bicameral decision-making’ (2011: 607). This phenomenon causes researchers to draw on quite diverse epistemological positions, in an attempt to account for these dynamics. Some follow a very explicit quantitative methodology, such as Hurka (2013), who statistically analyses the success of amendments tabled by committee members. Marshall (2012) and Egeberg et al. (2013) both aim to describe beliefs and practices by analysing questionnaires, thus taking a quantitative approach to what is essentially a qualitative object of investigation. Lord (2013) conducts a quantitative study of rhetorical strategies used by MEPs (reference to opponent, amount of arguments given, etc.). This is contrasted to more qualitative approaches, such as Benedetto (2005) who gives detailed reviews of two policymaking procedures, focusing on the actions of rapporteurs. When analysing what changes have occurred in practices and results since the introduction of co-decision, Ripoll-Servent (2013, 2012) takes a mixed approach, conducting a constructivist analysis with observation and interviews, as well as a discourse analysis of legislative proposals and committee debates, complemented by a rational-choice approach (Ripoll-Servent, 2013: 982). In summary, aside from changing the structure of the EU’s legislative branch, the introduction of the co-decision procedure has led to a rise in more informal decision-making practices in an attempt by politicians to decrease the time needed for the policy process. This is one of the first reasons why I argue that knowledge of the backstage becomes salient as many decisions are decided informally in advance and then staged in larger committees (Wodak, 2011a:

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81–83). But, beyond this, there is also an empirical gap, in that these studies do not deploy the kinds of research methods described here. This is why I decided to follow the seminal research conducted by Marc Abélès in the 1980s to attempt to gain insight into both the frontstage and the backstage of decisionmaking in the EP while applying a multi-method approach which integrates semi-structured interviews with participant observation, qualitative discourse analysis and critical ethnography. Such an approach, I claim, transcends many of the limitations briefly summarised above. Most importantly, I believe that qualitative methodologies such as participant observation, shadowing and ethnography illustrate the many problems which rapporteurs also encounter as they ‘are exhausted because of the bureaucracy’ and the many readings and drafts of reports (Wodak, 2011a: 90). Hence, I believe that quantitative studies employing questionnaires and interviews should be complemented with qualitative research which grasps the daily dilemmas and complexity in much greater detail. It is to this I now turn in the next section.

‘Politics as usual’ in the context of the EP: discourse-historical analysis of an MEP’s conversations In this section, I now go on to present my own work on the EP, rooted in the DHA approach. First, I will talk about the study in general and the research assumptions made therein concerning parliamentary ‘politics as usual’. Second, I will provide an illustration of this approach through presenting an analysis of three types of conversation observed during one day in the life of an MEP. The study In general terms, the study examined the performance of politicians. Many MEPs were interviewed about their socialisation into the EP, their motives, their daily work routines, and their visions for the EU. Moreover, I shadowed some MEPs throughout their daily life, from morning to evening and taperecorded all instances of talk which occurred. Hence, we first conducted 28 interviews with 14 MEPs, all members of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, and 10 Commission officials.9 The interviews focused on four general topic areas: although certain topicrelated questions were generally included in all interviews, they were structured loosely enough so that interviewees had considerable freedom in developing the topics and steering the conversation as they wished. The main topic groups in the interview protocol, each with several subcategories of possible questions, comprised 1) unemployment, including reasons for, possible solutions to; also perspectives on current employment-related policy-making; 2) the role of the EU organisation in which the interviewee works, including relationships with other EU bodies, the interviewee’s own role within the organisation, and her or his ‘access points’, or contact with ‘ordinary’ EU citizens; 3) day-to-day working life, including multicultural issues and the development of documents

Backstage versus frontstage politics in the EP41

such as reports, opinions, etc.; and 4) the interviewee’s personal history, e.g., career development, and definition of being European. In this way, it was possible to gather information about the perspectives, ideologies, opinions and the daily experiences of the interviewees. A further aspect of this study which I primarily focused on examined the rules, norms, routines and constraints that structure MEPs’ daily working environment and thus shape the social order of the EP. In other words, I investigated the order behind the apparent chaos of the backstage by combining my ethnography of MEPs’ daily lives with the analysis of interviews with MEPs and other written and spoken genres. Of course, for all its valuable insights, it would be wrong to suggest that ethnography (i.e. observation) is the methodological path to some kind of ‘truth’ about the object of analysis, or a window on the ‘entire empirical world’. Quite the contrary, as Danermark et al. rightly argue: it is not sufficient to make empirical observations; these very rarely succeed in capturing the underlying mechanisms producing phenomena … Power and mechanisms may be present and working without us being able to immediately perceive any connection between them and the effects they produce. (2002: 57)

Finally, it is important to note that the fieldwork was conducted during the enormously hectic and conflictive negotiations about EU-enlargement, i.e., the access of countries from the former Eastern Bloc in 2004. This socio-political context is, of course, most influential for the analysis on the micro-level as the struggle for access and the positioning against such access determines the entire work of MEPs in that period. There were many relevant debates which also interpenetrated the exchanges which I detail below. Some MEPs were very worried about the conditions for access of the former Communist countries such as the standards of welfare, the creation of trade unions and standardisation of working conditions, the freedom of press and the implementation of the Human Rights Charter, and so forth. Most importantly, Social-Democratic and Green MEPs were concerned about the possible costs of EU accession: how much money would have to be spent on raising the economies and the living standards in Eastern Europe in order to reach similar conditions to those in Western countries. In contrast, some national politicians and bureaucrats employed in the Commission defended the opinion that no additional costs would be necessary; these debates were highly political and politicised and manifested quite opposing ideologies and positions (socio-political context; interdiscursive and intertextual relationships). Episodes in the working day life of an MEP: discourse-historical analysis in practice Here I analyse political conversations which mark the beginning of a typical day in the life of one MEP who I call Hans – a member of the Social-Democratic

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Party and an expert on matters related to trade unions and social affairs. Hans wore a tiny microphone attached to his jacket and a tape-recorder in his pocket. He invited us to follow him to meetings inside and outside of the EP, and to sit and observe when he spent time in his tiny office cubicle, preparing, phoning or talking to his personal assistant M or to other visitors and colleagues (immediate situational context). Moreover, he frequently commented on the encounters and explained his behaviour towards other MEPs or elaborated on the statements he had made during a committee meeting. In this way, we gained access to the many latent norms, functions and rules in the various communities of practice, to coded and shared knowledge, and to the otherwise inaccessible subtext of many conversations. To take a typical example, on 20 May 2008, 17 different items, from 6 standing committees (including the Committee on the Environment, Committee on Transport and Tourism, Committee on Legal Affairs, and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs)10 were discussed and put to motion in the plenary, starting at 9 a.m. and scheduled to end at midnight (intertextual and interdiscursive context). Of course, most MEPs do not primarily spend their days attending plenary debates; they only participate if their own agenda from the committees to which they belong are to be discussed. Otherwise, they have their own ­schedules which may periodically overlap with the official agenda, or run parallel. When asking Hans if he would mind being shadowed by two researchers, he immediately gave his consent. In this way, Hans was shadowed for several consecutive days, from 8 a.m. till late at night, until the official and semi-official parts of work were over. We wrote extensive field notes in the evening and later explained the daily events of politics as usual to the entire team. Systematic, critical ethnography transcends the anecdotal and leads from the particular to the general. Before illustrating this approach through the qualitative analysis below, I briefly summarise the main theoretical assumptions which guided the analysis and thus also the selection of pragmatic, discursive and linguistic indicators (although I necessarily have to restrict myself to the analysis of four extracts of data (‘Texts’)). Firstly, I assumed that there is order in the apparent disorder of the everyday life, in the backstage and frontstage activities, and also in the transitional phases between modes of performance. This order follows a strongly context-dependent logic, alongside the rules of the political game. These activities encompass a range of genres and modes, from brief encounters to narratives and argumentative speeches, as well as descriptive reports (see also Scollon, 2008). Thus, in contrast to other approaches (e.g. Fairclough and Fairclough, 2010), I claim (and also provide the evidence) that certainly the work of politicians and ‘doing politics’ does not only consist of well-planned persuasive argumentative forms of text and talk. Quite the contrary is the case! Such a view would imply reducing political communication mainly to the frontstage

Backstage versus frontstage politics in the EP43

and to publicly (easily) available data (such as newspapers, reports, debates in parliament or in the media, and public speeches). Secondly, the ordering principle is constructed through specific agenda and forms of expert knowledge tied to the presuppositions governing actions and decision-making procedures. This knowledge is only accessible via the ethnography of backstage activities while also confronting this available knowledge with information from interviews and other documents. Thirdly, managing and organising knowledge implies different forms of constructing, employing, negotiating and distributing power, as well as the struggle for hegemony related to particular ideological agenda. Here, I assumed that small-scale policy entrepreneurs do much work in the politics du couloir and employ diverse tactics and strategies which are realised linguistically in various forms and genres throughout the day, on frontstage and backstage. In this concrete analysis, I focus on presuppositions, insinuations and ­implicatures and ways of constructing intertextuality which indicate shared knowledge and communities of practice and which shape the inclusion and exclusion of various topics, interest groups or strategic alignments. Strategies of positive self and negative other presentation realise group identity constructions and might also scapegoat ‘others’. Moreover, conversational styles manifest types of public or semi-public performance and the situational role (as political colleague, as expert, as friend, etc.) which Hans adopts in specific contexts, as does the choice of genres or genre mixing. Linked to role performance is also the specific use of pronouns and of professional language. When a politician is promoting a specific agenda, he or she will use persuasive rhetoric including argumentation, topoi and fallacies as well as other rhetorical tropes (metonymies, metaphors, personifications, etc.). Finally, in debates and discussions, important turn-taking procedures occur as do – typically – interruptions, ad hoc interventions and comments. Many linguistic-pragmatic devices are, of course, inherently and necessarily related to specific genres and contexts. In what follows, I analyse three brief episodes which occurred during one day in the life of Hans (see Wodak 2011a, for the detailed analysis of an entire day at the EP). Hans’s assistant comes from Carinthia, a Slovenian Austrian; I call him M in this chapter. The entire day evolves across the controversy about possible costs of EU accession (see above). Hans is convinced that achieving similar welfare, human rights and working conditions as in the Western countries would imply much financial investment and would take much time. He uses all opportunities during this day to repeat his ‘message’ and hopes to convince both other MEPs and members of the European Commission of his standpoint. Starting the day: backstage At 8 a.m., MEPs usually start their official day. Hans meets M in his small office (a cubicle with a desk of c. 8–10 square metres, a computer, a few bookshelves,

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and a telephone) for a quick briefing and organisation of upcoming events. M has prepared all the relevant documents for the day and organised them neatly into specific folders. Hans mainly poses quick questions; the dialogue takes on a staccato form; quick, often elliptic, and abrupt – thus rapid question and answer sequences conveying urgency and pressure. If we regard the whole day as an entire communicative activity and unit of analysis, consisting of several ‘language games’ (Wittgenstein, 1967) which are realised in different genres and modes, then this orientation in the morning would serve as introduction and overall structuring device and frame for all upcoming events: Text 1 H: hey social security systems are included M: I have already contacted (xxx) 11 H: We haven’t received any answer yet (huh)? M: no obviously I’m glad I sent that off H: on Friday? M: no no I sent it off last week – no Sunday I sent it H: Sunday M: yes H: they’re coming M: Sunday the 14th of November H: in fact they’re coming again with the social security systems we would have needed that for today M: no we don’t have that

Text 1 offers an insight into the sort of rapid-fire exchange, relying on shared language and organisational knowledge, which is typical for a MEP and her or his personal assistant, impatiently chasing up on the whereabouts of some document or letter urgently needed for a committee meeting. In this exchange, both M and Hans have obviously forgotten on which day Hans’s letter was ­actually sent off, and the inferred argument consists of the following sequence: if the letter had already been sent off the previous week, then it is reasonable to expect that they should have had a response by now. If, however, the letter hadn’t been sent until Sunday or Monday, then they can’t really expect an answer yet (thus, implying a counter-factual presupposition). Hans’s questions also imply an ­indirect speech act of accusation: that M might have sent the letter too late. In any case, it seems obvious that the response to this letter is crucial for a meeting on insurance and social security systems for which Hans is now preparing – indirectly referring to events from previous days; hence, this is a typical example of context-dependent intertextuality. Hans emphasises quite clearly that he needed this response to his letter, which, by analysing the various existential and counter-factual presuppositions, we can infer must have contained some salient information. Already in this brief sequence, we encounter the reliance on shared and presupposed organisational, intertextual knowledge and the overall

Backstage versus frontstage politics in the EP45

responsibility of the personal assistant who has to take the blame if something doesn’t go according to plan. In Text 2, the quick dialogue continues with a frame shift: the search for the document ends because – as M reveals – he has found the relevant document. Hans and M then quickly start discussing and preparing the statement for the committee later on that day (a persuasive genre, a brief speech), and switch to a dense strategy and tactics debate about the wording of this statement: what to change, to amend, to include or delete, and so forth. At the same time, we encounter another frame shift and change of footing: the collegial, friendly relationship on quasi equal terms where Hans asks M to give him a cigarette (6). M complies but in a humorous way (7), with a joke. This brief interlude eases the tension by re/producing the good interpersonal relationship and by shifting, in line 10, to a discussion of content after the frantic search for the missing document. Text 2   1 H: that would be bad   2 uh   3 M: I have (xxxx) our paper there   4 H: oh you have (xxxx) our paper there too?   5 M: yes   6 H: c’mon gimme one   7 M: alright fine because it’s you   8 H: do you have a (xxxxx)   9 M: no a German [cigarette] 10 H: what does a sixteen mean 11 M: for the ÖGB [Österreichischer Gewerkschaftsbund] 12 H: okay 13 M: also, in the mean time I’m supposed to put his ethical work with your 14 H: yes 15 M: next to your hundredth 16 H: social clause on the WTO last paragraph 17 M: WTO social clause is in there? 18 H: yes (xxx social clause xxxxxxxx) 19 M: where where in here? 20 H: of course last paragraph 21 M: which last paragraph? 22 H: WTO social clause (xxxx) that belongs 23 M: where where? 24 H: yes 25 M: no not there in that paper there 26 H: in that (xx) paper 27 H: yes 28 M: in that one there? 29 H: yes 30 linguistic confusion 31 M: WTO social clause

46

Spaces revisited 32 H: yes there there WTO social clause 33 (can you remember) 34 M: yes oh yes yes yes yes yes yes 35 H: that’s currently the established discussion 36 M: sub subsume 37 H: yes yes nobody understands it like this 38 if we don’t add the social clause 39 ah, and the other part is naturally an awful exaggeration 40 M: a terrible one, as usual 41 H: but seriously 42 we can’t do something like that I think we can’t do that 43 this is really in (xxx) width 44 It’s like this so that I 45 (xxxxxxxx give me) 46 M: hehehe 47 H: I’ve noted that there 48 but that’s always the same 49 H: there’s nothing useful there

This hectic and elliptical discussion continues for more than 20 minutes. Hans and M read through the draft statement together and stop at various points while questioning specific formulations which Hans eventually labels as ‘linguistic confusions’ and could be interpreted as typical organisational ambiguities (30, 38, 42). They support and acknowledge each other’s suggestions and comments through brief interjections and supportive comments (backchannels), or laughter (34, 47). The quick turn-taking illustrates the shared routines of their team work, and they do not interrupt each other but automatically sense when transition-relevant points occur or when support is needed to reassure the other. The interaction also builds solidarity between the two, notably through jokes, allusions to shared experiences, elliptical comments and more generally through evaluative language. On the one hand, the document is defined as ‘useless’ (49), the ongoing discussion about social benefits and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) are believed to be totally ‘exaggerated’ (39) or even ‘terrible’ (40). The meta-comments and assessments oscillate between evaluating the committee, the ongoing debates, and particular parts, sentences or even words in the draft document. In line 33, Hans briefly checks if M still remembers the genesis of the discussion; after M asserts (34) that he indeed does share the same memories, their rapid exchange continues with highly truncated utterances that presuppose much expert knowledge (existential presuppositions). This part of the day comes to an end: the first appointment is scheduled for 9.15 a.m. M also informs Hans of a photo appointment at 12.45 p.m. which becomes a prominent feature of this particular day because it has to be rescheduled several times, requiring the afternoon’s schedule to be repeatedly renegotiated. Hans and M further shift on to the time and organisational talk (another typical genre for ‘politics as usual’ which I call walk and talk; see Wodak, 2010a, b) that they launch into while walking to their first official appointment.

Backstage versus frontstage politics in the EP47

Committee work: frontstage Next, I present a brief segment of the statement of the Employment and Social Affairs Committee which had to prepare a resolution and is currently discussing a document proposed by a group of political scientists and other experts, on the possible implications and consequences of enlargement. The resolution proposes that the Commission and the EU Member States offer greater and more effective support to the candidate countries particularly in their social policies. Hans is particularly concerned that the enlargement countries are not helped enough when creating and protecting their social institutions. Furthermore, Hans rejects ‘myths’ that enlargement can take place at no additional cost to the Union; on the contrary, he argues, the cost of enlargement for core Member States is likely to be very high, since they will have to offer financial support to the new countries to allow them to reach similar social and economic standards. Hans speaks German as German is one of the three official working languages adopted for committee internal use. German is translated for other members of the committee, into English and French; this necessarily implies that MEPs who have a different native language might be discriminated against when having to speak in a foreign language. Text 3 uhm I am very thankful for this working paper of the (xxx) science directorate we probably could have used that much earlier, for example when we began the Eastern enlargement discussions on a parliamentary level … in reality we would have had better management at the European level than we could have like at the time of the single market when we began with the single market concept (xxx) [and] thoroughly discussed what the possibilities [and] chances are then we could have (xxxxxxxxx) very very differently in terms of Eastern enlargement

Here, Hans presupposes that everybody knows and has read the document he is referring to; he also presupposes that every committee member is well informed about the problems related to enlargement and about the many debates and decisions which have already taken place (intertextual context). He employs the discursive strategy of painting an ‘unreal scenario’ – ‘what would have happened if’ – in order to highlight how much better it would have been had the debate management of the enlargement issue begun much earlier. He also refers intertextually to past debates on the single market, where he claims better procedures had been used. By drawing on this as a shared past experience (‘when we began with … and thoroughly discussed’) and as a model of how things should have been done in relation to enlargement, he is assuming not only that this event is shared knowledge but also that everybody agrees with his evaluation of it. The macro argumentative strategy consists of a justification for missed opportunities

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and obviously wrong decisions and policies, in Hans’s view. He shifts the blame to the European Commission (a typical fallacy) which serves to unite the committee members and also relieves them of responsibility, thus creating a common identity via a bonding strategy. In this way, the introduction sets the ground for more detailed criticism and some constructive proposals. Already this brief extract illustrates the different genre and register employed by Hans. He has obviously quickly adapted to a different, official context, and to the persuasive argumentative genre which is expected in the debate. This statement which is analysed in much detail elsewhere in respect to its argumentative structure (Wodak, 2011a) illustrates well the difference between the official performance on frontstage and the hectic backstage preparation before the meeting. Politics ‘du couloir’: managing transitions frontstage/backstage After the meeting, Hans stays outside of the meeting room, in the corridor, for another five minutes and chats with a German MEP, M and another assistant (see Text 4 below). Such informal conversations are invaluable data as they offer an insight into the reflective mode of politicians: in contrast to their official roles and performance on frontstage, they use this opportunity to make comments they might have strategically withheld in the more official setting. In this conversation, the MEPs also make sense of what happened in the meeting and analyse the dynamics of the debate; i.e., they co-construct what I label as ‘post hoc coherence’. In doing so, numerous moves, statements and interventions suddenly become understandable for them (and the researcher) because they are related to particular experiences with certain MEPs, with policies, with the genesis of discussions and debates, and with the norms and conventions of this committee (and in this way, the four context levels are integrated (see Wodak, 2011a for the entire extract). Text 4 Politics du couloir Speaking: Hans. Others present: M (personal assistant) and two colleagues (one of whom is German) H: the Swedes already have a different opinion and when one then talks with the unions and organisations themselves about deregulatory pressure in general (xxxxx) Eastern Enlargement (xxx) can then suddenly then suddenly then suddenly it becomes a European question then the Netherlands is more at the core and more in the core that is completely unaffected by it but rather indirectly affected later then there is an economic uh discussion about winners and losers … that’s the way it is because otherwise no one realises what is at stake

Backstage versus frontstage politics in the EP49

The post hoc interpretation of political positions and oppositions ­constructs, via referential strategies, several distinct generic groups defined by their nationality, positions, or by their professional expertise: the Swedes who are said to have a different opinion, the Dutch who believe themselves to be largely unaffected by enlargement, given their geographical position at the ‘core’, the countries which border on the enlargement countries, the enlargement countries themselves, and finally, the economists in the Economic Council. Hans’s meta-analysis existentially presupposes that the economists are making mistakes and that the MEPs who align with Hans’s position are right. Moreover, Hans goes on to emphatically repeat that the social agenda must be integrated with the economic agenda and proudly refers to the fact that he has been able to amend the document accordingly, thus employing multiple discursive strategies of positive self-presentation. The German MEP nods, Hans has convinced him. This brief exchange functions as a transition to the next appointment, it constructs a reflective space for afterthoughts, and it also serves as an opportunity for Hans to restate his opinions once more, p ­ resumably in the hope of lending them greater credence through repetition; repetition can thus certainly be interpreted as a salient strategy of persuasion in pushing one’s agenda. Hans and M then hurry to the next appointment. Text 4 is an example of politics du couloir, of the transition between frontstage and backstage, of salient conversation which makes sense of the preceding debates.

Conclusion Common sense presupposes that politicians are very well organised in spite of the many urgent and important events they must deal with which have an impact on all our lives. We all have cognitive models (event models, experience models, context models; van Dijk, 2005) which quickly and automatically update, perceive, comprehend and store such events. From this we might assume that politicians also routinely access their own set of cognitive models for ‘doing politics’ in order to respond rapidly in a rational and quite predictable way to the various events they encounter.12 However, this is in fact not the case: the everyday life of politicians is as much filled with accident, coincidence and unpredictability, as with well-planned, rational action. Chaotic situations are a necessary feature of ‘politics as usual’; experienced politicians simply know how to cope with them better – thus, there is ‘order in the disorder’ (Wodak, 2011a), established inter alia through routines, norms and rituals. Politicians have acquired strategies and tactics to pursue their agenda more or less successfully. The ‘success’ depends on their position in the field, on their power relations and, most importantly, on what I label knowledge management: much of what we perceive as disorder depends on inclusion in shared knowledge or exclusion from shared knowledge. Shadowing one MEP, Hans, through his entire day provides some important answers to the questions posed above which, again, could be generalised to

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other political realms. Hans employs both strategic and tactical knowledge when trying to convince various audiences of his political agenda. These discursive strategies and tactics also structure his day which might otherwise, from the outside, seem totally chaotic, or very ritualised and bureaucratic, oriented, for example, solely towards the drafting and redrafting of documents. Hans knows the ‘rules of the game’, he oscillates between a range of communities of practice in very well-planned and strategic ways, he employs a wide range of genres suited to the immediate context, to push his agenda, and thus possesses a whole repertoire of genres and modes which he applies in functionally adequate ways.13 In Hans’s case, different genres are used to convince members of various committees, other MEPs of various political parties, visitors and diverse audiences outside of the institution and ‘at home’ of his mission: in this particular case, to enable EU enlargement in a rational way; to be honest about the likely costs, however politically unpopular, and to support the social agenda and the trade unions in the accession countries. Hans’s entire day (and, of course, many following months) is dedicated to this mission which he pursues in statements, written resolutions, conversations at lunch, lectures and in the politics du couloir as well as ‘at home’ (in his local community), when trying to convince his electorate and national political party. In this way, Hans is an example of what I call a ‘small-scale policy entrepreneur’, one of many MEPs all of whom are striving to push their various and very diverse agenda, with varying degrees of success. Consequently, this, I argue, is how politics works and how EU politics work – this is how politicians work and how MEPs work. In this way, and in making the case for the discourse-historical approach (DHA) to grasp EU politics, I demonstrate its contribution to re-imagining Europe and its Union. Grounded in an inclusive ontology as set out in the Introduction to this book (Carter et al., 2015), the DHA reveals the micro-processes of politics, both discursively and through studying actor interactions around and on institutions (here, documents on the possible implications of EU enlargement). In these myriad forms of political communication, Europe is simultaneously socially constructed and deeply embedded in actor practices. Significantly, this matters not only for our collective aim in this book to re-imagine Europe. It also matters for our critique of EU politics and the contribution which an inclusive scholarship can make to ongoing discussions on European d ­ emocracy. For whereas many scholars operating from within an exclusive ontology would analyse the EU’s democratic deficit as a problem related to the formal powers of the EP, our DHA approach offers an alternative problematisation. For Hans, as a small-scale policy entrepreneur, does political work. However, as citizens are excluded from the backstage and the many communities of practice where Hans implements his strategies and pushes his agenda, these activities and practices remain invisible. Of course, this is not only the case for one MEP; this is generally true for the field of politics as a whole. To challenge this democratic deficit, at the very least, information about daily

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­ olitical work would need to be made more publicly accessible to at least a p certain degree.

Notes   1 I am very grateful for the important comments of the volume editors and to Kristof Savski for helping out with literature research. Of course, I am solely responsible for the final version of this chapter.   2 According to an inclusive ontology, Europe’s ‘reality is not natural, but c­ o-produced by people as groups’; ‘institutions are not detached from actors but their interactions are critical’; ‘political action is guided by individuals whose interests are socially constructed’; there is an ‘emphasis on the ties between the macro and micro, ­institutions and power and actions of individuals and groups in more or less ­structured social spheres’ (all from Kauppi, 2010: 28–31).   3 The research of Marc Abélès has been summarised in much detail elsewhere which is why I have to refer readers to Wodak (2011a) due to space restrictions. It is important, however, to state at this point that Abélès’s study is purely qualitative and ethnographic. Abélès was able to observe the European Parliament more than twenty years ago – of course, much has changed, also because of European Enlargement 2004 and 2007 as well as 2013. Thus, of course, many procedures had to be changed and adapted to the (currently) 28 European member states.   4 It is important to emphasise that these data have been extensively analysed elsewhere, so I will refer readers to the entire study at various points (Wodak, 2011a, b).   5 This discourse-centred research also includes: studies of political metaphor and discursive framing in persuasive political text and talk (Charteris-Black, 2011; Wodak, 2010a, b; Lakoff, 2008); cognitive and evolutionary linguistic analyses of political discourse with a focus on expressions of spatial, temporal and modal dimensions (Okulska and Cap, 2010; Chilton, 2004); corpus-assisted and qualitative research of a political party and/or politician (Flowerdew, 2012); studies of argumentation in parliamentary debates and government reports (Fairclough and Fairclough, 2010; Ilie, 2010; Wodak and van Dijk, 2000).   6 E.g., Okulska and Cap, 2010; Chilton, 2004; Reisigl, 2008a, b.   7 E.g., argumentative moves, topoi, presuppositions. See Wodak, 2011a for an extensive discussion.   8 We note here the use of exclusive ontological language, see the Introduction of this book.  9 See Wodak 2011a, for more details of the fieldwork; Gilbert Weiss, Caroline Straehle and Peter Muntigl were part of the team and assisted in the fieldwork and interviewing. 10 See www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+AGENDA+2 0080521+SIT+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN. 11 (xxx) in the transcription signifies non-understandable noise/words (the more ‘x’s, the more are incomprehensible). 12 Van Dijk (2005: 84) defines experience (or event) models as ‘a construction of what is relevant in the ongoing situation for the (inter) actions of the participants’. Moreover, van Dijk stresses (2005: 74) that context is not something primarily ‘objective’; he maintains that ‘Settings, participant roles or aims of communicative

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events are not relevant as such, but are defined as such by the participants themselves. This is, of course, also a point where actors, agency, their perceptions and expectations, i.e. their socialisation into a habitus become salient’. 13 See also Scollon, 2008: 128–137, for the range of multimodal modes employed in bureaucracies and political organisations.

References Abélès, M. (1992) La vie quotidienne au Parlement Européen, Paris: Hachette. Alexander, J. (2006) The civil sphere, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Arendt, H. (2009 [1963]) On revolution, New York, London: Penguin. Arendt, H. (1993) Was ist Politik? Fragmente aus dem Nachlaβ, Munich: Piper. Benedetto, G. (2005) ‘Rapporteurs as legislative entrepreneurs: The dynamics of the co-decision procedure in Europe’s parliament’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 67–88. Benhabib, S. (1985) ‘The generalized and the concrete other: The Kohlberg-Gilligan controversy and feminist theory’, PRAXIS International, vol. 4, pp. 402–424. Bourdieu, P. (2005) ‘The political field, the social science field, and the journalistic field’, in Benson, R. and Neveu, E. (eds.) Bourdieu and the journalistic field, Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 29–47. Brewer, J. (2000) Ethnography, Buckingham: Open University Press. Burns, C., Rasmussen, A. and Reh, C. (2013) ‘Legislative co-decision and its impact on the political system of the European Union’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 20, no. 7, pp. 941–952. Carter, C., Freeman, R. and Lawn, M. (2015) ‘Governing Europe’s spaces: European Union re-imagined [Introduction]’, in Carter, C. and Lawn, M. (eds.) Governing Europe’s spaces: European Union re-imagined, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 1–23. Charteris-Black, J. (2011) Politicians and rhetoric: The persuasive power of metaphor, 2nd edition, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Chilton, P. (2004) Analysing political discourse: theory and practice, London: Routledge. Danermark, B., Ekström, M., Jakobsen, L. and Karlsson, J. C. (2002) Explaining society, London: Routledge. Duranti, A. (2006) ‘The struggle for coherence: Rhetorical strategies and existential dilemmas in a campaign for the U.S. Congress’, Language in Society, vol. 35, pp. 467–497. Edelman, M. (1967) The symbolic uses of politics, 2nd edition, Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Egeberg, M., Gornitzka, Å., Trondal, J. and Johannessen, M. (2013) ‘Parliament staff: Unpacking the behaviour of officials in the European Parliament’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 495–514. Fairclough, N. and Fairclough, I. (2010) ‘Argumentation analysis in CDA’, in De Cillia, R., Gruber, H., Krzyz˙anowski, M. and Menz, F. (eds.) Diskurs, Politik, Identität, Tübingen, Germany: Stauffenburg, pp. 59–71.

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Flowerdew, J. (2012) Critical discourse analysis in historiography: The case of Hong Kong’s evolving political identity, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Forchtner, B. (2011) ‘Critique, the discourse historical approach, and the Frankfurt School’, Critical Discourse Studies, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 1–14. Foucault, M. (1972) The archaeology of knowledge, London: Routledge. Ginsberg, R. H. (2007) Demystifying the European Union: The enduring logic of regional integration, New York: Rowman and Littlefield. Goffman, E. (1981) Forms of talk, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Goffman, E. (1959) The presentation of SELF in everyday life, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Anchor Books. Habermas, J. (2002) Inclusion of the other: Studies in political theory, Cambridge: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (1997) Between facts and norms: Contributions to a discourse theory of law and democracy, Cambridge: Polity Press. Hammersley, M. (1992) What’s wrong with ethnography? Methodological explorations, London: Routledge. Hay, C. (2007) Why we hate politics, Cambridge: Polity Press. Heer, H., Manoschek, W., Pollak, A. and Wodak, R. (eds.) (2008) The discursive construction of history: Remembering the German Wehrmacht’s war of annilihation, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Holzscheiter, A. (2005) ‘Power of discourse and power in discourse: An investigation of transformation and exclusion in the global discourse of childhood’, unpublished PhD thesis, Free University Berlin. Huber, K. and Shackleton, M. (2013) ‘Co-decision: A practitioner’s view from inside the Parliament’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 20, no. 7, pp. 1,040–1,055. Hurka, S. (2013) ‘Changing the output: The logic of amendment success in the European Parliament’s ENVI Committee’, European Union Politics, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 273–296. Ilie, C. (ed.) (2010) European parliaments under scrutiny, Amsterdam: Benjamins. Jäger, S. and Maier, F. (2009) ‘Theoretical and methodological aspects of critical discourse analysis’, in Wodak, R. and Meyer, M. (eds.) Methods of critical discourse analysis, 2nd edition, London: Sage, pp. 34–61. Jarren, O., Sarcinelli, U. and Saxer, U. (eds.) (1998) Politische Kommunikation in der demokratischen Gesellschaft: Ein Handbuch, Opladen, Germany: Westdeutscher Verlag. Jessop, R. (2015 forthcoming) ‘Repoliticizing depoliticization: Theoretical preliminaries to an account of responses to the American and Eurozone fiscal crises’, Politics and Policy, vol. 14, no. 1 (in press). Kauppi, N. (2010) ‘The political ontology of European integration’, Comparative European Politics, vol. 8 (Special Issue), pp. 19–36. Krzyz˙anowski, M. and Oberhuber, F. (2007) (Un)doing Europe: Discourses and practices of negotiating the EU constitution, Bern: Peter Lang. Krzyz˙anowski, M. and Wodak, R. (2009) The politics of exclusion: Debating migration in Austria, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.

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Laclau, E. (1994) ‘Why do empty signifiers matter to politics?’, in Laclau, E. (ed.), Emancipation(s), London, New York: Verso, pp. 36–46. Laclau, E. and Mouffe, C. (1985) Hegemony and socialist strategy: Towards a radical democratic politics, London, New York: Verso. Lakoff, G. (2008). The political mind: Why you can’t understand 21st-century American politics with an 18th-century brain, New York: Penguin. Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991), Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lord, C. (2013) ‘No representation without justification? Appraising standards of justification in European Parliament debates’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 243–259. Marshall, D. (2012) ‘Do rapporteurs receive independent expert policy advice? Indirect lobbying via the European Parliament’s committee secretariat’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 19, no. 9, pp. 1,377–1,395. Mouffe, C. (2005) On the political, London: Routledge. Muntigl, P., Weiss, G. and Wodak, R. (2000) European Union discourses on un/ employment: An interdisciplinary approach to employment policy-making and organisational change, Amsterdam: Benjamins. Okulska, U. and Cap, P. (eds.) (2010) Political discourse: New perspectives, Amsterdam: Benjamins. Pollak, J. and Slominski, P. (2006) Das politische System der EU, Vienna: WUV (UTB). Reisigl, M. (2008a) ‘Analyzing political rhetoric’, in Wodak, R. and Krzyz˙anowski, M. (eds.) Qualitative discourse analysis in the social sciences, Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp. 96–120. Reisigl, M. (2008b) ‘Rhetoric of Political Speeches’, in Wodak, R. and Koller, V. (eds.) Communication in the public sphere: Handbook of Applied Linguistics, Vol. IV. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 243–271. Reisigl, M. and Wodak, R. (2001) Discourse and discrimination: Rhetorics of racism and antisemitism, London: Routledge. Ripoll-Servent, A. (2013) ‘Holding the European Parliament responsible: Policy shift in the Data Retention Directive from consultation to co-decision’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 20, no. 7, pp. 972–987. Ripoll-Servent, A. (2012) ‘Playing the co-decision game? Rules’ changes and institutional adaptation at the LIBE Committee’, Journal of European Integration, vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 55–73. Scollon, R. (2008) Analyzing public discourse, London: Routledge. Slapin, J. and Proksch, S. (2010). ‘Look who’s talking: Parliamentary debate in the European Union’, European Union Politics, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 333–357. Van Dijk, T. (2005) ‘Contextual knowledge management in discourse production’, in Wodak, R. and Chilton, P. (eds.) A new agenda in (critical) discourse analysis: Theory, methodology and interdisciplinarity, Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 71–100. Weber, M. (2003) Political writings, 3rd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Weiss, G. and Wodak, R. (eds.) (2003a) Critical discourse analysis: Theory and interdisciplinarity, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Weiss, G. and Wodak, R. (2003b) ‘Theory and interdisciplinarity in critical discourse analysis: An introduction’, in Weiss, G. and Wodak, R. (eds.) Critical discourse analyis: Theory and interdisciplinarity, Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp. 1–34. Wenger, E., McDermott, R. and Snyder, W. (2002) Cultivating communities of practice, Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Wittgenstein, L. (1967) Philosophische Untersuchungen, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Wodak, R. (2011a), The discourse of politics in action: Politics as usual, 2nd edition, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Wodak, R. (2011b) ‘Politics as usual: Investigating political discourse in action’, in Gee, J. and Handford, M. (eds.) The Routledge handbook of discourse analysis, London: Routledge, pp. 525– 541. Wodak, R. (2010a) ‘The globalisation of politics in television: Fiction or reality?’, European Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 43–62. Wodak, R. (2010b) ‘Staging politics in television: fiction and/or reality?’, in Habscheid, S. and Knobloch, C. (eds.) Discourses of unity: Creating scenarios of consensus in public and corporate communication, Berlin: De Gruyter. Wodak, R. (2000) ‘From conflict to consensus? The co-construction of a policy paper’, in Muntigl, P., Weiss, G. and Wodak, R. (eds.) European Union discourses on unemployment: An interdisciplinary approach to employment policymaking and organisational change, Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 73–114. Wodak, R. and Richardson, J. E. (eds.) (2013) Analyzing fascist discourse: European fascism in talk and text, London: Routledge. Wodak, R. and Van Dijk, T. (eds.) (2000) Racism at the top, Klagenfurt, Austria: Drava. Wodak, R., de Cillia, R., Reisigl, M. and Liebhart, K. (2009 [1999]) The discursive construction of national identity, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Wodak, R., KhosraviNik, M. and Mral, B. (eds.) (2013) Rightwing populism across Europe: Politics and discourse, London: Bloomsbury. Wodak, R., Krzyz˙anowski, M. and Forchtner, B. (2012) ‘The interplay of language ideologies and contextual cues in multilingual interactions: Language choice and code-switching in European Union institutions’, Language in Society, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 157–186. Yanow, D. (1996) How does a policy mean? Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. Yordanova, N. (2011) ‘The European Parliament: In need of a theory’, European Union Politics, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 597–617.

2 Interpreting Europe: mainstreaming gender in Directorate-General for Research, European Commission Rosalind Cavaghan Introduction The European Union (EU) is a world leader in terms of its commitment to gender equality. As a result of an activist EU Parliament, effective feminist NGO lobbying, pro-active policy initiation within the Commission and support within the European Council, the EU boasts a comprehensive suite of policy commitments to gender equality (Kantola, 2010). These are underpinned by a long history of normative commitments to gender equality embedded in the EU’s constitutional framework (Shaw, 2002), spanning the inclusion of equal pay provisions in the EU’s founding treaties, the more recent Maastricht, Amsterdam and Lisbon treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as multiple legal rulings on equality and equal pay from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) since the 1970s. The EU thus often presents gender equality values as a central part of a burgeoning EU identity (MacRae, 2010). For all these reasons, the EU has constituted a central focus for feminist research, which has asked what these normative gender equality commitments really mean in terms of action or practice in a complex polity like the EU. Much of this research has examined the EU’s formal powers in the field of gender equality, or the ‘Europeanisation’ of ‘gender norms’ in Member States (Leibert, 2002; Börzel and Risse, 2000). From the perspective of the approach being developed within this book, two critiques can be levelled against current accounts of policy in this field. First, whilst assessment of legal rulings, directives and ‘Europeanisation’ forms an essential part of our existing knowledge on the EU’s impact on the governance of gender equality, this kind of approach does not fully operationalise existing theoretical perspectives on the state’s role in the construction and regulation of gender developed by authors such as Bacchi and Eveline, 2010, Acker, 2006, Connell, 1990. These feminist theorisations have emphasised the relationship between micro-negotiations of gendered hierarchies (e.g. pay differentials, gendered job-stereotyping) and gendered assumptions (e.g. ‘women should prioritise family’) within policy implementing organisations 56

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and the resulting gendered policy outputs which are subsequently produced and implemented. Thus, where Europeanisation literatures assume a somewhat linear causal relationship between EU policy outputs and subsequent adoption in Member States, Feminist Political Science theorisations of the construction of gender have more in common with the approaches developed in this book. Namely, they emphasise the complex interlinked processes of negotiation and contestation, which are constantly under way across multiple locations in the creation and maintenance of a polity. Simply examining the relationship between formal EU policy outputs and impacts in Member States misses out these more complex processes of collective negotiation. Second, macro-level studies of European integration and ‘Europeanisation’ of gender equality policies gloss over many of the difficulties involved in translating abstract normative commitments to ideals such as ‘gender equality’ into workable action. As will be discussed later in this chapter, these kinds of translation problems are well documented in EU gender equality policy. Effectively understanding processes underway in EU gender equality policy and the ­outcomes we can observe, therefore requires an approach which can engage with these dynamics. To this end, this chapter presents an approach drawing on the field of Interpretative Policy Analysis (IPA) (Colebatch, 2009; Wagenaar, 2004; Yanow, 2000; Callon and Latour, 1981). This literature assumes the presence of interpretative struggles, that is, inherent instability and potential for re-interpretation in all stages of policy formation and implementation. As a result this perspective argues that an effective understanding of policy processes requires tracing both how organisations may try to constitute collective understandings of a policy and the dynamics rendering this ambition difficult. Following from this, the first aim of this chapter is to integrate IPA methods with existing theorisations of the social construction of gender. This, we contend, will enable us to provide a nuanced perspective on some of the most important dynamics at play in this key EU policy area. This is because of the expectations raised by both literatures that in order to really understand how the EU is acting on gender equality, we must observe the processes and activities within the Commission where EU policy ideas and implementation mechanisms are developed and performed. This methodological approach which recognises how ‘the EU’ is constantly remade in interaction and negotiation provides a new perspective on how extensive commitments to gender equality are really played out in such a complex policy environment. In other words, studying how gendered assumptions are negotiated and enacted in local collective processes of policy-making and negotiation enables us to examine how the EU is governing gender from a more detailed perspective. The chapter is organised as follows: first, I discuss existing EU commitments to gender equality and the conventional types of policy analysis which have been used to study them. Here the importance of the EU’s flagship ‘Gender

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Mainstreaming’ (GM) policy is emphasised, along with an argument that studying it as an attempt to govern gender (in)equality requires an explicit examination of local processes constructing gender. Second, I develop and apply my IPA based methodological approach to a case study of the implementation of GM within Directorate-General for Research (DG Research) in the European Commission. This DG is responsible for overseeing EU science and research policy and during the Framework 6 cycle 2002–2006 (FP6) it is widely regarded to have put in place one of the most developed GM policies within the Commission (Rees, 1998). Throughout, I argue that through applying IPA, we can observe the multiple ways that DG Research’s policy community is drawn into the negotiation of collective understandings of science and research policy and gender’s place within it. Within this process of negotiation we can observe the creation of new explicit and EU-specific understandings of gender equality within science; efforts to coordinate action around these understandings; and the processes of contestation and renegotiation which ensued. Overall, the findings show how DG Research’s GM policy works across the networks and spaces of EU science policy that are constantly remade through interaction and negotiation. Examining this process we can observe that DG Research’s GM implementation has stimulated and resourced a large-scale renegotiation of the relevance of gender equality in the science community which DG Research serves.

Analysing gender mainstreaming in DG Research: synthesising gender theory and Interpretative Policy Analysis approaches This section briefly presents the development of the EU’s unique gender equality commitments up to the present day Gender Mainstreaming policy and reviews our existing analyses of their content and workings. Reviewing their shortcomings, I show how empirical results and existing gender theory both imply the need to examine EU governance of gender equality policy in terms of shifts in meaning. I then present a methodological synthesis of gender theory and IPA that can be used to effectively focus on these dynamics. Understanding the EU’s evolving gender equality policy The EU has a unique normative heritage of constitutional commitment to gender equality, beginning with its founding treaties in 1957, which included provisions for equal pay. Subsequent legal rulings by the ECJ spanning the 1970s to the present day have further contributed to an evolving set of EU-specific legal norms on gender equality (Wobbe, 2003; Shaw, 2002). The European Parliament (EP), the European Commission and to an extent the European Council have also each displayed phases of legislative activism in the field of gender equality (Kantola, 2010), helping to produce a succession of multi-annual gender equality policies and to formulate treaties

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(Maastricht, Amsterdam, Lisbon and the Charter of Fundamental Rights) which have further widened and deepened the EU’s commitment to gender equality. One of the most significant characteristics of the EU’s gender equality policy since 1996, however, is the use of soft law and the adoption of the so-called ‘dual approach’ – the combination of specific gender equality actions with ‘Gender Mainstreaming’ (GM). GM, as detailed in the Commission’s glossary of terms for equality between women and men, entails the systematic integration of the respective situations, priorities and needs of women and men in all policies with a view to promoting equality between women and men and mobilising all general policies and measures specifically for the purpose of achieving equality by actively and openly taking into account, at the planning stage their effects on the respective situations of women and men in implementation monitoring and evaluation (Director-General for Employment, Industrial Relations and Social Affairs, 1998: 57).

Much subsequent research on the impact of EU gender equality policy examined ‘trickle down’ within the multi-level EU polity, asking how and to what degree new EU gender equality norms, such as this notion of GM, were formally ‘empowered’ at the MS level, or how domestic gender equality policies were ‘Europeanised’ (Wobbe, 2003; Caporaso and Jupille, 2001; Leibert, 2002; Börzel and Risse, 2000). These approaches have focused on changes in strategic national policy within the domestic arena (Caporaso and Jupillie, 2001; Börzel and Risse, 2000), legal precedents (Wobbe, 2003) and institutional machinery as indicators of change in gender equality norms. Starting from an assumption of state sovereignty, this research frames these phenomena in terms of the ‘puzzle’ of domestic adaptation to an EU influence. A larger branch of feminist research on the EU, however, has asked what the EU’s gender norms really are (Clavero and Galligan, 2009; Shaw, 2002) and has theorised in greater detail how normative change occurs within the EU polity. Here, legal theorists have emphasised the emergence of a new organisational field of gender policy at the EU level, characterised by EU-specific normative content, where ‘gender equality’ is mainly characterised by equality of opportunity in the workforce, equal pay and increased female labour participation (Wobbe, 2003: 90). However, although these scholars find that a specific set of norms may be evolving within EU laws and regulations, their formal adoption is not always accompanied by normative shifts ‘on the ground’ in Member States, or beyond the parties drafting them, leading to implementation problems and diversity in their interpretation (Leibert, 2002; Rubery, 2002). In fact, non-implementation and locally specific re-interpretation has emerged as a consistent theme in most investigations of EU gender equality policy, which go beyond the examination of legal norms.

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Here, numerous analyses have reported divergent understandings of what gender equality might look like within written policy (Verloo, 2007; Rees, 2005) with gender equality aims usually being re-interpreted to fit local pre-existing policy aims (Shaw, 2002; Bretherton, 2001). Futhermore, implementers often struggle to understand what ‘gender’ or ‘mainstreaming a gender perspective into activity’ might mean (Cavaghan, 2013; Benschop and Verloo, 2006; Schmidt, 2005), and patchy (or non) implementation is common (Daly, 2005; Pollack and Hafner-Burton, 2000). These findings therefore indicate that the normative or conceptual content or aims of ‘gender equality’ policies within the EU’s public organisations and its Member States vary from location to location as the policy is adopted. These empirical findings confirm the expectations which existing gender theory would generate. The term ‘gender’ was developed in the 1970s and 1980s to denote the socially generated ideas about appropriate roles and identities for women and men, as well as the relational nature of perceptions of masculine and feminine (Scott, 1986: 1,054). Subsequent research using gender as an analytical starting point has shown significant variation in normative ideas on the appropriate roles of the sexes, across cultures, history and locations (Hawkesworth, 1997; Scott, 1986). Feminist sociology exploring these phenomena within government and bureaucracy on the other hand has identified constant processes of ongoing renegotiation of gender within organisations and bureaucracies (Connell, 2009; Acker, 2006). Locally specific re-interpretations of gender equality policy according to pre-existing and locally specific priorities or assumptions therefore correlate with these theoretical insights. Feminist researchers have thus appealed for methods to examine the implementation of gender equality policies, particularly GM, which move beyond formal laws or abstract notions of ‘norms’, instead investigating how collective ideas about gender are being contested and negotiated (Cavaghan, 2012: 41; Kriszan and Popa, 2010; Benschop and Verloo, 2006). To really understand how EU gender equality policies work then and what their outcomes are, a method which grasps shifts in meaning and the processes thorough which they occur, is required. IPA methods and the concept of ‘gender knowledge’ IPA and the related sub-field the sociology of knowledge, focus specifically on the processes whereby collectively shared perspectives or assumptions are ­ negotiated (Wagenaar, 2004; Law, 2003; Yanow, 2000; Callon et al., 1986). This literature starts from the social constructivist assumption that no perspective on a problem or perception of a phenomenon is ever a simple reproduction of the way the world is. Rather, it is always at core just another interpretation (Callon et al., 1986). The peculiarities of any interpretation, the sources and kinds i­nformation it is premised upon and, very importantly, the processes through which some perspectives come to be collectively shared, or ­marginalised, thus form the focus of analysis.

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Existing analyses of policy using these perspectives have illustrated how organisations can encourage particular perceptions of policy problems by creating arenas of interaction that structure opportunities for expression and participation. Techniques to achieve this include the creation of committees, data processing and monitoring procedures, or encouraging recourse to the same jargon (Colebatch, 2009; Wagenaar, 2004; Yanow, 2000; Callon and Latour, 1981). Within IPA literatures, these practices have been investigated as mechanisms to force stakeholders to work within a given viewpoint or to coordinate action in its service. We can marshal these perspectives to examine the ways gender is understood by operationalising the analytical concept of gender knowledge (Cavaghan, 2013, 2010; Caglar, 2010; Andresen and Dölling, 2005; Dölling, 2005). Gender knowledge is ‘explicit and implicit representations concerning the differences between the sexes and the relations between them, the origins and normative significance of these, the rationale and evidence underpinning them and their material form’ (Cavaghan, 2013: 410). The concept thus serves as a framework to identify both implicit and explicit views or assumptions regarding gender within a policy process and the mechanisms through which they are institutionalised or marginalised. Premised on this perspective, analysis of DG Research’s efforts to govern in its field entails an examination of its policy processes in terms of the actors, networks and groups involved and the ideas they circulate. Applying this analysis to DG Research reveals the processes through which the organisation has tried to elaborate collectively held perceptions of gender (in) equality within its policy community.

DG Research and gender mainstreaming: the co-construction of a European space In this section, I apply this approach to a case study of GM implementation in DG Research. Data were collected in 2008 and 2009 as part of a wider doctoral research project across several locations: the parliamentary committee for Women’s Rights (FEMM); the ‘Gender Unit’ which was created to oversee GM implementation; and two of DG Research’s operational sub-units called Directorates – each with distinct thematic foci and sub-cultures and varying degrees of sympathy to gender equality policy. In one of these Directorates GM was extensively implemented and in the other it was not. Methods comprised process tracing and qualitative analysis using documentary evidence1 and semistructured interviews.2 DG Research’s key policy documents and constitutional history is described along with the major processes in policy negotiation and implementation and the actors involved or affected. Data show how pre-existing policy processes constituted an institutionalised non-engagement with and ignorance of gender inequality in science. Three stages or dynamics in GM implementation are then identified. Firstly, data show how new structures and knowledge were created

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within DG Research to engage with and recognise gender issues in science, challenging the previous vacuum around gender inequality. Secondly, the internal efforts to promote and mobilise these new ways of seeing gender in science are examined in the two case study Directorates. Thirdly, analysis looks at the reception and impact of these new ways of perceiving gender in science, in the community outside DG Research and in mainstream political spaces like the EP. This approach thus depicts the interactions between existing EU research policy and the GM actions embedded within it, in terms of the negotiations which constantly remake and renegotiate the policy. The differing characteristics and divergent outcomes in different locations are also depicted, allowing a better understanding of the detailed variations which can occur trying to implement an explicitly normative policy like GM, in a complex polity like the EU. Problematisation and knowledge generation One of the most salient characteristics of DG Research’s policy processes is the juxtaposition between its internal and its external audience. Internally, DG Research has a heavily structured policy environment and a very clearly delineated policy remit. It is divided into 13 ‘Directorates’, seven of which oversee a thematic area of research. Each Directorate is in turn divided into ‘Units’. DG Research’s internal policy-making procedures are complex, duplicating consultation through multiple formalised phases whilst policy is implemented according to clearly codified procedures. This is juxtaposed with a much less structured and amorphous external policy community, stretching across the whole of the EU into its Member States and third party countries, encompassing the commercial research and development sector and public sector research institutes in several disciplinary fields. Therefore the mechanisms through which DG Research can attempt to affect perceptions concerning gender (in)equality as a policy issue in science differ in each of these locations. Defining DG Research’s policy role: aims, processes and actors According to the articles constituting it within the EU’s treaties,3 DG Research’s mission statement is the achievement of economic competitiveness.4 Its role is restricted to efforts to coordinate research activity, where the EU can ‘add value’ as a facilitator, by for example encouraging methods and qualifications in order to harmonise research outputs. Member States retain complete control over their research policy. DG Research’s main policy instrument to achieve ‘added-value’ is a multiannual funding package called the Framework Programme (FP). This policy is collectively redrafted every four to five years. It describes the scientific and technological objectives and priorities for the EU and allocates funds under the headings of supporting research; promoting cooperation; disseminating and optimising results; and stimulating training and mobility.5 For the most part

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these aims are fulfilled through DG Research’s financial support of research projects, a task administrated by ‘scientific project officers’ according to tightly codified procedures stretching from the assessment of project applications to the assessment of their success and impact. This role constitutes the context for GM’s implementation because it is defined within the treaties and the related policy instruments and procedures which set out the limits of all DG Research’s policy and tools it has at its disposal including GM. In theory, the FP is drafted by DG Research before submission to the EP and the Council. In practice, however, the content which the Commission drafts in its proposal for the EP is the result of rolling consultation practices drawing on relevant stakeholders in the Parliament and a number of permanent consultative mechanisms (see Figure 2.1). These include two permanent committees of scientific experts drawn from Member States: the Programme Committee and the Advisory Committee; and European Technology Platform (ETP), a less formalised structure for the representation of the industrial scientific community.6 As representatives of ‘the scientific community’, actors in these groups represent the direct beneficiary community of DG Research’s coordination and funding activities. The parliamentary committee overseeing science and research (ITRE) and relevant actors in the Council also participate in consultation and drafting of policy. In this way, Member States’, EU’s and the scientific community’s interests flow into DG Research’s policy process at multiple points. The periodic renegotiation of the FP, which contains current strategy, to achieve the predefined mission statement (competitiveness), is undertaken with recourse to these very stable structures. During FP6, the policy cycle which EU Commission evaluations and impact assessments

‘Programme Committee’ ‘ Advisory Committee’

European Parliament ITRE Committee (FEMM Committee)

‘European Platform of Women Scientists’

Member state level industry lobbists

The Framework Programme Multi-annual, strategic and broad Drafted by the Commission

European Parliament and Council Co-decision procedure to adopt

2.1  Participants in the negotiation of the Framework Programme.

‘European Technology Platforms’

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this piece of research examined, DG Research’s strategy in the FP was heavily focused on 1) creation of the European Research Area (ERA) and 2) a commitment to make science serve society. The notion of the ERA symbolised the goal of an internal market for research where: researchers, technology and knowledge freely circulated; initiatives were implemented on an EU-wide scale; and national and regional research activities were coordinated across Europe. It was established as a policy goal in the Lisbon Treaty (2000) in response to ‘structural weaknesses’ in Europe’s science and research sector. On this basis, FP6 included commitments to use all human resources in the population as effectively as possible and to conduct research on human resources and policy issues at the European and Member State level (Council of the European Union. 2002, Annex 1: 5). This replaced the far more technically driven strategy articulated in the previous FP5, that described a focus on the effective use and development of technology. Defining the gender equality problem: constraints and incomprehension These policy commitments and structures form the space into which gender was to be mainstreamed. However, this arena contained very little explicit awareness or recognition of gender inequality issues, so that generating usable gender knowledge, which could be mobilised to establish a collective understanding of the new GM policy, comprised an important first step in creating this new policy space. Thus the Gender Unit in DG Research began creating specific jargon to describe and define important aspects of the gender inequality problem in science which it subsequently used in the creation of important policy documents such as a Women and Science Commission Communication (1999), that defined commitments and obligations to engage on the issue. The staff overseeing the implementation of GM in the Gender Unit and the experts they consulted describe in interviews how prior to GM implementation during FP6, staff and policy in DG Research could be characterised by a systematic and collective non-recognition of and non-engagement with gender inequality in science: ‘I think almost nobody knew about the gender issue’ (Gender Unit, E, interview, 2009). Despite a sentence in the previous FP5 committing DG Research to ‘encourage the participation of women in the field of research and technological development’, no substantive actions concerning gender inequality were undertaken within DG Research. Interview subjects describe how at that time, members of the scientific community did not perceive any inequality within their field. No gender disaggregated data on workforce participation or on the impacts of scientific research were collected, creating a situation which the Commission’s subsequent grey literature describes as ‘No data, no problem, no policy’ (European Commission, 2009: 7). ‘The data for women in science were not collected by the political office the Eurostat at the time’ (Gender Unit, O, ­interview, 2009). This ‘no problem’ view was not unique to DG Research, however; it was entrenched within the scientific community,

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a situation ­identified and challenged within the scientific community at large on the ­publication of two scientifically prestigious articles that argued the presence of a serious gender equality issue in science, A study on the status of women, Faculty in Science at MIT (MIT, 1999) and ‘Nepotism and sexism in peer review’, published in Nature (Wennerås and Wold, 1997). ‘There was … a realisation of the lack of women in science and research in Europe, that was underpinned by the very famous article published in Nature called “Nepotism and sexism in peer review”’ (Gender Unit, A, interview, 2009). Each publication was perceived as a scientific, legitimate and shocking statement that science was not organised meritocratically and that scientific progress might be suffering as a result. GM within DG Research therefore started from a position of institutionalised ignorance of locally relevant gender inequality and without any real grasp of the policy problem within the EU, or any data. Here, the salience of the disconnection between the ‘gender equality norms’ established in the EU’s legal basis and actual practice, as discussed in the introduction, is clear. Similarly, the non-comprehension of GM which existing research has documented, is also in evidence. An inability to conceptualise, accurately describe and evidence this newly identified gender equality problem therefore constituted the key barrier to the establishment of a policy agenda. As a result, GM implementation in DG Research had to entail the establishment of a new EU policy space co-constituted by data representing and defining what the relevance of gender equality is in science, and the groups and networks which both use and help to produce it. First steps in establishing the policy space: data to define a problem Within DG Research, the process of establishing the presence of a gender equality policy problem began when the Commissioner for Research (Edith Cresson) sanctioned the establishment of a ‘Gender Unit’, which in turn formed two working groups in order to work out what mainstreaming gender would actually mean in this instance. The first group was comprised of external experts on gender, such as personnel from DG Employment, DG Education and Visual Culture and academics from Member States, who were already familiar with the gender issue. Secondly, a small number of DG Research staff were drawn together to examine the policy possibilities within DG Research: They were knowledgeable on the gender issue which I wasn’t at all … I was really taking knowledges from the ones knowing the women’s issues and I was analysing them with the DG Research policy, how we can mainstream gender. Because you need these two knowledges. (Gender Unit, E, interview, 2009) I mean in the Commission, in the House, there has been equality policy since 1957, but it wasn’t gender mainstreaming, there was [just] equal treatment in work policy in labour policy. (Gender Unit, O, interview, 2009)

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The first actions of the Gender Unit included several measures to collect relevant data, necessitating the establishment of networks extending outside of DG Research into the Member States’ scientific community. These enabled the creation of EU-wide data evidencing a policy problem. They decided right away to create a sub group of statistical correspondents. Basically it’s a collection of all the statistical officers from the MSs … to make them work on the missing data, because the data for women in science were not collected by the political office Eurostat at the time, … They published the first document which was quite revolutionary at the time, the ‘she figures 2003’. (Gender Unit, O, interview, 2009)

Following from this, the Gender Unit in turn subsequently used this new data and the institutionalised, but informal, mechanisms put in place to gather it, to support further ad hoc groups. Over time these have elaborated an increasingly rich explanation of the relevance of ‘gender’ and gender inequality which encompasses multiple aspects of science and research in the EU. Since 1999, this has included explicit discussion of: gender issues in public research and in industrial research; gendered concepts of excellence; gendered research funding practices; approaches to GM; specific policies aimed at enabling researchers to reconcile family life and work; and specific policies to increase the numbers of women in science. Instrumentation and implementation Whilst these documents have explored the issue in a qualitative manner, the creation of specific jargon and measurements is also a defining characteristic of this material. The ‘leaky pipeline’ (European Commission, 2009, 2008, 2006, 2004, 2003a, 2003b, 2001; ETAN, 2000) and the ‘scissors diagram’ are two frequently reproduced examples. The former describes the way the sciences ‘leak’ female talent over time, whilst the latter is the nick-name for a graph showing that women outnumber men going into the sciences but are outnumbered higher up the occupational ladder. These materials represent a new data set which enables interrogation of women’s situation in science, in each MS and across the EU as a whole. The overarching aim of these data is to evidence that women enter the sciences, achieving advanced technical skills, but that they participate on uneven terms, facing multiple barriers to their advancement, which results in them leaving the profession in disproportionate numbers as a result. It [the 2000 ETAN report] was landmark because it really articulated and coined the leaky pipeline phrase. It gave unequivocal statistical evidence, and it really gave birth to what we call the scissor diagram, [it gave] such resounding evidence that this wasn’t about a deficit model … on the part of women … it really clearly pointed to the structural issues which mitigate against women getting to the top of the profession … a structural cultural change being important, structures needing to change to accommodate a diverse pool in the workforce. (Gender expert, N, interview, 2009)

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Within DG Research the establishment of this awareness of women’s disadvantage and its structural character led to the creation of instruments and mechanisms to ensure that DG Research did not contribute to the continuation of ‘the leaky pipeline’. The process of institutionalising these began with a Commission Communication Women and science: mobilising women to enrich European research, which was accompanied by a non-legislative parliamentary resolution (EP, 2000; European Commission, 1999), EP opinions from both the ITRE and the Women’s Rights Committee and a Council resolution. These were then followed in 2001 with an internal Working Paper on the same subject. The communication of [1999] was a way to understand and translate the collective thinking … to recognise that research for women is not only counting women in labs, it’s by, for and on putting together all the different dimensions which [for] research, women in science, have to be thought through. (Gender Unit, E, interview 2009) Then saying OK, what is in our policy? So from Evaluators Group, to writing work programmes, to asking for gender action plans in FP6, building these mechanics that really make things change to some extent, building indicators, then going on to using the [existing] tools of the policy, for example to build an expert group. (Gender Unit, E, interview, 2009)

These documents repeat the EU’s existing commitment to gender equality, referencing the 1957 treaties, the Single European Act, Maastricht and the Communication on gender mainstreaming (European Commission, 1996), laying out a normative justification for GM premised in existing EU gender equality values. The Working Paper stipulates five dimensions which should be used to consider and approach the policy issue scientifically: numbers of women; vertical segregation; horizontal segregation; pay gap; fairness and success rates. The Communication, on the other hand, presents a prescription for action including three strategic dimensions: science ‘by, for and on’ women, along with the actions which DG Research will undertake internally to tackle the problem. DG Research has subsequently used these five ‘scientific’ dimensions and the three-fold commitment to science ‘by, for and on women’, to structure its own monitoring and impact practices. Thus 40 per cent targets for women’s participation have been established in the decision-making committees where DG Research controls membership. ‘Gender Action Plans’ (GAPs), on the other hand, ask research teams being funded by the EU to commit to equal opportunities and to consider any relevant gender dimensions in their research. This gender dimension in research is further institutionalised by both the inclusion of gender in impact assessment and commitment to include gendered research in the themes of the FP itself, a task undertaken by DG Research staff and in consultation with a newly institutionalised group of Member State gender experts, called the Helsinki Group. These actions were in turn supported by an internal structure designed to push and promote GM actions called ‘The

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Women in Science Working Group’ (WIS). This group, which meets every six weeks, comprises one representative from each Directorate empowered to ‘push’ GM within their Directorate and to assist scientific project officers (SPOs) in the assessment of GAPs. Reviewing this data we can observe processes of knowledge generation and capacity building resulting in a clearly defined notion of gender equality’s relevance in science, accompanied by new policy measures embedded within DG Research’s policy cycle. At the strategic level where thematic research priorities for DG Research are established, the Helsinki Group comments on the content of the FP. The inclusion of gender in impact assessment on the other hand, ensures a growing knowledge base of how gender might be present in research questions which each Directorate and the Helsinki Group can drawn upon. The establishment of the WIS group further pushes each Directorate to incorporate gender into its own proposals for research in the FP and to help SPOs to monitor GAPs. Forty per cent quotas ensure local levels of female participation in decision-making are significantly higher than before FP6 (see Figure 2.2 for a summary). Through these activities the Gender Unit has thus worked out what ‘mainstreaming gender’ really means in DG Research, translating an abstract ideal into local administrative procedures, such as devising the FP, project application, GAPs and impact assessment. In turn, the Helsinki Group and the WIS group have been established with a remit to fill these processes with meaning, describing what a gender dimension in nano-technology or health might mean.

Strategic Policy

Implementation Level

1999 ‘Women and Science’ Communication

Project Administration

Monitoring

1999 Council Resolution EP Resolution 2000 2001 Council Resolution

Commitment to GM in Framework

2001 Commission Staff Working Paper 1999 Communication ‘Women and Science’

‘Helsinki

• Women in Science Working Group Representative (in every Direcorate) • Gender dimension in research

Gender Action Plans

• 40% women in expert bodies

Group’

2.2  Mainstreaming gender: documents and groups inside DG Research.

Gender Action Plans database

Impact assessment

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Understanding gender inequality in implementation Investigating the implementation of GM as devised by the Gender Unit, and the reception of the ideas created in its expert publications, shows varying results in different Directorates (which in this instance will be referred to with the synonyms A and B), replicating precisely the kind of renegotiation which existing gender theory, discussed in the main section above, would lead us to expect. All operational staff in both Directorates described EU science policy in terms of local processes: Interviewer: Can we just start with you telling me broadly about what you think the priorities of science and research in the EU are just now? Interviewee: Well, I can tell you about the Framework Programme, about the projects. (Gender Unit, E, interview, 2009)

Rather than referring to abstract or normative notions of gender equality, operational staff used procedural terms, differentiating between ‘gender in research’ and ‘women in research’, rather than the three-pronged (‘by, for and on’) formulation stipulated in strategic policy documents such as the Working Paper or the Communication on Women and Science. Interestingly this two-pronged differentiation is the description contained in the GAPs which all SPO staff are forced to deal with in their daily work administrating projects. Interviewees did not, however, mention expert publications, the Working Paper, or the Communication and the ideas contained within it, when discussing gender or GM in DG Research. Implementation in Directorate A The depth and breadth of this ‘two-pronged’ procedural definition varied significantly between implementing Directorates. In Directorate A, which was well known for resisting GM, interviews showed that despite staff being subject to all aspects of GM policy, institutionalised ignorance of the issue had continued. Staff were consistently unaware of the numbers of women working in their field, or of vertical occupational segregation, describing women’s rates of participation through reference to personal anecdote rather than the Commission’s EU-wide data. In fact, when shown the Commission’s data indicating problems of vertical occupational segregation staff refuted the figures: When I graduated there were only 2 women out of 100, [companion ­interjects, ‘2 out of 25 in my year’]. (Directorate A, N, interview, 2009) I suppose at school there are fewer women interested in maths, physics, chemistry maybe than men. Certainly this was the case when I was at university and whether it’s still the case, I suspect it still is. (Directorate A, I, interview, 2009) We weren’t consulted on this, we had a lot of problems with that [piece of work]. (Directorate A, N, interview, 2009)

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Staff also indicated that they had not read any of DG Research’s publications on gender (in)equality in science, or potential gender dimensions in research and that they had not received any advice or training from their local WIS member. This apparent non-engagement with DG Research’s GM policy can be linked to the responses of local hierarchy within Directorate A. For example, the member of staff delegated to participate in the WIS group by the Directorate’s hierarchy was employed on a temporary contract basis in an auxiliary role, completely unrelated to the general workings of the Directorate. As a result, this staff member lacked the local procedural and disciplinary knowledge to engage meaningfully with GM, or to assist SPOs in their Directorate with the supervision of GAPs. Local SPOs therefore had difficulty explaining what GM might mean beyond a description of official procedure or dismissal of the policy. In the subsequent absence of any developed notion of the gender equality policy problem, what a gender dimension in research could be, or what kind of ameliorative action might be possible, responses showed some fatalism, often arguing that gender might be simply be ‘too hard’: I mean we don’t have any special measures, we have this horizontal thing in the description of our work, you know gender whatever, and the questionnaire … so we have nothing special. (Directorate A, A, interview, 2009) We do nothing particular I’ll check the gender action plan, so I just check if it’s there and what they write about it. (Directorate A, A, interview, 2009) I think they probably addressed it in a rather token manner. (Directorate A, I, interview, 2009) Hard issues, gender [shakes head]. (Directorate A, N, interview, 2009) You have no idea how difficult it is. (Directorate A, U, interview, 2009) There is no gender issue at the end. The project is open to everybody, if there are women they are more than welcome, but I mean its for everybody? (Directorate A, U, interview, 2009) Anything proactive? No. (Directorate A, I, interview, 2009)

Local internal documents7 on the other hand also actively discouraged attribution of merit to GAPs, stating in bold that discipline-specific objectives of the FP should take precedence over all ‘additional points’ such as gender or other social impact issues. Guidance lists eight criteria as ‘principal issues of relevance’ for evaluation of prospective research team’s projects. These do not include socio-economic, legal or ethical issues/impacts and gender. In fact, the Commission’s internal audits show that projects’ applicants completing GAPs in Directorate A actually had lower success rates than applicants who did not. In this Directorate then, the Gender Unit’s new data was ignored; its

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attempts to mobilise new knowledge through the WIS group were ­circumvented; and local instructions ensured GAPs were not scored favourably, thus maintaining the marginalisation of research which did engage with gender. The pre-existing practice ‘no data, no problem, no policy’ therefore remained largely intact within this Directorate – a position actively maintained by internal processes marginalising new GM policies and concepts. This example therefore shows the real significance of local interpretative processes. Even detailed and legally premised policy initiatives emanating from closely related locations within the EU’s organisations such as the European Commission can be marginalised or circumvented through local collective ­processes of re-interpretation performed in existing policy processes. Implementation in Directorate B In Directorate B on the other hand, which is known for its active engagement with GM, the policy resulted in the creation of yet more specialised knowledge on gender inequality in science, and further networks to mobilise around the issue. As a result, staff could accurately discuss the numbers of women participating in their field in terms of absolute numbers and vertical segregation; discuss dynamics creating these outcomes; and describe the organisation of further exploratory events or possible ameliorative action: We have 40% women and 60% men [in our discipline], but in the leading positions we have 10% women and 90% men and we are not happy. (Directorate B, B, interview, 2009) Our area it’s, it’s more male dominated [and] we have discovered that it’s a problem for women to participate because we ask them to spend often a week or three or four days in Brussels and that is also discriminating towards women because often they are in charge of the children so they are not so keen to spend a week here. (Directorate B, L, interview, 2009) We have raised several times … what can be done, for example, can they foresee that they could work via video conference; or could we put in place childcare facilities for them. (Directorate B, L, interview, 2009) [The workshop explores] women academics, women as entrepreneurs in biotechnology, and what are challenges, opportunities, how it [can] change them and so forth and also how globalisation affects biotechnology industry and what it means for gender. (Directorate B, I, interview, 2009)

To support the inclusion of gender within research, Directorate B also created a voluntary gender network for project coordinators to meet and exchange ideas on the exploration of gender in research, which met a­ nnually. The local WIS member also explained how the Directorate developed a practice of gathering information concerning gender issues in their field, ­ ­stipulating exactly what ‘dealing with gender issues’ could be in the explanation of a topic, and of supplying applicants with a list of hints to help them identify any gender issues in their field (see box).

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Annex 4 ‘Guide to Proposers’ Specific Gender Approach Directorate B The possibility of gender/sex differences must be considered: ●

In the formulation of research hypotheses. In the development of research protocols. ● In the choice of research methodologies and in the analysis of results. ● In biological, pre-clinical and epidemiological, behavioural research studies on both human and animal subjects. ● In the use of cells, tissues and other specimen, where appropriate. ● In the choice of a particular study population. ●

By identifying the gender dimension in research topics, the Directorate sought to respond to the lack of knowledge concerning gender dimensions in research within its scientific community and initial resistance to the agenda. By all accounts this process was effective – staff commented on their ability as research funders to force teams to take gender into account: Sometimes even the project leaders, coordinators cannot think of a dimension. (Directorate B, I, interview, 2009) The European Commission like any funding agency is in a very comfortable position. We can always say ‘do it’ otherwise you will have problems in negotiation. So the process that we call negotiation is a bit one sided. (Directorate B, M, interview, 2009)

In this Directorate then, local policy processes engaged in ongoing efforts to develop perspectives on the relevance of gender and gender inequality. The resources and opportunities created by new GM policy, such as the WIS post, were used in Directorate B to develop knowledge and practice even further, so that GM policy was interpreted in an expansive, rather than a restricted manner. GM and the external policy community GM related activity outside DG Research, once more shows the same dynamics of re-interpretation and negotiation. Re-interpretation of the new GM language is similarly evident within the women in science community which DG Research’s GM activity developed in Member States. Two dynamics here can be noted. Firstly, expert groups and politicians frequently engaged in explicit restatement and renegotiation of the relevance of gender equality to the achievement of existing EU goals: It’s an important field in the sense that we have to fulfil the Lisbon strategy. We have to manage EU targets and we need everybody for that, so [it] is not clever not to use everybody. (Member of the European Parliament [MEP] D, interview, 2009)

Mainstreaming gender in DG Research73 What I find about the EU very fascinating is that we have so many different experiences that we can share, this is what I consider as the added value for European work. (Gender expert, Q, interview, 2009)

Secondly, the creation of EU-wide data and expert groups produced ongoing ­ renegotiation and re-discovery of the policy issue. Interviews ­documented how differing practices and situations in Member States led to difficulties discussing a ‘common’ EU problem. These differences related ­ more to existing research practices and political pressures faced by Member States’ representatives than to national or ideological differences in commitments to or notions of gender equality within this new women in science community. It’s almost impossible to get industry data and … it involves a lot of issues about harmonisation of definitions, what is a researcher, what is a professor, what is a PhD, all the systems are different in Europe. (Gender Unit, O, interview, 2009)

These processes of negotiation and comparison led to increasingly large-scale attempts to codify policy and problems to enable discussion concerning policy approaches to the governance of gender inequality in the EU, a process which sometimes faced opposition amongst MS gender experts. A meta analysis on everything done in Europe on WIS, every research in all languages. And we promoted a working group benchmarking policies … the idea was to check what exists in Europe, what exists in the rest of the world. It’s enormous. (Gender Unit, A, interview, 2009) Some of them absolutely hated it. They said you can’t put women on graphs … I know that, but … if you can prove to [non-supporters] that there are economic improvements through having more women in science and that quotas help, then I think that helps. (Gender expert, L, interview, 2009)

Perhaps as a result parliamentary discussions between supporters of GM policy were thus often termed in rather opaque EU policy jargon. A response given in parliament when asked for example how gender equality measures in science would proceed in the next FP cycle is emblematic of this kind of emergent language: Competition between locations is important, we can use the Ljubljana goals on governance [part of the ERA policy] but we are not clear on indicators [yet]. (MEP C, interview, 2009)

Gender Unit staff and WIS gender equality experts, as well as Member State activists, spoke openly of the difficulties in discussing gender equality within these kinds of terms, and in trying to create common language. The benefits, however, of continued data creation and the Commission’s ongoing financial support was equally emphasised:

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The political expediency of such an extremely technocratic common l­anguage can also be observed in ‘mainstream’ political discussion of the policy issue in spaces such as the EP, or DG Research’s ‘10 Year Stock Take’ event on Women and Science. In these locations much more explicit and concise normative contestation of appropriate gender roles could be seen. Here, opposition to GM was couched in largely anecdotal, essentialising terms, without reference to science, as exemplified by the following debate contribution in the EP: I think motherhood is something particular to women, it’s a critical part of their personality, it means she’s a full women, this is part of her femininity and it’s important … we need a career rhythm adjusted so women can be mothers … it’s important to ensure a woman can have the full experience of being a woman, of being a mother. (MEP D, public hearing, 2009)

The responses of pro-GM actors usually side-stepped the rather f­ undamental normative disagreements these kinds of comments try to articulate, instead deploying explicit reference to the EU’s constitutional heritage of commitment to gender equality, and the new data and its links to pre-existing policy goals such as the EU’s pre-established focus on the reconciliation of work and family life or imperatives of international competition in EU science policy: The difference between [reconciliation of family life and work] policy and [names D]’s comment, is that men should have the right to experience paternity. (MEP O, public hearing, 2009) Gender equality is a value of democracy which we like to pride ourselves on [in the EU] … but we are in competition with the USA, they have more bright kids than we have kids, it would be a nonsense [for EU science] to continue as normal. (MEP A, interview, 2009)

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Conclusion This chapter began by explaining the EU’s reputation and self-image as a promoter of gender equality, before presenting a brief review of existing research, which has examined the EU’s role in the promotion of gender equality, highlighting two approaches which draw on the analytical frameworks of EU integration and ‘Europeanisation’. This research has encompassed scrutiny of the EU’s gender equality measures embedded within its constitutional framework and, on the other hand, how its commitments to gender equality have resulted in ‘Europeanisation’ in Member States. One of the key characteristics of EU gender equality policy, however, is its promotion of the ‘dual approach’, which includes specific targeted policies and GM, the latter asking policy-makers to question and examine the gendered effects of their own policy actions in all policy areas. Outlining the fundamentals of gender theory this chapter argued that attempts to examine the EU’s impacts on gender equality through recourse to legal approaches to EU integration, or Europeanisation of formal institutions in Member States, could be improved. To really examine GM an approach is required which fully operationalises our existing understanding of the construction of gender through social processes. Rather than asking what ‘EU gender norms are’ or how Directives have been translated in Member States, an analysis of local, collective processes involved in the negotiation and enactment of gendered assumptions, across the complex spaces where the EU governs is thus an essential component to understand how the EU is governing gender through GM. Data presented in this chapter gathered using methodological approaches based on IPA illustrates how GM in DG Research has triggered an explicit and ongoing discussion over the relevance of gender in science. In this case this has involved explicit reflection upon, and engagement with, the relevance of gender, over multiple spaces, which are themselves variously structured. Data exploring DG Research’s ‘mainstream’ policy before GM implementation showed how non-engagement with gender inequality was institutionalised not only within DG Research, but across the scientific community more widely. GM has thus entailed efforts to investigate and evidence gender inequality in science and to elaborate a normative rationale for action premised on existing EU gender equality values. These efforts preceded the creation of policy procedures to structure action on gender inequality. Internally, the reception of these ideas about gender’s relevance in science could be structured by the working practices governing action within it as a policy field. All staff consulted in both Directorates understood and acted upon gender in science in ways structured by their own work. The two-pronged definition of gender’s relevance in science, which all SPOs gave, was derived from the GAP. No operational staff cited the Commission Communication Women and science: mobilising women to enrich European research or the Working Paper on the same subject and the very clear delineation between science ‘by’, ‘for’ or

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‘on’ women was replaced by the vaguer awareness of the ‘gender dimension in science.’ However, whilst the Gender Unit in DG Research performed extensive interpretative work to devise a local procedural definition of ‘mainstreaming gender’ the responses and outcomes in implementing Directorates show the scope for renegotiation and resistance that inevitably remains in any kind of complex organisation. In Directorate A local processes have been mobilised to limit the development of any understanding of or commitment to GM, leaving only a hollow local understanding of GM as ‘nothing special’ or ‘too hard’. Data showed how resources in this case were deployed in a manner likely to leave the GM policy under-developed and how pre-existing local administrative processes were used to encourage non-engagement with gender issues in GAPs. In Directorate B, on the other hand, the new processes and resources that GM instrumentation created were seized and the policy was interpreted widely. Activity in this Directorate has helped to generate even more discipline specific understanding of the barriers female scientists face whilst GAPS and impact assessment procedures have been used to increase an understanding of gendered research questions within the field. Thus in Directorate B, GM created a space of action, which was enthusiastically and consciously populated with meaning and expertise. Within the policy community outside DG Research, by contrast these processes of renegotiation were not by structured by shared working practices. In fact, their progress is marked by attempts to formulate a similarly shared basis to understand and act upon gender in science. Activity coalesced around efforts to elaborate an awareness of gender’s relevance in science which had to appear ‘European’. The articulation of ‘gender equality’ and EU aims, encapsulated in symbolic notions and jargon like ‘The ERA’, ‘Lisbon’ or ‘Ljubljana’ served to maintain this link, whilst formulation of shared ‘European’ data aimed to enable communication. This shared technical language and networks using it establish the new policy area, replacing the ‘no data, no problem, no policy’ vacuum which proceeded it. By providing precise and elaborate data these new knowledge resources can be deployed as rebuffs to apparently more passive assertions that gender is ‘too difficult’, or explicit normative arguments focusing on women’s role as mothers, rather than their contribution as scientists or to the EU’s aims. These findings highlight how policy is remade and experienced through interactions between documents and persons which vary across different locations. An understanding of DG Research as a uniform space would gloss over these processes of contestation and the different mechanisms observable across them. In fact these findings show that even in a highly structured environment such as DG Research, attempts to coordinate activity around new goals can encounter significant barriers. Pre-existing and competing local priorities, interests and resources all provide opportunities for actors to ignore or hollow out policies, even when they are well defined and thoroughly underpinned with

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a solid legal premise. By the same token, however, policies can be interpreted expansively. Outwith the confines of the European Commission, in Europe writ large, the construction of a shared language and the constant re-creation of networks and data provoke similarly unpredictable and indirect processes. Comprehension of the EU’s purported normative commitments to gender equality and its actual effects on gender equality through the flagship GM policy is thus significantly enhanced by a methodological and ontological position which recognises that policy is comprised of these kinds of process.

Notes 1 Altogether, 32 texts were analysed, including internal documents, official policy and DG Research’s own ‘expert knowledge’ on gender equality in science. 2 Interviews consisted of one semi-structured 90-minute group interview with three of the then Gender Unit staff, supplemented by individual semi-structured interviews of 60–90 minutes with the same three individuals. Two of the staff responsible for overseeing the development of initial GM policy, two ‘experts’ consulted on GM policy development, and three Ministers of European Parliament were also interviewed using this format. Six staff were interviewed in one implementing Directorate and four in the other. 3 1957 Treaties of Rome, Article 55 of the European Steel and Coal Community; Articles 4 to 11 of the European Atomic Energy Community (‘Euratom’); and Articles 35 and 308 (41 and 235) of the EC Treaty; Council Resolution of 14 January 1974 on the coordination of national policies and the definition of projects of interest to the Community in the fields of science and technology (www.europarl.europa.eu/ factsheets/4_13_0_en.htm). 4 European Parliament, ‘Legal basis: Policy for research and technological development’ (www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/4_13_0_en.htm). 5 The Framework also funds a network of seven EU funded research institutes known as the Joint Research Centre (JRC). These ‘direct actions’ (http://ec.europa), have not been included in this project’s analysis. 6 These are discipline specific so that in fact multiple ETPs, ACs and PCs coexist. 7 Common evaluation procedures for evaluation proposals attached to the work programme, [‘Directorate A’], Work Programme: 35. This document is supplied to external ‘experts’ who are asked to independently review the quality of projects and recommend them for funding, or rejection.

References Acker, J. (2006) ‘Inequality regimes: Gender, class, and race in organisations’, Gender and Society, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 441–464. Andresen, S. and Dölling, I. (2005) ‘Umbau des Geschlechter-wissens von reformakteur Innen durch gender mainstreaming’, in Behning. U. and Sauer, B. (eds.) Was bewirkt gender mainstreaming: Evaluierung durch Policy-analysen, Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, pp. 175–189.

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Bacchi, C. and Eveline, J. (2010) Mainstreaming politics: Gendering practices and feminist theory, E Book, Adelaide: University of Adelaide. Benschop, Y. and Verloo, M. (2006) ‘Sisyphus’ sisters: Can gender mainstreaming escape the genderedness of organizations?’, Journal of Gender Studies, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 19–33. Börzel, T. and Risse, T. (2000) ‘When Europe hits home: Europeanization and domestic change’, European Integration online Papers (EIoP), vol. 4, no. 15. Available: http://eiop.or.at/eiop/texte/2000–015a.htm. Bretherton, C. (2001) ‘Gender mainstreaming and EU enlargement: Swimming against the tide?’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 8, pp. 60–81. Caglar, G. (2010) ‘Multiple meanings of gender budgeting: Gender knowledge and economic knowledge in the World Bank and UNDP’, in Young, B. and Scherrer, C. (eds.) Gender knowledge and knowledge networks in International Political Economy, Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp. 55–74. Callon, M. and Latour, B. (1981) ‘Unscrewing the big leviathan: How actors macrostructure reality and how sociologists help them to do so’, in Knorr-Cetina, K. and Cicourel, A. (eds.) Advances in social theory and methodology: Toward an integration of micro- and macro-sociologies, Boston, MA: Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 277–303. Callon, M., Law, J. and Rip, A. (1986) Mapping the dynamics of science and technology: Sociology of science in the real world, London: Macmillan. Caporaso, J. and Jupille, J. (2001) ‘The Europeanisation of gender equality policy and domestic structural change’, in Green Cowles, M., Caporaso, J. and Risse, T. (eds.) Transforming Europe: Europeanisation and domestic change, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 21–44. Cavaghan R. (2013) ‘Gender mainstreaming as a knowledge process: Epistemic barriers to eradicating gender bias’, Critical Policy Studies, vol. 7, pp. 407–421. Cavaghan, R. (2012) ‘Gender mainstreaming as a knowledge process: Towards an understanding of perpetuation and change in gender blindness and gender bias’, PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh. Cavaghan, R. (2010) ‘Gender knowledge: A review of theory and practice’ in Young, B. and Scherrer, C. (eds.) Gender knowledge and knowledge networks in International Political Economy, Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp. 18–34. Clavero, S. and Galligan, Y. (2009) ‘Constituting and reconstituting the gender order in Europe’, Perspectives on European Politics and Society, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 101–117. Colebatch, H. (2009) Policy, Maidenhead: Open University Press. Connell, R. (2009) Gender, Cambridge: Polity Press. Connell, R. (1990) ‘The state, gender, and sexual politics: Theory and appraisal’, Theory and Society, vol. 19, no. 5, pp. 507–544. Council of the European Union (2002). Decision No. 1513/2002/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 June 2002 concerning the sixth framework programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities, contributing to the creation of the European Research Area and to innovation (2002 to 2006), OJL 231/1/.

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Daly, M. (2005) ‘Gender mainstreaming in theory and practice’, Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 433–450. Director-General for Employment, Industrial Relations and Social Affairs, Unit V/D.5 (1998) One hundred words for equality: A glossary of terms for equality between women and men, European Union, European Commission. Dölling, I. (2005) ‘“Geschlechter-Wissen”: Ein nuetzlicher Begriff fuer die “verstehende” Analyse von Vergeschlechtlichungsprozessen?’, Zeitschrift fuer Frauenforschung und Seschlechterstudien, vol. 23, nos.1–2, pp. 44–62. ETAN (European Technology Assessment Network) Expert Working Group on Women and Science, Commission of the European Communities (2000), Science policies in the European Union: Promoting excellence through mainstreaming gender equality, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. European Commission (2009) The she figures 2009: Women and science statistics and indicators, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. European Commission (2008) Mapping the maze: Getting more women into top research, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. European Commission (2006) The she figures 2006: Women and science statistics and indicators, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. European Commission (2004) Gender and excellence in the making, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. European Commission (2003a) The she figures 2003: Women and science statistics and indicators, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. European Commission (2003b) Women in industrial research: Analysis of ­statistical data and good practices of companies, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. European Commission (2001) The Helsinki Group report on national policies on women and science in Europe, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. European Commission (1999) Commission communication: Women and science. Mobilising women to enrich European research, OJ/76-C5-0103/1999/2106 (COS). European Commission (1996) Commission communication: Incorporating equal opportunities for women and men into all community policies and activities COM(96) 67 final, Brussels (21 February). European Parliament (2000) Women and science: Mobilising women to enrich European research, Resolution of the European Parliament on the 3rd of February 2000 on the Commission Communication, Brussels. Hawkesworth, M. (1997) ‘Confounding gender’, Signs, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 649–685. Kantola, J. (2010) Gender and the European Union, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Krizsan, A. and Popa, R. (2010) ‘Europeanization in making policies against domestic violence in Central and Eastern Europe’, Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 379–406. Law, J. (2003) ‘Notes on the theory of the actor network: ordering, strategy and heterogeneity’, Online Papers Centre for Science Studies Lancaster University, vol. 1, pp. 1–11. Available: www.lancaster.ac.uk/sociology/research/publications/ papers/law-notes-on-ant.pdf. Leibert, U. (2002) ‘Europeanising gender mainstreaming: Constraints and opportunities in the multilevel Euro-polity’, Feminist Legal Studies, vol. 10, pp. 241–256. MacRae, H. (2010) ‘The EU as a gender equal polity: Myths and realities’, Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 48, no. 1, pp. 155–174. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1999) A study on the status of women, Faculty in Science at MIT. Available: http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women. html#The%20Study. Pollack, M. and Hafner-Burton, E. (2000) ‘Mainstreaming gender in the European Union’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 432–456. Rees, T. (2005) ‘Reflections on the uneven development of gender mainstreaming in Europe’, International Feminist Journal of Politics, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 37–41. Rees. T. (1998) Mainstreaming equality in the European Union: Education, training and labour market policies, London: Routledge. Rubery, J. (2002) ‘Gender mainstreaming and gender equality in the EU: The impact of the EU employment strategy’, Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 35, no. 5, pp. 500–522. Schmidt, V. (2005) Gender mainstreaming: An innovation in Europe? The institutionalisation of gender mainstreaming in the European Commission, Opladen, Germany: Barbara Budrich. Scott, J. (1986) ‘Gender: A useful category of historical analysis’, American Historical Review, vol. 91, no. 5, pp. 1,053–1,075. Shaw, J. (2002) ‘The European Union and gender mainstreaming: Constitutionally embedded or comprehensively marginalised?’, Feminist Legal Studies, vol. 10, pp. 213–226. Verloo, M. (2007) Multiple meanings of gender equality: A Critical Frame Analysis of gender policies in Europe, Budapest: Central European University Press. Verloo, M. (2005) ‘Mainstreaming gender equality in Europe: A critical frame analysis approach’, Greek Review of Social Research, vol. 117, B, pp. 11–34. Wagenaar, H. (2004) ‘“Knowing” the rules: Public administration as practice’, Public Administration Review, vol. 64, no. 6, pp. 643–656. Wennerås, C. and Wold, A. (1997) ‘Nepotisim and sexism in peer review’, Nature, vol. 387, pp. 341–343. Wobbe, T. (2003) ‘From protecting to promoting: Evolving EU sex equality norms in an organisational field’, European Law Journal, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 88–108. Yanow, D. (2000) Conducting interpretive policy analysis, London: Thousand Oaks.

II Spaces reconciled

3 Modelling Europe: the political work of impact assessment Diego de la Hoz del Hoyo

Introduction Calls for a stronger dialogue between the fields of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Political Science have been frequent in the scholarly literature,1 including between STS and the development of a political sociology of European integration.2 On the one hand, STS has traditionally offered laboratory studies in different guises, yet the idea of the European Union (EU) itself as a ‘laboratory’ has not really been taken up.3 On the other hand, the field of EU Studies has often looked everywhere but the scientific and technical apparatus of Europe when discussing the theory and practice of EU integration and Europeanisation.4 Consequently, I contend that due recognition has not been given to the political spaces potentially opened up by science and technology policy instrumentation, when actors come together and enact ‘their’ EU. For all these reasons, this chapter seeks to make a contribution to the cross-­ fertilisation of STS with a political sociology of Europe and its Union as set out in the Introduction to this book. This is achieved by examining how the EU promotes particular forms of evidence-production as part of its machinery for governing and how, at the same time, these EU-wide conceived instruments provide opportunities for actors to practise situated versions of Europe. Starting from an STS perspective, but ultimately engaging with this book’s agenda to re-imagine the EU from within an inclusive ontology,5 I will show how the technologies of evidence-based policy in the EU, and particularly the use of ‘Integrated Impact Assessments’ (IIAs), have been seized upon by actors as opportunities for political activity. IIAs were introduced into European regulation practices in 2003 and as part of the ‘Better Regulation’ agenda. They were described by the European Commission as tools which would enable the potential impacts of policy options to be evaluated ex ante of regulation in order to gauge consequences of alternative policy choices (2002a), and were justified within a broader discourse of evidence-based policy-making which assumed not only that a comprehensive set of consequences could be measured, but also that an optimal policy choice could be made. As a result, IIAs 83

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were represented as enabling a technisation of management decisions through evacuating politics from scientific and social scientific questions. By contrast, in this chapter I argue that far from being sites of mere technical regulation, IIAs provide critical new spaces for European political work. More precisely, I contend that IIAs are ‘political’ in two ways: first, in the course of IIA, important value judgements are made, not only about the content of a policy area (here, fisheries) but about the very nature of Europe itself; second, IIAs confront actors with issues of distribution of power and authority. Indeed, I contend that the IIA exercise is not just about producing evidence for policy: on the contrary, IIA also produces social order across different constituencies who have a stake in the policy process. Through presenting empirical material which shows how IIAs work in practice, I seek therefore to challenge the very idea of a monolithic top-down EU, harmonised through a number of mechanistic EU-wide policy instruments – here, IIAs. To demonstrate these arguments, the chapter focuses on the close relationship between the introduction of an IIA instrument and the re-distribution of authority across the constellation of actors by means of a case study in EU fisheries management.6 The choice is not casual since, it appears, this is one of the most characteristic examples of the EU as a monolithic construction by virtue of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) – the attempt to govern fisheries on the whole European scale directly from the European Commission’s quarters in Brussels. The chapter is organised in two main sections. In the first, I review the relevant STS literature on the relationship between technology and politics; discuss the relationship between scientific advice and the policy process; and introduce the different views on the IIA instrument that have been portrayed across various strands in the literature examining this policy tool. In the second, I present my case study that examines the arrival of the IIA instrument in DG FISH7 and details its first implementation for the management of the flatfish fishery in the North Sea. In the final section, I offer some conclusions from the case study and illuminate what the case study means for re-imagining the EU as the governing of political spaces.

Re-defining IIAs as political spaces for governing: crossing STS with a political sociology of Europe In June 2002, the European Commission introduced the ‘Better Regulation’ strategy as an attempt to ‘improve the quality of legislation, make its working methods more transparent and set the example of good practice’ (European Commission, 2002b: 5). The strategy followed from the UK Presidency of the European Council in 1998 and successive ‘EU summits’. It received as well strong inputs from the European Commission’s ‘Sustainable Development Strategy’ (European Commission, 2001a), which focuses on the integration of economic, social and environmental considerations, and its White Paper on ‘European Governance’ (European Commission, 2001b), promoting more

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involvement of the public in decision-making. IIAs were introduced as part of this Better Regulation agenda in 2003. In this vein, the Mandelkern Group, an ad hoc group of experts, set out to establish a common approach to the operationalisation of this strategy in which IIAs were to play a critical role (Hellenic Presidency of the Council of the European Union, 2003). Consequently, within the European Commission, the approach to better governance was initially conceived on the basis of a comprehensive integrated evaluation ex ante of the consequences of any new pieces of regulation, with the collection of factual information – often quantitative (see European Commission, 2005) – and use of expertise being integral parts of such exercises (European Commission, 2002c). In this respect, the IIA instrument was seen as offering some kind of improved European coordination in parallel to the more traditional elements for European construction such as Community law or the indirect effects of economic integration (Bruno et al., 2006). It was argued that decision-makers needed to become informed about all the likely consequences of their policies and regulations (Owens, 2007). The integrated impact assessment instrument was thus presented as a response to that need. Meuwese (2008) describes how the European Commission’s IIA instrument has become inter-institutionalised across the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. Yet despite their increasing prominence in EU policy circles, IIAs have received relatively little detailed and critical attention in the field of EU Studies (with the exception of work conducted in the area of environmental policy). This is particularly the case in the study of fisheries, which has been more engaged with the analysis of how grand ideas and rationales inform the construction of this policy. To fill this gap and critically grasp IIAs, we therefore have first to understand how technology and science have been linked to politics in other disciplines – and the range of issues raised in an extensive scholarship on these very questions. Technology and politics There is the general perception in our societies that all that matters with technology is how a social or political order freely chooses to use it. The observation is an important one to make at the start of this section since, as scholars working within an inclusive ontology of the EU remind us, any efforts towards understanding Europe through the study of policy instrumentation such as IIAs have to confront the strong and extended belief in the neutrality of policy tools (Smith, 2014; Halpern, 2010; Mangenot and Rowell, 2010; Hood, 2007; Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2007; Bruno et al., 2006). Notably, contestation of the apparent neutrality of technology has been a long-standing stream of work for scholars in the field of STS. Many have illuminated how adopting a technology shapes the existing social and political orders in particular ways (MacKenzie and Wajcman, 1999 [1985]). Technologies are indeed said to carry embedded politics or to be inherently political (Winner, 1986, 1980). In the first case, technologies contribute to both the choosing

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and foreclosing of certain social options over others, and this because of the ­politics – conscious or unconscious – introduced in the design phase. In the second case, technologies that work are strongly compatible with particular social orders that they also help to sustain.8 By and large, in adopting a technology we choose a certain kind of politics as much as we choose a certain kind of tool. In other words, STS treats technology as a socio-technical product (MacKenzie and Wajcman, 1999 [1985]) because technology sustains particular structures of authority. In this light, another important stream of STS work analyses technologies that are explicitly meant to play a role in governing and the socio-technical constitution of governments. This scholarship focused on how different technologies of government work often grow out of Foucault’s (2007) ideas on ‘governmentality’ and the technologies of the state. Thus, drawing on Foucault, Asdal (2008) adds an interesting twist to his notion of political technologies, which she characterises as follows: ‘Political technologies are not to be understood in a [Foucauldian] context of the microphysics of power, as techniques of domination exclusively, but as tools for public involvement, for democratisation, or deliberation, as well’ (Asdal, 2008: 13). Therefore, Asdal uses the term ‘political technologies’ to refer to those technologies of politics that can contribute to governing by fostering and nesting explicitly political discussion and deliberation (see also Jasanoff, 2003b). Miller and Rose (1990) also take Foucault (2007) as a point of departure. They place analytical attention on the technologies, practices and procedures associated with knowledge and expertise through which actors are brought in line with political rationalities, that is, with the objectives of political authorities. It follows, Miller and Rose argue, that government in modern liberal democracies can take place ‘at a distance’, inscribed in the cascade of technologies, practices and procedures that can extend virtually everywhere. At the same time, they observe that political rationales and the technologies of government are often met with resistance by actors, making government work for other alternatives: ‘governing is not the “realization” of a programmer’s dream. “The real” always insists in the form of resistance to programming; and the programmer’s world is one of constant experiment, invention, failure, critique and adjustment’ (Miller and Rose, 1990: 14; see also Higgins and Larner, 2010). Along the same lines, Barry (2002) notes that the Foucauldian analysis of technologies of government portrays a very functional idea of politics. It does not say much about the scrutiny and disruption of the conditions for government – things are much more messy in other words (see Blok, 2013; Eden, 2013; Jasanoff, 2006). The fact is that the technologies used in politics can deliver counterproductive effects for many reasons.9 Governing, Barry argues, often involves arriving at decisions under conditions of enduring disagreement and lack of solid rational justifications. In unpacking how the technologies for governing really work for the economy, Barry claims that the creation of sound governmental conditions is confronted with the fragility of so-called ‘metrological regimes’ that enable

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decisions based on measurements and calculations. This fragility derives from the susceptibility of quantitative measuring technologies to external scrutiny. It follows that, in order to facilitate decisions, these instruments have to be either screened off to protect the metrology or managed so that they do not bring excessive politicisation.10 In either case, these technologies ‘open up’ (Stirling, 2008) political spaces for dissent or agreement (Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2007). Notably, in those contexts where policy instruments are used to convey scientific advice into policy-making, the analysis of the role of the technologies of government links directly with the relationship between science and the policy process. I shall address this important area of scholarship next. Science and the policy process Relevant to the discussion in this chapter is the relationship between the policy process and those policy instruments – including IIAs – intended to mobilise scientific evidence, by which authority and decisions are produced, maintained, contested and changed. To begin with, it is necessary to ask ourselves the question of what makes science and scientists special for the policy process? In principle, scientists enjoy larger degrees of authority than other actors in society to provide policy advice because of their apparent disinterestedness and objectivity, which suits rather well the policy-maker wanting to make universalistic decisions. It is against this backdrop that scientists are considered to speak truth to policy. However, this linear and universal view of the sciencepolicy relationship does not hold water in practice. This is due not only to the division of labour blurring in contexts such as risk management (Lane et al., 2001), or changes occurring between countries, policy sectors and with time (Halffman and Hoppe, 2005), but also to scientists often failing to keep their apparent impartiality and tending to fulfil their own vested interests (Yearley, 2005). As Collingridge and Reeve suggest in an often-cited piece of work in STS, ‘relevance to policy, by itself, is sufficient to completely destroy the delicate mechanisms by which scientists normally ensure that their work leads to agreement’ (1986: ix–x). Yet Collingridge and Reeve seem to have an intellectualised and narrow notion of the kind of science that serves policy (Yearley, 2005). Their focus is on pre-existing basic research and how it travels to the policy context. They do not discuss the particulars of the so-called ‘mandated science’, a different kind of scientific business with different valuing produced for the purposes of advising political or judicial decision-making processes (Waterton and Wynne, 2004; Miller and Edwards, 2001; Jasanoff and Wynne, 1998; Salter, 1988). Such ‘regulatory science’ (Jasanoff, 1990) or ‘fiducial science’ (Shackley and Gough, 2002; Hunt and Shackley, 1999), to use just other similar idioms, is service-oriented and policy-driven, and much of its authority derives not from a formal peer review process but directly from the credibility of its authors within a broad audience. As quite a distinctive form of knowledge production, k ­ nowledge for policy is often assessed by stakeholders from government, ­industry or

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non-governmental organisations11 (Nowotny et al., 2001; Gibbons et al., 1994). We find a clear example of this in IIAs, for instance. IIAs are seldom confined to the realm of scientific communities, and stakeholders can be involved in the process to different degrees. Yet, as the argument goes with other examples of mandated science, IIAs are thereby exposed to deconstruction and distrust. To tackle the issue, there are a number of ways in which credibility can be fostered using some programmatic ideas to make science for policy more socially robust under contexts where stakes are high. Both the ‘postnormal science’ (Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1993) and the ‘third wave’ (Collins and Evans, 2002) are normative approaches aiming to improve the legitimacy of knowledge under certain conditions. Proponents of post-normal science, for instance, claim that for those problems where stakes are high and there is a great degree of uncertainty or contested knowledge, stakeholders should be part of the assessment of scientific evidence as an ‘extended peer community’. In their view, this so-called ‘extended peer review’ can improve the quality and the legitimacy of the knowledge available for decision-making. Meanwhile, third wave scholars – partially in reaction to post-normal accounts – express general concern about a risk of moving from the ‘problem of legitimacy’ to the ‘problem of extension’. If many voices are taken on board, they argue, the process may well expand far beyond the usually tight time frames of decisionmaking (Collins and Evans, 2002). Therefore, post-normal science is not the solution. To circumvent the problem of extension they propose a taxonomy of expertise and suggest that only knowledgeable stakeholders with ‘contributory’ specialist expertise should get involved in the core group of actors producing salient knowledge for a particular policy problem. The third wave has also raised criticism, nonetheless, for missing the key point that the concerns of those alienated from decision-making processes do not generally refer to knowledge affairs (Jasanoff, 2003a; Wynne, 2008, 2003). The central lesson from STS when it comes to how mandated science – including IIAs – can actually work for decision-making is indeed that policy decisions can be questioned not only in terms of how evidence is produced but also in terms of how some problem definitions in the first place led to certain dominant scientific meanings and framings within the policy process. Notably, the ideas from political sociology that inspire this volume have a particular resonance along the same lines. This is especially the case for the work of those scholars approaching regulation as the framing of problems and the operationalisation of solutions through the setting of new policy instruments (Smith, 2014; Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2007). Yet even though clearly value choices are at stake, actors will often deploy strategies of depoliticisation to hide these behind technical justifications (Jullien and Smith, 2008; Radaelli, 1999). ‘Although superficially this may appear paradoxical, from an analytical point of view it is … vitally important to consider that strategies of legitimisation based upon depoliticisation are highly political’ (Jullien and Smith, 2008: 21). Science can

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play a critical role in ­depoliticisation practices when presented as a source of independent authority. Yet how it acquires authority to perform any sort of depoliticisation strategy does not ‘just happen’, but entails ‘political work’. Coined by Briquet (1994) and Lagroye (1994), this term refers to the practices of a wide range of actors exposing their usually different values and interests as they are confronted with authority distribution, both upstream and downstream in the decision-making process (Smith, 2014; Jullien and Smith, 2008). Political work is thus a key concept to understand how the technologies of evidence-based policy-making – including IIAs – are indeed political spaces where the given politics – i.e. the depoliticisation of policy decisions – becomes problematised by different constituencies. Political work – including over science – is thus relational, whereby actors seek to manage collective tensions gearing towards either agreement or dissent of policy solutions. In so doing, they potentially affect broader transformations of political order in which science forms an integral part (Carter, 2014). Indeed, scholars whose work cuts across lines of questioning within both political sociology and STS (Carter, 2013; Paul, 2012, 2009; Boswell, 2009; Scholten, 2009) reveal how science and technology are social practices which are constantly confronted with issues of social authority and credibility, i.e., concerned with the co-production of science and social order (Jasanoff, 2004; Nowotny et al., 2001; Gieryn, 1995, 1983; Gibbons et al., 1994; Shapin and Schaffer, 1985). Indeed, Jasanoff (2004) has invested much effort to stress the opportunities for cross-fertilisation between STS and fields like political sociology and spells out a framework for so doing. She has described how the implications of the mutual interaction between science and politics are threefold. The first element of the argument has to do with how the scientific polity relates to and shapes the formation of managerial and political regimes – the wider polity. Governments use science and technology to depoliticise and gain credibility and legitimacy in the face of enquiries by an informed public. This is often referred to as the ‘scientisation of politics’ (Maasen and Weingart, 2006; Hoppe, 1999; Weingart, 1999). Second, scientific authority does not come out of an inner set of norms (Jasanoff, 2004) but out of the political work that takes place in situated contexts where what counts as science and what does not is defined by the scientists themselves. Scientists know better because they are good at this ‘boundary-work’12 (Gieryn, 1983), not because they hold a set of principles and strict methods and that makes their knowledge special. And it is boundary-work rather than the scientific method that informs the creation, reproduction or shifting of particular divisions of labour between science and politics (Halffman and Hoppe, 2005; Guston, 2001; Gieryn, 1995; Jasanoff, 1990). Third, the instruments of science and technology become elements of political activity since they require – or at least need to be strongly compatible with – a particular set of social and political divisions of labour and hierarchies – as in Winner’s (1986) example of the adoption of nuclear energy for instance.

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Although the three elements of the co-productionist argument are related, it is this third aspect that I will throw into the spotlight throughout the rest of chapter. Yet before moving on with the empirical case study it is necessary to review yet another stream of literature that concerns IIAs and how they work. Thus, next I will look more deeply into the nuances of this evidence-based policy instrument as they have been discussed across different literatures – from integrated assessment research to EU Studies and, more generally, Policy Studies. IIAs in EU policy-making Here I will look into different literatures that have addressed both the formal properties of IIAs and their role in policy-making – particularly in the EU – and suggest that some ideas from STS can offer further analytical depth. First, within integrated assessment research literature, IIAs are defined as formal procedures for dealing with multifaceted policy plans, using knowledge from various scientific disciplines and stakeholders, so that those comprehensive insights can be made available to decision-makers (Van der Sluijs, 2002a; Rotmans and Dowlatabadi, 1998; Parson, 1995). They represent the aim to address complex societal issues through an interdisciplinary or, even more often, transdisciplinary process (Rotmans and Van Asselt, 2000; Gough et al., 1998). Following Shackley and Gough, ‘integrated [impact] assessment is currently seen as the method of choice for bringing large scale scientific analysis into policy frameworks’ (2002: 1). IIAs can be regarded as part of the scientisation of politics, appealing to policy-makers because they expect the provision of hard numbers against which alternative policy options can be evaluated. This despite the fact that IIAs tend to be based on changeable and contested understanding, especially regarding the socio-economic assumptions in the computer modelling used to produce those hard numbers. In other words, they are unlikely to hide the subjective character of at least some of the choices that they carry over (Van de Sluijs et al., 2005; Van der Sluijs, 2002b; Parson, 1997; Parson and Fisher-Vanden, 1997; Schneider, 1997). The field of Policy Studies has also paid heed to the role of IIAs in decisionmaking, including in EU policy-making. As Torriti and Löfstedt (2012) put it, IIAs are charged with a set of different expectations. When it comes to the European Commission formal discourse IIAs are supposed to play two main roles in the policy-making process. The first role is to depoliticise the Commission’s proposals by exploring a range of regulatory choices that have to be contrasted according to their social, economic and environmental scenarios of impact, as follows: Impact assessment is an aid to decision-making, not a substitute for political judgement. Indeed, political judgement involves complex considerations that go far beyond the anticipated impacts of a proposal. An impact assessment will not necessarily generate clear-cut conclusions or recommendations. It does, however,

The political work of impact assessment91 provide an important input by informing decision-makers of the consequences of policy choices. (European Commission, 2002a: 3)

The second role is that of a communication tool whereby stakeholders can take part in decision-making by means of providing policy salient data, thus aligning with the principles of ‘good governance’ (European Commission, 2002d). However, as observed by Radaelli (2005), in practice the strength of IIA stems from the fact that it offers guidance to the whole process of policy formulation and a structured space to practise good governance by considering all the regulatory alternatives, including non-action. Reflecting on how IIAs have actually worked with the benefit of hindsight, Geyer and Lightfoot (2010) point out how the IIA was intended as the tool for horizontal policy integration at the European Commission but that the outcomes have been patchy across different policy areas (see also Radaelli, 2007). They conclude that progress towards new ways of governance seems incremental at the very best and that the significance of IIAs for improving the status of stakeholders is rather modest. In their view, IIAs are not disruptive technologies capable of delivering better EU governance. When it comes to examining this exercise empirically, there are notably two standpoints regarding how IIAs actually work, especially with respect to the supposed inherent objectivity and neutrality of the instrument. On the one hand, some scholars voice the gap between the techno-rationalist ideals behind IIAs and the actual practice in the EU (Torriti and Löfstedt, 2012; Renda, 2006). It is not that these scholars generally believe that IIAs can actually work by the book, but that actual practice is always assessed against the techno-rational template and certain expectations.13 For instance, while IIAs are expected to foster communication processes between experts and stakeholders in order to improve the quality of evidence, a line of critique refers to the involvement of stakeholders in the assessment; it tends to hit back in the sense that ‘greater openness also allows greater scrutiny of factual issues in the assessments leading to the paradoxical situation where openness produces more criticism’ (Bäcklund, 2009: 1,082). Hence, the implication for Bäcklund (2009; see also Wilkinson et al., 2005) is that, while pursuing better evidence, IIAs may inherently weaken the knowledge base, favouring the political use of the IIA exercise by pressure groups to stand bail for their pre-existing interests. By and large, neutrality and objectivity, which in theory make IIAs amenable for improving EU regulation, are not what IIAs deliver in practice. On the other hand, other scholars argue that the narrow rationalist theory underpinning IIAs is inadequate in the first place and is what creates the mismatch between the IIA’s expectations and actual implementation (Hertin et al., 2009b; Radaelli and De Francesco, 2007; Radaelli, 2005, 2004). In describing how IIAs actually work, Radaelli and Meuwese (2008) point at a spectrum that spans from IIA as tools for political control of the bureaucracy14 to tick-the-box exercises with no influence on policy choices.15 Meanwhile Owens et al. (2004;

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see also Jacob et al., 2008; Farrell et al., 2001) stress that it is often the byproduct of IIAs to open up polities for deliberation and learning across the different constituencies of the policy process: ‘[These] technical procedures have, [if only] as an unintended effect, provided important apertures for deliberation and learning’ (Owens et al., 2004: 1,950). Hertin et al. extend the argument further as follows: ‘While guidance documents tend to describe [IIAs] in terms of a rational problem solving process, the reality observed in practice often corresponds to a process in which the objectives and problems are continuously reframed and re-interpreted’ (2009a: 418). This is consistent with a vision of IIAs as formal procedures, but where interaction and flexibility become key aspects, and lesser emphasis on technical analysis in practice facilitates conversation between political actors, thus enabling stakeholders to have a say in the policy process (Meuwese, 2008). As the argument goes, what IIAs are able to provide is an answer to the question of who has authority in the policy process (Radaelli and Meuwese, 2008). By and large, the IIAs are important locales for political behaviour, a view that has been surprisingly under-researched (Turnpenny et al., 2009). In summary, I suggest that the political space in an IIA can be insightfully unpacked using the tools of STS combined with those from political sociology. I shall claim that the notion of the co-production in particular can bring analytical depth to current understandings of the IIA as a process confronted with the distribution of authority by highlighting the political work involved – both as conflicts of values and as ordering of divisions of labour. I shall make the point by referring to the process of implementation of the first IIA carried out within the Directorate-General for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs of the European Commission between 2006 and 2007.

Case study: IIA in the EU management of the North Sea flatfish fishery Following the reform of the CFP in 2002, on 10 January 2006 DG FISH published a proposal for European Council regulation establishing a long-term management plan for the flatfish fishery exploiting the stocks of plaice (Pleuronectes platessa) and sole (Solea solea) in the North Sea (European Commission, 2006). The proposal aimed to move gradually to a different regime of exploitation in the fishery towards higher and more stable yields from the stocks. At the heart of this idea was the Commission’s commitment to the international agreements on reaching ‘maximum sustainable yields’ (MSY) in the world fisheries by year 2015, which had been established at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg in 2002. According to scientific advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), the flatfish stocks of common sole and (particularly) plaice in the North Sea had been fished at unsustainable levels. As will be seen, achieving this environmental goal for the case of the flatfish fishery meant that the fishing activity had to be

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reduced considerably, alleviating the fishing to overcapacity in the fleet and the high mortality of the fish. As a scientific concept, MSY had already seen its heyday some decades ago in the world of fisheries management but it was gaining new currency after WSSD 2002. By and large, it is a simple and appealing theoretical idea which implies that there is a natural point of equilibrium in every fish stock where the fishing gives maximum returns without affecting the carrying capacity of the stock. However, in practice the strong dynamic behaviour of the fish stocks makes it difficult to operationalise a static point of equilibrium. MSY is always a moving target and has led to failures in fisheries management in the past. Yet it is important to observe that the Commission embraced MSY mainly as a policy instrument by which to shake up actors’ minds about the fact that the fish stocks were exploited – in the best case scenario – to the point of being on the verge of collapse. DG FISH saw MSY as an instrument of convenience to steer the fishery to a new regime with all-round benefits: ‘More economic rent from the fishery can be obtained if fishing pressures are reduced, and there are therefore both economic benefits and conservation benefits to reducing fishing mortality’ (European Commission, 2006: 4). Instrumental to the Commission’s plan for taking EU fish stocks to MSY levels were what in the fisheries management jargon are known as ‘long-term management plans’ and the so-called ‘harvest control rules’ (HCRs) therein. They were part of the key policy innovations introduced by the reform of the CFP in 2002. By and large, HCRs were the answer to the pressing problem of diminishing fish stocks due to the short-term thinking that had prevailed in EU fisheries management for years. They were conceived as a blend of two forms of stopping overfishing: limiting the capacity of the fleet to put pressure on the fish stocks by establishing maximum numbers of days-at-sea and helping to cap that very same pressure by establishing in addition fishing quotas. With the combination of quotas and days-at-sea the HCRs were expected to cut down the fishing mortality effectively and raise the yields of the stocks. Meanwhile, another key concern for the fisheries managers in the European Commission around 2002 was the degree of alienation of stakeholders from fisheries management. Seeking to improve the governance of EU fisheries, in 2004 Member States introduced Regional Advisory Councils (RACs) as part of the reform of the CFP. There are seven RACs: five represent main geographic fishing zones – Baltic Sea, Mediterranean Sea, North Sea, north-western waters and south-western waters; the two others relate to the exploitation of the pelagic stocks in EU waters and high-sea fisheries outside Community waters. RACs bring together a range of stakeholders to provide advice to the Commission on regulatory instruments, including IIAs. The North Sea RAC (NSRAC) was the first one to be created at the end of 2004 (NSRAC, 2004a) and this case study is based on evidence coming from this RAC. It was indeed the flatfish fishing industry interests gathered in the NSRAC

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that had a first attempt at the long-term management plan proposal for the North Sea flatfish fishery, questioning whether the new management strategy would deliver for both the fish and the fishermen. With the Dutch representatives16 leading the way, the NSRAC flatfish industry saw the proposal and the Commission as a whole as lacking legitimacy and credibility, fearing not to survive a plan that, in the best case, would only pay off in the long term. As described below, they demanded an IIA to validate the plan. Notwithstanding repeated claims to better governance in Brussels with the introduction of the Better Regulation strategy in 2002, they had seen none of the Commission’s sound numbers on costs and benefits supporting the proposed long-term management plan (NSRAC, 2006b). And recent history in EU fisheries management was rich in examples of new management measures delivering poor biological returns and huge socio-economic impacts that had not been considered beforehand. This was problematised in the following terms by the NSRAC industry stakeholders: ex ante and ex post evaluation of management measures (including a biological, socio-economic and enforcement assessment) is in line with the principles of good governance … While new fisheries management measures can have severe socio-economic consequences on the fleet, the supply chain and fishing communities both in the short and long term … an economic assessment is generally not included … This is an omission which must be addressed. (NSRAC, 2004b: 3)

Notably, their problematisation also touched on the Commission’s explicit introduction of MSY in the regulatory proposal, clearly stating that their guiding principle was no longer the precautionary one – i.e. avoiding the risk of collapse – but carrying the stocks to a new regime of high sustainable yields from the fish stocks. In so doing, the long-term management plan for plaice and sole reflected the Commission’s strong political commitment to WSSD 2002, as mentioned above. While celebrated by the environmental NGOs within the NSRAC, this was disappointing for the industry stakeholders. They believed that the shift to MSY would have big economic impacts on the fleets and the strategy should be debated thoroughly beforehand at the highest political levels – namely at the Council of Ministers – together with other longterm alternatives such as economic sustainability and the stability of the fleets (NSRAC, 2005a, b, c). The problematisation of the MSY-based approach was led in particular by the Dutch fishing industry, fearing that such management objectives would imply reductions of more than 50 per cent in the Dutch long-beam trawler fleet. They stressed the importance of winning the support of the fishermen ahead of any long-term strategy (NSRAC, 2005b). Acknowledging that the plaice stocks were in poor health and below the precautionary numbers advised by ICES, the industry stakeholders advocated leaving behind longterm MSY targets and starting off with mid-term measures that could bring

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the North Sea plaice stocks back to safe biological levels within the next three to five years (NSRAC, 2005a). Proceeding this way would enable the Commission to evaluate how effective the measures turned out to be and then set up realistic targets for the long-term future of the flatfish fishery based on this knowledge. The claim was also backed by the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV). In direct talks with the Commission, the LNV expressed the need of an impact assessment to gather evidence on whether the management proposal released would live up to its promises for the fleets catching plaice and sole in the North Sea. DG FISH responded positively to these two demands from the NSRAC and the LNV for a thorough scientific evaluation of the proposal (NSRAC, 2006a). Officials saw the opportunity of using the flatfish fishery management proposal to cut their teeth with IIAs, and set up an expert group under the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) to run the IIA exercise.17 The Commission offered the NSRAC the opportunity to engage with the scientific work of the STECF expert group. This was largely taken by representatives from the fishing industry (NSRAC industry representative, interview 2007). As it happened, this presence of industry stakeholders produced some distress a priori among some of the scientists attending the meeting (DG FISH representative, interview 2007). Stakeholders were usually not very constructive in their approach to scientific advice. They tended to problematise the scientific work being done and undermine the scientific results in their interventions (STECF representative, interview 2007). Yet the Commission was not significantly worried as they felt that it was normally more about criticising them than the science: Usually the first thing they do is make some sort of statement at the start of the meeting … It’s usually attacking the Commission. Then me or whoever is representing the Commission has to make intervention and say look, well this is not the kind of meeting to have that sort of discussion. You’re here to observe a scientific process. Please, contribute to the scientific process where you can, otherwise sit in the back and listen. And then usually they accept that. (DG FISH representative, interview 2007)

However, even if the criticism was often directed at the Commission, the fact is that the science, and particularly the biological models used in the production of fisheries advice to policy, were severely scrutinised whenever they were used as predictive and deterministic tools to inform policy-making: The Commission [says], okay this proposal is based on what the biologists say but on the other hand … there are a lot of cases where actually that hasn’t happened and where the fishermen have been confronted based on the biological models with cuts and more cuts and more cuts and stock hasn’t grown, like plaice for example … so we’ve followed your advice [and] this should have happened to the stock but it didn’t happen, so what’s happening, are your models okay? (NSRAC industry representative, interview 2007)

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Nonetheless, the STECF expert group did not frame the biological modelling used for the IIA exercise in such a prescriptive tone. Right at the outset of the exercise the Commission underlined that the modelling would be used not to predict the future but to evaluate whether the plan would make a difference to the status quo, the ‘no plan’ option so to speak (DG FISH representative, interview 2007). And as it happened, the modelling did not become problematised: ‘The stakeholders behaved quite professionally, without entering into the usual disputes with regard to the scientists’ work; they were keen to learn and contribute’ (STECF representative, interview 2007). Indeed, all actors involved praised that there was plenty of respect coming from all sides; it was an open meeting and the stakeholders were able to speak freely (personal observation of an NSRAC meeting, October 2006). The IIA exercise went on for four days and offered the NSRAC industry representatives indeed multiple opportunities to engage with the scientists over the modelling and discuss issues within the STECF expert group, as follows: They have a scenario to compare with, the scenario of ‘doing nothing’ but how do we define doing nothing? And [we] sat there and said well, it’s not that complicated, is it? You just freeze the fishing mortality at the levels they are now and there was that huge discussion among the biologists about whether that would mean doing nothing and in the end we agreed that that would be a suitable scenario. (NSRAC industry representative, interview 2007) [Stakeholders] were aware of the facts that they could feed this model with, let’s say, adaptations of the harvest control rule, because that is basically what I did during that week … those people from the industry they came up with some alternative harvest control rules which I was able to simulate and see what kind of effects they had … I think the suggestions that they were making were quite realistic and sometimes it was good to follow their suggestions, to think about it and discuss it, why not? (Biologist, interview 2007)

There was no sign of critical scrutiny of the modelling to uncover flawed assumptions about the fish stocks or the behaviour of the fishermen. Instead, the industry stakeholders approached the model as an instrument to structure the discussion by comparing alternative scenarios and policy options in relative terms: If you don’t use a model you are talking on basic assumptions and you assume this and I assume that and we can talk a long way but the end of our discussions leads nowhere because it’s like a general chat on the bar … So let’s now [build a] model and use that as a basic reference for our assumptions … If it says that at the end I will have a [positive] cash flow of 3,221 euros, definitely that is not going to be the case, but for my policy I know it’s definitely not going to be minus 50 … that is the direction. (NSRAC industry representative, interview 2007)

In using the modelling this way the NSRAC industry stakeholders were able to cast doubt on whether the plan would make much of a difference compared to

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‘no action’ under the same initial conditions. The model suggested that the plan proposed made sense in biological terms but the comparison with the simulation of the ‘no action’ scenario offered a surprise: The shocking thing was that the stocks would go in the same direction only a bit slower, you know, they would grow above the precautionary levels for the biomass and all the targets, and I found that really shocking and I thought, okay, so the Commission has this huge plan which has huge socio-economic repercussions for the fleet and basically a lot of economic pain but the outcome really is that it brings the stock to a certain level two years earlier, so why go through all the pain if nothing happens? (NSRAC industry representative, interview 2007)

Thereafter, the NSRAC industry stakeholders believed that the Commission’s management proposal would only make a difference in timing, thus not adding much value despite all the sacrifices that it would mean for the flatfish fleet. DG FISH reacted with surprise, at least according to the NSRAC fishing industry representatives: ‘This was quite difficult for the Commission to understand. I think it was quite embarrassing’ (NSRAC industry representative, interview 2007). The NSRAC industry stakeholders succeeded in challenging the Commission’s policy option. The scientific model and the IIA exercise as a whole became somehow an ‘empirical friend’ (after Yearley, 1991) that introduced a shifting dynamics in the division of labour within the policy process. Their engagement in the IIA was not strictly about external peer-reviewing the Commission’s evidence to support the management plan for the flatfish. Instead, they used the results of the modelling in a managerial way to legitimise other – in their view less radical – policy options. In this sense, what the IIA exercise ultimately allowed was a reassignment of authority towards the NSRAC industry stakeholders.18 The policy process concerning the new management plan for the flatfish fishery presented a problem with its extension after an IIA exercise that had put in question whether the Commission’s proposal was worth the trouble. By the autumn of 2006 the NSRAC fishing industry was willing to reach an agreement in order to cease the uncertainty over the regulatory framework for their business: ‘We said, well, the problem we have at this moment is that there is so much uncertainty because these talks [over the management plan] have been on for months and months and months’ (NSRAC industry representative, interview 2007). Meanwhile, after two years of talks and with the flatfish stocks in need of urgent action, the Commission was also willing to reach some closure to the plan if the guiding principles of the CFP could be accommodated: [The Dutch industry] said well perhaps if we divide the plan into two phases … Let’s do the following, let’s just establish the first phase, the mid-term objective of bringing the stocks within ‘safe biological limits’ [precautionary levels] and for that we don’t need socio-economic evaluation. In the meantime, let’s try to make progress slowly on this kind of [IA] methodology so, by the time we have

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Negotiations led to a final version of the long-term management plan for the flatfish fishery (Council of the European Union, 2007) that stipulated this two-step approach. Apart from the two-step approach the final version of the plan included also MSY targets for the second phase but these could be a little more flexibly interpreted (NSRAC, 2007a). The NSRAC fishing industry celebrated that the initial two-stage approach had finally made it into the regulation (NSRAC, 2007b). Moreover, although they did not like the MSY targets included in the plan, they welcomed the Commission’s acceptance in the text of the regulation that the MSY targets were subject to mid-term ­revision ­(personal observation of an NSRAC meeting, April 2007). By and large, the IIA exercise delivered a more balanced distribution of authority between DG FISH and the NSRAC fishing industry. This resulted in a longterm plan for the flatfish that reflected the amalgamation of the two sets of interests. In summary, what lessons can we learn from this case study? As we have argued, the IIA instrument was initially proposed as the operational procedure for the practical implementation of the European Commission’s Better Regulation strategy. The idea behind the introduction of IIAs in the Commission was the production of more systematic, transparent and crosscutting scientific evidence to depoliticise and legitimise EU policies, thus enabling the pre-empting of the political debate via proceduralisation, as opposed to a political agreement on substantive issues of policy (Radaelli and Meuwese, 2008). Therefore, the EU approach to better governance was conceived on the basis of a technical-rational model of decision-making (Hertin et al., 2009b; Radaelli, 2004). The arrival of the IIA instrument to DG FISH following the Better Regulation strategy contributed further towards a new division of labour between the fishing industry on the one hand and policy-makers and scientists on the other, as became apparent in the case of the long-term management plan for the North Sea mixed flatfish fishery. In principle, the IIA was an instrument in the hands of the DG FISH to prove the soundness of its own regulatory proposals. In this respect, all that the NSRAC fishing industry did in the first place – pairing with

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the Dutch government – was to ask DG FISH to put the new instrument to use. However, it turned out that the NSRAC managed in the end to produce their own proof for their preferred policy alternative through the IIA, leveraging their authority in the policy process.19 It was more than simply an exercise of political control of the bureaucracy.20 The NSRAC fishing industry representatives could make a point about other policy choices using sound science as an ‘empirical friend’ (Yearley, 1991). In this way, they performed a sophisticated engagement with particular management options (Carter 2014, 2013; Griffin, 2013, 2009; Hegland and Wilson, 2009). Overall, the IIA exercise became an opportunity for a reversal of the burden of proof – a concept that in the context of fisheries policy refers to having management options that are proposed, and assessed in terms of their impacts, by the fishing industry, and eventually agreed by managers.21 Rather than the IIA resulting in unconstructive criticism of existing options, the exercise brought in evidence other alternatives proposed by the industry stakeholders. It follows that the NSRAC industry stakeholders went beyond the idea of offering ‘­external peer review’ in reaction to scientific evaluation of existing policy options.22

Conclusion Drawing on insights from STS as well as from the political sociology of the EU, in this chapter I have looked at how IIAs can work as spaces for political action that are dominated by the tension between depoliticisation and politicisation, that is, by the co-production of evidential knowledge and social order. Re-casting the workings of IIAs in terms of co-production allows us to better understand the political work that is behind the evidence-based policy process, that is, how actors are confronted with authority distribution leading to agreement or dissent in the decision-making process (Carter, 2014; Carter and Smith, 2008). The chapter shows, therefore, that the notion of co-production of knowledge and social order (Jasanoff, 2004) can bring analytical depth to understandings of the IIA as a knowledge elicitation practice confronted with the distribution of authority in the regulatory process (Radaelli and Meuwese, 2008). Set up in principle as an objective knowledge production exercise free from political considerations – as the dominant positivistic views in the scholarly literature tend to frame it – the IIA delivered in practice a space for (measured) political activity as actors came together under EU regulation and governance.23 And yet the IIA was at the same time a space to enact a situated version of the ‘EU with better governance’ through the establishment of new divisions of labour away from old hierarchies and demarcations, as informed by a co-productionist approach. The IIA thus emerged as political in two senses: through its practised hierarchy first, of values and second, of actors. Yet, as I have further shown, there was nothing automatic about these

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c­ o-productive processes. IIAs are peopled places and it is their strategies which it is critical to grasp in a Europe constantly being built through sector ‘better’ regulation. Liaising with the general lines of argumentation in this volume, this chapter therefore helps us to re-imagine the EU as something fundamentally practised and situated, as a collection of spaces where actors expose the tension between depoliticisation and politicisation while they participate in the construction and resolution of European problems. It speaks to a still incipient cross-disciplinary analysis of the EU in which knowledge-practices and technologies of governing receive enough attention as contributors to the shaping of Europe as a political entity. With few exceptions the IIA has received little attention in the field of EU Studies as a relevant element for the construction of the EU that adds to those from Community law and economic integration. This despite the fact that the instrument extends across the European Commission and beyond – that is, to the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers – and, therefore, it can hardly be taken as marginal to the process of Europeanisation. Indeed, the IIA provides a robust ground on which to challenge the idea of a monolithic top-down EU harmonised through a number of mechanistic EU-wide policy instruments. As the case study illuminates, EU evidence-based policy instruments can offer a polity where the distribution of authority through political work enacts the temporary and local assembly of versions of the EU pretty much without regard to the constant wrestling that is characteristic of EU regulated sectors (Carter, 2014; Carter and Smith, 2008; Jasanoff, 2006; Callon, 2004). The argument put forward is that the framework of co-production can help to account for the crafting of these kinds of institutional local forms within broader conflicting forces and adjustments (Sundqvist and Letell, 2005; Waterton and Wynne, 2004). We can conclude that Science and Technology Studies and political sociology, when both adopting an inclusive ontology of the EU, may exploit their fruitful dialogue further by continuing to unpack the co-production of knowledge-expertise and the ordering of Europe and its Union.

Notes   1 See for instance the exchange between Favre (2008) and Latour (2008). See also Lidskog and Sundqvist (2011), Goodin and Tilly (2006), Jasanoff (2004).  2 As evident by the European Science Foundation Exploratory Workshop on ‘Making Europe: The Social Sciences and the Production of European Integration’, Copenhagen, 3–5 February 2013.   3 Barry (2006, 2001) is one of the few examples.   4 The closest to an exception are some of the Anglo-Foucauldian studies of Europe (see for instance Walters and Haahr, 2005; Barry, 2001).   5 According to an inclusive ontology, Europe’s ‘reality is not natural, but co-produced by people as groups’; ‘institutions are not detached from actors but their interactions

The political work of impact assessment101 are critical’; ‘political action is guided by individuals whose interests are socially constructed’; there is an ‘emphasis on the ties between the macro and micro, institutions and power and actions of individuals and groups in more or less structured social spheres’ (all from Kauppi, 2010: 28–31).  6 Based on documentary analysis and ethnographic interviews and observations across several EU countries (Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands and the United Kingdom) between the end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007.   7 In 2008 the European Commission decided to reorganise the directorate responsible for maritime policy and fishery, namely the Directorate-General for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs of the European Commission or DG FISH. The former DG FISH became to be known as DG MARE thereafter, standing for the Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries of the European Commission. However, since the fieldwork was conducted in 2006 and 2007 while DG FISH was still the meaningful term, I will stick to it throughout the chapter.   8 The atomic bomb is the obvious example of an inherently political technology in that it presupposes a centralised authority that can control it. Meanwhile, nuclear power can be argued to be a political technology strongly compatible with such political order since it demands in effect extraordinary measures to control the nuclear risks (see Winner, 1986).   9 In Barry’s (2002) claim, the technologies of government are designed to be ‘antipolitical’, that is, conceived to close debates and steer actors towards particular objectives. However, they often end up leading to the political instead, that is, to discussion between competing rationales. 10 For instance, in the case of running an economy, ‘contracts need to be awarded to bodies that can be trusted. Reports and information must be released at the appropriate time to the appropriate audiences. The appropriate persons needed [sic] to be appointed to committees’ (Barry, 2002: 280). 11 Gibbons et al. (1994; Nowotny et al., 2001) coined the term ‘mode-2’ for what they see as a new dominant way of conducting science in terms of interdisciplinary and a policy-problem driven context, as opposed to blue-sky academic research organised within disciplinary confines that characterises ‘mode-1’. 12 What we know is not so much linked to ‘good science’ but to the distribution of authority in society – which amounts to issues of who should be trusted by their knowledge. This becomes crystal clear in the face of novel problems in science, where ‘it may not be possible to address questions of the facticity and credibility of knowledge claims without, in effect, redrafting the rules of social order pertaining to the trustworthiness and authority of individuals and institutions … Doing science merges, in other words, into doing politics’ (Jasanoff, 2004: 29). 13 As Hertin et al. characterise it, ‘This view of policy making contains a number of (implicit) assumptions about the policy process and the role of knowledge within it. For example, it suggests that: policies are designed to address specific problems or objectives; that impacts of planned policies can be anticipated with a certain degree of accuracy; that there is a central decision-maker who selects a policy option on the basis of expected net benefits; and ‘better’ information necessarily leads to more “rational” policies’ (2009b: 1,186). 14 Indeed, interest groups and Member States’ governments have had recourse to IIAs to limit the amount of regulation coming from Brussels or at least reshape the

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formulation of proposals, sometimes by producing counter-IIAs. In other words, the IIA instrument can enable the pre-empting of the political debate via proceduralisation according to Radaelli and Meuwese: ‘The argument is simple. Given a politically controversial issue of who has to exercise control on law-making in the EU (with the member states, the European Parliament and business lobbies pushing for more control and the Commission entrenched around the Treaty right to initiate legislation and all that follows), progress on fundamental reforms … is impossible. Theoretical work on [IIA] in the US is clear on the fact that what is at stake with this instrument is the political control of the bureaucracy … Yet in Europe this notion has always been ditched in the formal discourse and the rhetoric surrounding Better Regulation. However, the substance of the debate is political control both in Brussels and in Washington. But this is too hot to handle’ (2008: 4). Political control of the bureaucracy through IIAs is, however, contextual on the political culture of the interest groups, sector where they operate, or country where they are based (see De Francesco et al., 2012). According to Radaelli and De Francesco (2007), research shows that regulations that should not have passed the net benefit test have been adopted quite frequently. The plaice and sole fishery in the North Sea below 55 degrees latitude is mainly a Dutch business. It is noteworthy that DG FISH did not feel obliged to run the exercise because the implementation of the Better Regulation strategy was not in force yet. However, the mandate to conduct impact assessments for each and every DG FISH proposal was due to start in January 2007 and they feared problems trying to pass the flatfish proposal at the Council of Ministers in December 2006 (personal observation of an STECF meeting, March 2007). Other sources of evidence point further at how the fishing industry may use science as part of their political work to leverage direct influence in decision-making and not just in the scientific advisory arena. As Griffin captures it, ‘In attendance at NSRAC meetings I observed that instead of using anecdotal evidence or “fishy stories” to lever support for their cause, representatives from the fishing industry regularly and often successfully, drew on science as a strategy for getting influence. Indeed, in many NSRAC discussions, fishing industry representatives tended to couch their arguments in the conventional scientific vernacular habitually deployed within this very discourse in order to censure the Commission if it had not, in the industry’s view, taken “adequate notice of the science”’ (2009: 570; see also Griffin, 2013). This is in line with other accounts of how the new fisheries governance after 2002 gave the industry stakeholders direct influence in decision-making (Griffin, 2013). Nonetheless, there were elements of this kind of control when it came to timescales. By requesting an IIA the NSRAC fishing industry could slow down the policy process in order to leverage more influence (see Griffin, 2013). The reversal of the burden of proof is not an entirely contingent outcome in the world of EU fisheries management. Hegland and Wilson (2009) make a similar observation for the case of the establishment of a long-term management plan for the western horse mackerel in the pelagic RAC. It is worth noticing that the reversal of the burden of proof is an expectation of the new reform of the CFP, in operation from 1 January 2014. See Linke and Jentoft (2013) for a discussion on the future

The political work of impact assessment103 implications and challenges of this approach in EU fisheries governance and the expected key role to be played by the RACs. 22 Notably, Hegland and Wilson (2009) provide empirical observations in this direction for the case of the pelagic RAC but still frame the RACs as an ‘external peer community’ under the ‘post-normal science’ terms. 23 In this sense, IIAs are no different from any other technologies used in government, as captured in the STS literature that looks into the co-production of technology and politics.

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4 Referencing Europe: usages of Europe in national identity projects Jenny Ozga and Farah Dubois-Shaik

Introduction In this chapter, we work with the idea developed in the Introduction to this volume of conceptualising Europe organically, as a simultaneously real and imagined space of action that comes into being through the actions of groups of actors whose interests are socially constructed (Carter et al., 2015). In this instance, the actors in question are pursuing regional interests, and the work they do in referencing Europe promotes agendas in the ‘home’ contexts of Scotland and canton Zurich through the deployment of discursive resources that present Europe as embracing and sustaining their domestic interests. These two settings – Scotland and canton Zurich – sit oddly within any mechanical or formal approach to understanding Europeanisation: Scotland has no formal authority in European Union (EU) affairs, which are ‘reserved’ to the UK government under the formal rules of the 1999 devolution settlement; canton Zurich is in Switzerland which, in turn, is not ‘in’ the EU, though situated at the heart of Europe. However, as we hope to show in the remainder of the chapter, Europe is a key resource in both of these ‘regional’ spaces: it acts on them and offers sets of ideas that can be mobilised by regional actors in their daily policy-making. Our intention here is both specific to the regional cases that we discuss – Scotland and canton Zurich – and broader. This is because we are arguing for a more flexible view of the potential of Europe as an imaginary for categories of political organisation, such as regions. We contend that this potential of Europe is often invisible or overlooked in conventional, hierarchical conceptualisations of territorial relationships within and across Europe. Consequently, the role that Europe can potentially play as a point of reference within political spaces has gone largely unnoticed – and this in particular when processes of identification are in train, whether in the transition towards an independent nation (as in Scotland) or from an exclusive to an inclusive society (as in canton Zurich). In both cases, we focus on the ways in which regions exploit the imaginary of Europe as a resource for governing, and thus, through these references, 111

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develop new governing forms and relationships that build regional identity, or re-fashion that identity in ways that support a particular governing project. Thus in exploring these regional cases, we can illustrate simultaneously the ‘making’ of Europe and the ‘re-making’ of regions. Governing, in this analysis, is understood as defined and (re)constructed in processes (Clarke, 2009), and in the political work of governing, rather than as an orderly interaction of pre-defined spaces and relationships. Our approach is framed by the interdisciplinary resources offered by sociologie politique (Favell and Guiraudon, 2011; Smith, 2009) so that we highlight the political work that ‘both discursively and interactively seeks to change or reproduce institutions by mobilising values’ (Smith, 2009: 13). This work mobilises or articulates political blocs, builds alliances, negotiates and reconciles interests, and assembles projects that define the direction and purpose of governing (Clarke, 2009: 31). In the case of Scotland, data were drawn from a research council funded study of education and nationalism that analysed the education policies of the Scottish National Party (SNP) government in Scotland.1 In this study, we identified actors’ promotion of a discourse of ‘modernised nationalism’.2 This referenced key historically embedded assumptions about Scottish society, while also identifying the discursive use of essential elements of ‘modernised’ nationalism in pursuit of political independence. Education was selected as the policy field for investigation because it is a space in which national identity may be promoted or re-imagined (Arnott and Ozga, 2010) – and this was clearly understood by SNP actors who saw education as contributing to the building of a distinctive polity: something that education has done in the past (Paterson, 1994). Moreover, the field of education is one in which EU- and European-wide actors are increasingly active (Grek et al., 2013, 2009; Lawn and Grek, 2012), despite their lack of formal authority in this area (Grek and Lawn, 2015). According to Scottish actors’ interpretations, this European approach to education, to a degree, contains and constructs a political and cultural ‘project’ of cooperation, integration and cultural exchange in education offering them critical resources, as a way of marking a difference from what they regard as market-driven, competitive and increasingly privatised education provision in England. Accordingly, and as we will show, ‘Europe’ is referenced discursively to develop and project alternative education policies. In particular, these are held in opposition to Atlantic Fordist models of education – i.e., models that promote a narrative of global competition in education, and subject education to ‘the hegemonic economic imaginary in the world market’ (Jessop and Oosterlynck, 2008). In the case study of canton Zurich, which is not part of the EU, but is part of Europe, data on which this argument is based were gathered from interviews and analysis of policy texts as part of a doctoral study between 2008 and 2009.3 These interviews identified a loose network of actors working on ‘integration’ policy in education – in particular, on educational inequalities of migrants – which transcended formal territorial frontiers of policy action. Here, new European-wide

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indicators set in the course of OECD and Bologna governing practices enabled a European-wide comparison of educational attainment of migrant students to be made, whereby large differences were identified between ‘Swiss’ students and ‘migrant’ students. These results were consequently mobilised by local and regional actors in canton Zurich to bring about change in integration practices in their schools. Therefore, we contend that the existence of a European policy space of ‘shared ideas’ (Nóvoa and Lawn, 2002) was mobilised discursively by actors to make their case – and this in a situation where there was no formal obligation to act. These shared ideas were ones about the problem of integration in education and were circulated, interpreted and ‘translated’ (Freeman, 1999) by this loose network of people, working at different scales of the federation and positioned politically at different points of the political spectrum. Consequently, this policy space can be seen to cut across formal administrative lines of responsibility and power and act as a source of pressure from both ‘above’ and ‘below’ to adhere to common education standards, thus bringing about change in canton Zurich. In the remainder of the chapter, we first connect our studies on education to general arguments for considering regions as ‘spaces for politics’ (Carter and Pasquier, 2010) – in this case, politics of identification – and we also explain the importance of education as an arena in which such politics play out. We then move to a presentation of our two cases in Scotland and canton Zurich, before considering their implications for re-imagining Europe and its Union.

The approach: how actors are building Europe through inward and outward referencing Our general starting point in this chapter, and as we indicated above, is to advocate the study of regions as subjects as well as objects of change (Hudson, 2007: 1,152–1,157). More specifically, we draw attention to the uses of ‘Europe’ as a reference point in support of particular political directions and this even when EU organisations lack formal powers. We see this as an instance of soft governance (Lawn, 2006), a term that conveys well the influence exerted by the EU on education policy in the Member States in the absence of formal powers. Moreover, as is illustrated in our cases, attention to soft power ‘sheds light on the types of governance instruments that divided power systems (e.g. decentralised countries, multi-layered systems, federations) can use to coordinate a policy area without component states having to cede power to a higher level of government’ (Lopez-Santana, 2006: 482–483). Conventional studies have paid little attention to the political work that actors may do in mobilising resources available at the interface of regional-EU interaction in order to strengthen, alter or potentially challenge existing logics of action within the regional space (Jordan, 2003). We argue that the mobilisation of discourse is a highly significant element of the governing work that such actors do, not least because it attempts to provide narrative coherence to

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an overarching ‘project’ of governance (Jacobsson, 2006; Naglo and Waine, 2011) in contexts that may appear un-coordinated or divided. This narrative may be referenced in situations where something is framed as a ‘problem’ by policy-makers, and consequently set in the domestic agenda (Lopez-Santana, 2006: 486). Lopez-Santana (2006) describes how a re-ranking of policies pushes national policy actors to (re)consider courses of action and to appreciate the necessity of a policy development often under ‘the shadow of Europe’ and importantly in the context of possibly ‘falling behind’ other competitors, as we will see in the Swiss case discussed below. In these conditions, policy actors may cite ‘Europe’ in order to legitimise their views and actions to their peers and opponents or to the public (2006: 493). Indeed, the referencing of ‘Europe’ has become particularly marked in education. As a policy field, education is a cornerstone of a space of production of Europe (Lawn and Grek, 2012; Grek, 2009). In the overarching ‘project’ of the European Commission, it takes a particular form as it moves to centre stage in the attempt to build economic recovery through a new Knowledge Economy, promoted by a strong focus on building capacity through education, but with attention to solidarity and social inclusion. Education, in this frame, has moved from its institutionalised, bordered and ordered sequences of provision to become a fluid, flexible and cross-national phenomenon, mirroring the flows of data that move around it (Nóvoa and Lawn, 2002). As Grek and Lawn argue (2015), the emerging policy space is constituted in a series of major changes in EU policy – for example, the adoption of the Bologna Accord harmonising 40 different European higher education systems by creating a single degree system; the Lisbon Process or Open Method of Coordination (OMC) (Gornitzka, 2006); and the Lisbon 2020 agreements. In these processes, benchmarking and comparison are core governing tools across what is referred to as a ‘learning society’, shaped by economic reform, citizenship obligations, employability and the use of OECD policy tools in education (for example the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)) (Ozga, 2013; Lawn and Grek, 2012). These soft governance forms (Lawn, 2006) do not directly challenge traditional, national spheres of influence in education policy: they work through apparently objective, knowledge-based regulatory instruments that support the legitimacy of specific education policies within a broad framework, promoted by the European Commission, of enhanced economic competitiveness and the promotion of life-long and life-wide learning (Lawn and Grek, 2012: 104–105; European Commission, 2007). However, enhanced competitiveness is advocated alongside references to the older building blocks of European identity such as ‘freedom, democracy, justice, diversity, social welfare’ (Fairclough and Wodak, 2008: 115). It is our contention that these older discursive resources can be activated and aligned with new projects of national identification, including in the field of education. This produces, in Fairclough and Wodak’s terms, ‘hegemonic struggles over values, discourses and social practices as well as … nationally-specific

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recontextualisation’ (2008: 115) especially where conflicts over identities, traditions and values touch on deeply entrenched nationalistic attitudes (Oberhuber, 2005), as they do in the field of education. This becomes visible in our two case study countries. Scotland – a stateless nation (McCrone, 1992) – is technically a ‘region’ of the UK, but the continuing process of political devolution and the current Scottish government’s goal of independence for Scotland both challenge that status. Canton Zurich is within Switzerland – a federal state, yet one in which the relationship between the ‘centre’ and the cantonal system is continuously re-negotiated. Both territories are strongly influenced by Europe, and both make very considerable use of ‘Europe’ as a point of reference. We suggest that they do so by using a complex process of ‘inward’ and ‘outward’ referencing, which is productive of powerful governing narratives. In the Scottish case, the SNP’s education and learning policy references inward to implicit shared assumptions about education to underline modernised nationalism’s commitment to social democracy. At the same time, and through outward referencing, it repositions Scotland and realigns it in a European frame (Russell, 2012). In the case of canton Zurich, inward referencing indicates an inflexible nationalism that excludes migrants, while outward referencing attempts to counterbalance this discourse through alignment with inclusive European standards of education opportunity and equity.

Referencing Europe in two national identity ‘projects’ The SNP government: referencing Europe There has been a history in academic scholarship, as well as in the media, of treating ‘England’, ‘Britain’ and the ‘UK’ as interchangeable in relation to education (though there are honourable exceptions – for example Jones, 2003). In terms of education policy-making, UK governments since the 1990s have followed North American rather than European models, and the landscape of education provision in England is closer to that of the USA than to continental Europe. This is reflected in the extent to which ideologies of the market along with adherence to the principles of new institutional economics have driven policy initiatives in education in England such as diversity in school provision, the adoption of parental choice, the adherence to competition as the basis of improvement, and the extent of private sector involvement in education (Ball, 2007). The UK government has also, we contend, been one of the most influential actors in subsuming the European into the global discourse, especially at times of growing ‘Euro-scepticism’ about the future of an enlarged, ‘multispeed’ Europe, and in pursuit of its modernisation project. Yet, since 1999, and following from devolution, the Scottish government (and parliament) has held devolved powers over education and developed its own education policies. In this section, we consider the education politics of the SNP in government (research conducted 2008–9).4 We contend that differences within the UK in relation to education and Europe (among other things) and, especially

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differences between the UK government and the Scottish government, become more evident after the SNP took office, signalling significant change in the electoral and political landscape of Scottish politics. Because it seeks independence for Scotland, the SNP government has been concerned to present itself discursively as a party that could govern more effectively if not restricted by the limited autonomy of devolution. In order to enhance its status as a national government, the SNP has mobilised discursive resources in order to reposition Scotland in alignment with Europe, and especially with selected small social democratic states in Europe (the ‘Skandics’ – as our interviewees refer to them). Europe is an especially important arena for the SNP given its long standing slogan of ‘Independence in Europe’ and its history of using Europe as a reference point. As far back as 1988, the SNP had already responded to UK and transnational developments by locating its policies, including Scotland’s future relationship to the UK, in an international as well as domestic context, and by referencing ‘outward’ (Lynch, 2002; Murkens et al., 2002). As Brown, McCrone and Paterson (1998) argue, the growing significance of the EU was an important factor in sustaining the idea of Scottish self-government between 1979 and 1999. They point to four aspects: first, Europe was attractive to the SNP as an alternative framework of external security and trading opportunities; second, the EU favoured subsidiarity, an argument that could be used in favour of devolution within the UK; third, Europe – and especially small social democratic states – could be referenced as the source of modernising and progressive ideas, in (increasing) contrast to England; and lastly, in the years of the Conservative government’s ‘rolling back the state’, Europe seemed to retain a commitment to a social partnership model which had been rejected by the UK government, but still commanded support from people in Scotland. Hearn also suggests that Scottish nationalism was reinforced by Europeanisation because ‘the steady growth of the European Union has both eaten into the sovereignty of the British state, and made viability within the EU seem more plausible, and Scottish independence less isolationist’ (2000: 5). As one of our interviewees put it: ‘It’s getting into this understanding that this is where we will stand in this grand European Union and ultimately that what Independence is about in a global world, is about representation, because no nation stands alone. None’ (Senior policy-maker, interview, 2009). Discourse is very significant as a policy resource for the SNP in seeking to persuade the public that government is safe in its hands, and that independence is a realistic and unthreatening possibility. Indeed, since coming to power, the SNP administration has been highly focused on ‘crafting the narrative’ – a phrase used repeatedly by senior Scottish government members. This narrative of governance stresses their competence and the limits of the current devolution ‘settlement’: I think there is a reasonable understanding in Scotland generally not just in the political classes or in the media … A constant of the SNP government narrative

Usages of Europe in national identity projects117 is we can do what we can with the powers we have got but we could do more with more powers … I think we already see the country go into that phase of the debate so what we are seeing now is significant policy debates open up around economic powers, around borrowing powers, around the ability or the inability of a Scottish government to properly respond when they have their hands tied behind their back. (Senior policy-maker, interview, 2009)

This modernised nationalism is present in the ‘National Conversation’, a major consultation exercise through which the SNP government attempted to build support for independence through creating a public forum for debate. It references traditional nationalist resources (sovereignty of the people) but in a new form that is open and inclusive:‘We also believe that sovereignty in our country lies with its people. As a sovereign people, the people of Scotland – and we alone – have the right to decide how we are governed’ (Salmond, 2007). The SNP essentially blends older traditions of political sovereignty and self-­ determination with a ‘modernised’ vision of an independent Scotland. Against this background, we now go on to consider how the SNP discursively promotes the development of ‘modernised nationalism’ in the policy area of education. Education is a resource for the production of modernised nationalism because it has played a particularly strong role historically in the shaping and support of national identity (Paterson, 1997; McCrone, 1992), as one of the ‘holy trinity’ (Paterson, 1994) of institutions – Law and the Church being the others – that encapsulated Scotland’s ‘stateless nationhood’ from 1707 to 1999. Thus, education is a site of strongly embedded myths and traditions that reference the ‘public’ nature of schooling and its role in both the construction of ‘community’ and in driving economic progress. The myth takes a form peculiar to Scotland: it is both meritocratic and egalitarian, so that education carries references to fairness and equality, while also sustaining academic traditionalism. These are constant themes in twentieth-century Scottish education policy especially in the period of post-1945 social democracy (McPherson and Raab, 1988). Education retains its place in the public consciousness as a ‘collective good’ (Russell, 2012; Jones, 2003). As we state above, the SNP positions Scotland’s education/learning policy as a site of construction of modernised nationalism through a complex mix of ‘inward’ and ‘outward’ referencing. Through inward referencing, implicit meanings of the education system and the nation are mobilised; through outward referencing, Scotland is repositioned and realigned in a European frame (Arnott and Ozga, 2010). The deployment of this strategy is evidenced in a range of policy developments in the education field, for example in establishing Education Scotland,5 pursuing curriculum reform, restructuring provision from early years through to the college sector, and remodelling the relations between local authorities, schools and the inspectorate (Ozga et al., 2013). Learning is a key element of this project: the promotion of learning from evidence and data, and the contribution thus made to accountability and

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t­ransparency, are deployed as resources in building consensus that enables a ‘learning government’ to lead a ‘learning nation’ towards greater autonomy. The Scottish universities are an important site for the deployment of this discursive strategy as the SNP government seeks to draw them into their governing project through initiatives that recognise the problem of combining global competitiveness with ‘local’ or regional need and priorities. For example, a review of university governance (Von Prondzynski et al., 2012) alongside the introduction of University Sector Outcome Agreements in 2012–13 seeks to draw the sector into a debate on its public (and national) role and responsibilities. In this process considerable discursive resources have been deployed by the Scottish government around the ‘public’ nature of university governance, stressing the need of ‘society to protect its broader investment in education, knowledge and intellectual innovation in a way that makes the most of a long Scottish tradition adapted to the needs of the 21st century world’ (Von Prondzynski et al., 2012). ‘The Learning Nation’ has been employed as a discursive strategy within this ‘project’ (Russell, 2012). At the same time, referencing inwards (through quotation from Robert Burns) encourages the identification of difference (from higher education policy in England) while also signalling the renewal of a ‘social contract’: And this nation pioneered free education for all, which resulted in Scots inventing and explaining much of the modern world. We called this the Scottish Enlightenment. And out of educational access came social mobility as we reached all the talents of a nation to change the world for the better. We can do so again … The rocks will melt wi’ the sun before I allow tuition fees to be imposed on Scottish students – upfront, or back door … This is part of the Scottish Settlement, our social contract with the people. (Salmond, 2011)

At the same time, external referencing to Europe is pursued to locate this project within a European frame, as this speech by the Cabinet Secretary for Education, welcoming the 3rd Bologna Policy Forum to Edinburgh, illustrates: Scottish universities are known across the globe for their excellence and have a proud tradition of attracting students from home and abroad. Today, the fact that we have more universities in the global premier league per head of population than any other nation on earth shows our higher education system remains a source a national pride. We want to build on this success and heritage and we need to continue to ensure our universities and education policies for higher education are relevant and understood around Europe and beyond. (Russell, 2012)

Indeed, ‘Europe’ is presented as a ‘policy community’ with which interaction is productive and policy learning supported; a source of policy priorities – for example, in relation to underachievement: ‘That is definitely an example where the policy direction is strongly influenced by comparative work happening across Europe and wider. Positively Europe, actually’ (Policy analyst, ­interview, 2010). Interviewees were eager to portray Europe and their interactions with Europe

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as a network of people and ideas, which travel and connect in unexpected and interesting ways. Moreoever, they constructed the European education policy space as an area of exchange of experience and good practice, operating through informal rather than formal relationships, through policy dialogue, learning and trust: the beauty of … the EU way of thinking is that if it is a good idea it will be jumped on … we get to make these arguments but we get to put it to the Danish, the Irish – what do you think, do you think this is sensible and that is real constructive politics. That is how EU politics works, it is not about ‘we are bigger than you’ therefore … It is about how constructive is your argument. (Senior policy-maker, interview, 2009)

This discussion has attempted to show how ‘Europe’ is a resource for the SNP’s political project: it strengthens the ‘logic of action’ of the agenda for independence, and offers a resource for smoothing over or concealing the tensions between historically embedded conceptualisations of education and the imperatives of modernisation. In education policy, ‘Europe’ provides a focus for external referencing, a partial antidote to the strong pull exerted by Scotland’s powerful neo-liberal neighbour, a location of ideas (or imaginaries) of a social contract and public provision. Referencing Europe in canton Zurich educational integration policy We now continue with a discussion of educational integration policy discourses in the case of canton Zurich. Following the logic of the earlier discussion in advocating the study of regions as subjects as well as objects of change (Hudson, 2007: 1,152–1,157), we understand that canton Zurich should be problematised as ‘relational’, ‘connected’ and ‘porous’ (Amin, 2004; Allen et al., 1998). Yet we also understand that, these processes of relationality notwithstanding, ‘territory matters’ (Carter and Pasquier, 2010). To grasp how, Carter and Pasquier (2010) propose that we examine how actors deploy and align territorial discourses with other social and political representations, cultural values and regulatory interests to stabilise them as representative of a region. As in the Scottish case, territorial discourse in canton Zurich, when aligned with educational policy norms, became a powerful resource in legitimising change in integration policy. As we shall show, this occured through inward referencing, whereby actors reproblematised migration, and outward referencing, whereby actors connected these new problematisations to European education standards. To explore these practices here, this part first discusses the structural and discursive framing of integration in education, and then moves on to give examples of inward and outward referencing. Migrant ‘integration’ policy is the focus of this discussion. This has been actualised through a discourse that applied a territorial-sovereignty approach to membership (Dubois-Shaik, 2011) – in other words, by attempting to define ‘who’ can belong to the local order and ‘what’ this requires. A key issue in the analysis is how actors made

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use of EU-wide institutions (here, indicators) (Parsons, 2007; Jacquot and Woll, 2004; Radaelli, 2001) in bringing about change in these notions of membership. As we saw earlier, this approach foregrounds the potential for re-shaping existing logics of action within domestic systems. Swiss logics of action include three contradictory aspects and interests which ultimately serve to reinforce a traditional image of closed and exclusive nationalism: i) those of adherence to universalist human rights, ii) those of being part of a global market and iii) those of maintaining national closure. These three contradictory aspects and interests became visible through the following three arguments founded on the results from the related research study. First, integration is conceptualised and framed as ‘cultural’ rather than ‘civic’. Integration policy demands that migrants6 should integrate by adhering to the local legal order and customs, and socially engaging in the local culture, whereby the local ‘culture’ is homogenised. The idea of cultural difference is problematised by using assimilationist, ‘cultural integration’ frames, which spread the idea of a standard culture and of integration into ‘Swiss’ culture, distinct and identifiable from other cultures. Arguably, such a problematisation of cultural difference is in tension with the social democratic ideal of citizenship and participation, because it does not reflect the ‘civic’ nature of membership (Benhabib, 2004). Second, integration is framed as ‘economic’. Swiss immigration and migration law has been orientated towards an economic logic. Flückiger (1998) suggests that the inflow of migrant workers helped the Swiss economy to overcome a shortage of manpower and sustain economic growth from the 1960s. However, the channelling of migrants into distinctive sectors of the labour market contributed to the preservation of divisions, and Switzerland remains one of the OECD countries with the lowest rates of naturalisation, which are severely constrained by rigorous administrative requirements, subjective evaluation and high costs with no guarantee of positive results. According to Liebig (2002), in May 2000, the agreement on free mobility with EU15 and the three EFTA countries was approved by popular vote, which lifted restrictions progressively until 2007. Most economic needs were expected to be accommodated by EU/EFTA workers and comprehensive legislation was drafted for citizens from other countries based on skill evaluation or the point system. Asylum policy was simultaneously revised and integration policy was eventually developed for all migrants, refugees, workers and their families alike. Third, re-territorialisation through participation in European projects in turn constitutes a dilemma given the foundations of liberal democracy with its universalist human rights commitments (Benhabib, 2004). If nation states, such as Switzerland, are extending their interests through participation in European or transnational migration and human rights agreements and other transnational policy spaces, then the restriction of membership rights given these extended interests is contradictory. It could be considered a breach of human rights – if political membership is understood as a human right (Benhabib, 2004) – for people in a social democracy, who are a part of the nation and

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contributing to economic stability and social development. This is especially evident in relation to the long-term presence of third and fourth generation migrants who are routinely refused membership rights, and who are often submerged in ‘integration’ policy language, which tends to portray migration as a relatively ‘new’ phenomenon. In short, and in contrast to the Scottish SNP’s case of discourse constructing a modernised nationalism, in the Swiss case dominant policy discourse, including in education, for a long time operated as a carrier of old modalities and frames of restricted political membership or citizenship. Yet this approach was to come into sharp relief when a range of policy actors began to participate in European and standard-setting processes under the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)7 and the Bologna Process.8 PISA has become one of the key international comparative measures of the effectiveness of schooling systems, and its data sets are heavily used by the EU and by its Member States (Grek, 2009). PISA operates through a politics of mutual accountability and comparison (Nóvoa and Yariv-Mashal, 2003) with the voluntary participation of nation states. Switzerland joined the Bologna Process in 2003 and already by 2008 was realigning its policy logic to the Process’s core principles. For example, the education reform introduced in 2008 in Switzerland bears the trademark of ‘HARMOS’ or Harmonising of Public Schools throughout the Swiss cantons. The core principles of HARMOS are firmly based on a design to heighten the employability and mobility of citizens, similar to the Bologna Declaration, but also involve the referencing of OECD data and agenda setting through the Lisbon Council. The logic pervading HARMOS is of policy that is ‘informed’ or ‘evidenced’ through comparative education standards drawn from international studies, the OECD and the Bologna reform process, and is thus deeply embedded in an agenda of common or shared ‘problem solving’ in which education is seen to provide solutions. In the case of canton Zurich, these practices in education governance were to become a medium through which certain kinds of knowledge and education data were used by key policy-makers to re-frame or ‘solve’ a specific problematised understanding of migrants within the Swiss systems of schooling and society at large. This problematisation framed education as an institution responsible for delivering integration. This new understanding emerged from differences revealed through participation in PISA 2000 and 2003, in which Swiss results showed large differences between migrant students and ‘Swiss’ students concerning educational attainment. It was grounded in ideas about essential differences reflected in the (lower) educational attainment of migrant students (non-naturalised) by comparison with their ‘Swiss’ counterparts, and consequent differences in access to professional opportunities. To begin with this ‘problem’ was explained from within the ‘old’ discourse of restricted political membership. It was argued that this problem derived from insufficient ‘integration’ of young migrants and their families into Swiss society in general, which prevented them from being ‘full’ participants – and

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this was reflected in lower attainment levels. However, follow-up on PISA data then evidenced a causal link between institutional discrimination – such as through streaming mechanisms – and inequity in education (Gomolla and Radtke, 2002). The following example of a policy-maker’s narrative illustrates this shifting problematisation: There are also consistent discourses in education, and these are strongly influenced by an EDK9 politics. Well if one looks at the EDK action plan PISA 2000, then there is definitely a particular kind of language in it – supported by the recommendations of the EDK of 1991 on the schooling of ‘migrant children’, which are children speaking a foreign language [non-native speakers]. The aspect ‘foreign-language speaker’ then becomes a particularity, a particular requirement, which is soon defined as a disability. And in the EDK programme the language advancement discourse features very strongly, but also other streams of discourse about cultural differences. Others say through [the lens of] research that it is the whole structural problem of student differentiation – an argument which then is strengthened by PISA. (policy-maker and researcher in Conférence des rectrices et recteurs des hautes écoles pédagogiques (COHEP), interview, 2009)

Many of the policy-makers’ narratives which we identified reflected a concern about this problematising of migrants or ‘foreign-language’ speakers and how this promoted a ‘cultural’ translation of integration policy, and a focus on migration and special needs or disability. Migrant students were found to be increasingly classified as disabled and streamed into special needs education: The EDK attempts a narrowing down of the term ‘integration’ without claiming that it could be a definition … Well, the traditional content of integration is the integration of disabled children, therefore in a special needs sense. However, I would say that later the discussion around integration then ran under the label of ‘inclusion’, which is not so popular in Switzerland, but until recently was still running. Well the migration area and the special needs area took up this question simultaneously so to speak. Still, the special needs pedagogy has a much longer tradition and that angle, one has to always make clear, because one has extreme overlaps. With respect to the difficulty of the special classes [for children with learning difficulties], there one has the segregation of any form of disability, which is … too much. Learning disabled, behaviourally disabled, whatever, and there one has also a discussion whether there is an overrepresentation of migrants in these classes, which later possibly are classified as disabled due to different cultural behaviour. (Senior policy-maker in EDK, interview, 2009)

In response, many policy actors argued that the introduction of integration policy and related reform in education nevertheless brought some positive change in policy paradigms, and that this was necessary. A lot of this reasoning was situated in outward referencing of comparison and raising equity standards in education. The following examples of policy-makers’ narratives illustrate how PISA data and comparison were used to align cantonal governing of education with

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European standards, and how policy actors mobilised these data to account for the change in political direction. This policy-maker (former finance, health and education minister of canton Zurich, jointly responsible for introducing HARMOS) speaks about changes in the governing paradigm brought about by Swiss participation in PISA, and how local implementation of standards may not be the best solution, but is nonetheless a necessary one: The shock was that people in Switzerland still had the impression that they had the best schools. And they still do. And this shock that the schools are not that good, did affect a lot through PISA. In canton Zurich for the Upper School Reform we did nearly the same kind of tests and had almost identical results as PISA. The statement that PISA does not fit for Switzerland is not true. One has to observe that PISA has … become a true eyesore for the ministerial bureaucracy and the education ministers … It has naturally disrupted the entire way in which education politics [policy] was being governed. Well, I would say change in [the] governing paradigm is moving forward in the right direction, but the coherence of the system is not yet achieved … But the type of standards, which we are making with HARMOS, may lead to a petrifying of the system. I think England or Canada or the Nordic states are doing it better than us, by keeping the system flexible through school tests. But it is better to be doing something rather than nothing at all. (Former Finance, Health and Education Minister of canton Zurich, interview, 2008)

PISA data are used by many nation states to justify change or provide support for existing policy direction or reform in the domestic, national and European contexts (Grek, 2009). Reference to PISA is well understood to signal the adherence of a nation to reform agendas (Steiner-Khamsi, 2004: 76). The growing trend in Switzerland to look across both cantonal and national borders for ‘best practice’ is confirmed by most interviews conducted for the study reported on here, in the area of education policy as well as that of ­migration. For example: Seen from a Swiss point of view, Zurich has become a leading canton in terms of reforms … I think this has to do with two things: Zurich is a large and rich canton, in Swiss terms. Therefore large departments such as the one I head have more finances and personnel … However, one has to say that this is an international development. This is the OECD, this is the European Union … From this point of view, Switzerland is simply being sucked into the development … Hardly any European country can afford not to participate in PISA. Which means that measuring and comparing is the topic of the day. Switzerland simply participates. (Education Directorate: Public School Office Zurich, 2009)

National follow-up studies to PISA in Swiss education research tried to i­dentify the reasons behind the results and what they could mean for cantons within the Swiss education system. A key issue in the questions posed to Swiss policy actors in the interviews we conducted was what kind of knowledge and information was being used to inform ‘integration’ policy in their respective

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areas of work. It was clear that PISA and the participation in an international comparative programme were having effects: ‘integration’ policy texts in education were peppered with terminology such as ‘standards’, ‘indicators’ and ‘quality’. This aligns with the Lisbon Agenda (Gornitzka, 2006), where benchmarking and comparison are key governing tools. Considering that this is one of the tools of Lisbon and the European Commission, it is significant that PISA is a clear source of how migrants` educational attainment is viewed, drawn from and referenced in policy relating to migrant ‘integration’ in canton Zurich. PISA also clearly featured in the integration report put together by the Swiss Federal Office for Migration (BFM), as is stated by this senior policymaker, who was responsible for drafting the report: The action plan PISA was even made before the integration report of the BFM. We have taken up the entire PISA matter within the report in the context of schools … Of course, one can quantify this. We wanted to also know, how many people are we talking about, how much money is involved that we need to invest in this? We did not have any reliable data, we made estimations and took certain measures. And placed them into the political landscape, so that the discourse about the problem is effectuated … The BFS [Federal Statistical Office] … also did not have any data. (Director of Federal Office for Migration, interview, 2008)

To summarise, our research revealed how cross-cutting and transnational policy instruments that are increasingly used to govern education in Europe, entered into canton Zurich and subsequent Swiss policy space through actors’ re-problematisations of integration, and were used by actors to reshape the ‘old’ policy discourses around integration. In this process of change, the European discourse of benchmarks and standards became the focus of outward ­referencing that challenged the inward referencing of re-territorialised definitions of integration. This was particularly evident in the alignment of new meanings of ‘integration’ with Europe constructed as an advanced, successful provider of economic growth through ‘better’ education.

Conclusion Operating from within an inclusive ontology of Europe,10 in this chapter we have re-imagined the construction of Europe as occurring through the continuous actions of groups of local actors whose interests are socially constructed. We have demonstrated this by revealing the discursive practices of actors in Scotland and canton Zurich when building national identity projects and in the area of education policy. We have argued that, through reconciling multiple imaginaries of territory and policy, actors in both localities gave meaning not only to their ‘region’ but also to ‘Europe’. In this way, Europe is not treated as a static variable affecting change, but instead as a space of action which is organic and unfinished.

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While we acknowledge that neither Scotland nor canton Zurich falls into the classic (national) definition of a region having formal authority, the discursive ‘political work’ done by local actors shows how both spaces make significant use of ‘Europe’ as a point of reference to support specific ‘projects’ of local governance. In the case of Scotland, Europe is a resource because it offers political models that (at least discursively) contrast with the rampant neo-liberalism of its English neighbour. It is also a political space that seems to be familiar to Scottish policy-makers, as they are, perhaps, relatively comfortable with the processes of policy-making and networking in the European scene, where ideas may be floated and coalitions formed and re-formed around issues and problems. The (unfinished) ‘process’ of political devolution and the adoption of a strategy of ‘learning’ governing, requires that the SNP government adopts open, consultative and flexible forms of political work that closely resemble those in play in Europe, perhaps especially in the field of education. Kingdon (1984) has described this form of policy-making as a ‘policy soup’ in which specialists/experts/epistemic communities/policy-makers try out their ideas in a variety of ways. In addition, Scottish policy actors are also accustomed to occupying relatively fluid roles, embedded in different settings (Europe, the UK, Scotland, local government). These factors may all assist these ‘regional’ policy actors in deploying discursive resources that present Europe as embracing and sustaining their domestic interests. In the Swiss case, the deployment of Europe by cantonal actors produces evidence of tensions through the referencing of territoriality and identity, while simultaneously drawing on the Bologna and PISA discourses against educational inequality. European-wide education evaluation practices, including the practice of comparing standards through data, enabled local cantonal actors to re-problematise integration not as a cultural problem owned by migrants, but as an institutional discriminatory practice owned by schools (and governments). This political work in one canton soon encouraged federal central government and intercantonal governing bodies to respond and introduce new forms of integration policy in education. Through both inward and outward referencing, old constructions of immigration were challenged by new ones, in which Europe was represented as a champion of change. The extent to which transforming understandings of immigration have completely overcome dominant discourses, however, remains to be seen (Dubois-Shaik, 2011).

Notes  1 ESRC-funded project ‘Education and Nationalism: The Discourse of Education Policy in Scotland’ (RES-000-2-2893) PI Dr Margaret Arnott, Co-I J. Ozga. Though the funded research ended in 2009, we have continued to interview policy-makers at regular intervals since then, and draw on some of these data here.  2 The methodological approach focused on discourse analysis of policy texts and

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interviews with key policy actors in government, or supporting government (i.e. policy analysts, advisers) (30 interviews in all).  3 Interviews were with different policy-makers in federal ministries, the cantonal Education Office in Zurich, and policy-makers in education services, both private and public were interviewed (24 interviews in total).   4 The SNP was elected a minority government in 2007, and returned with a majority in 2011.   5 Education Scotland is a new agency, formed by amalgamating the Inspectorate with Learning and Teaching Scotland, and thus emphasising the inspectorate’s role in development.   6 i.e. non-Swiss nationality holders.  7 www.oecd.org/pisa/.  8 www.ond.vlaanderen.be/hogeronderwijs/bologna/.   9 Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education – cross-cantonal education governing body. 10 According to an inclusive ontology, Europe’s ‘reality is not natural, but co-produced by people as groups’; ‘institutions are not detached from actors but their interactions are critical’; ‘political action is guided by individuals whose interests are socially constructed’; there is an ‘emphasis on the ties between the macro and micro, institutions and power and actions of individuals and groups in more or less structured social spheres’ (all from Kauppi, 2010: 28–31).

References Allen, J., Cochrane, A. and Massey, D. (1998) Re-thinking the region, London: Routledge. Amin, A. (2004) ‘Regions unbound: Towards a new politics of place’, Geografiska Annaler, vol. 6B, no. 1, pp. 33–44. Arnott, M. and Ozga, J. (2010) ‘Education and nationalism: The discourse of education policy in Scotland’, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 335–350. Ball, S. (2007) Education PLC, London: Routledge. Benhabib, S. (2004) The rights of others: Aliens, residents and citizens, Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. Brown, A., McCrone, D. and Paterson, L. (1998) Politics and society in Scotland, Basingstoke: Macmillan. Carter, C. and Pasquier, R. (2010) ‘The Europeanisation of regions as “spaces for politics”: A research agenda’, Regional and Federal Studies, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 295–314. Carter, C., Freeman, R. and Lawn, M. (2015) ‘Governing Europe’s spaces: European Union re-imagined [Introduction]’, in Carter, C. and Lawn, M. (eds.) Governing Europe’s spaces: European Union re-imagined, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 1–23. Clarke, J. (2009) ‘Governance puzzles’, in Budd, L. and Harris, L. (eds.) ­e-Governance: Managing or governing?, London: Routledge, pp. 29–52. Dubois-Shaik, F. (2011) ‘Education, governance and frames of political member-

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ship: Migrant ‘integration’ policy as discourse in the Swiss case within Europe’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh. European Commission (2007) Lifelong learning programme. Available: http:// eacea.ec.europa.eu/llp/about_llp/about_llp_en.php. Fairclough, N. and Wodak, R. (2008) ‘The Bologna Process and the knowledge economy: A critical discourse analysis approach’, in Jessop, B., Fairclough, N. and Wodak, R. (eds.) Education and the knowledge based economy in Europe, Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, pp. 109–127. Favell, A. and Guiraudon, V. (eds.) (2011) Sociology of the European Union, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Flückiger, Y. (1998) ‘The labour market in Switzerland: The end of a special case?’, International Journal of Manpower, vol. 19, no. 6, pp. 369–395. Freeman, R. (1999) ‘What is translation?’, Evidence and Policy, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 429–447. Gomolla, M. and Radtke, F. (2002) Institutionelle diskriminierung: Die ­herstellung ethnischer Differenz in der Schule, Opladen, Germany: Leske + Budrich. Gornitzka, A. (2006). ‘The open method of coordination as practice: A watershed in European education policy?’, Available: www.arena.uio.no. Grek, S. (2009) ‘Governing by numbers: The PISA effect in Europe’, Journal of Education Policy, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 23–37. Grek, S. and Lawn, M. (2015) ‘Measuring Europe: Making sense of Europe through data and statistics’, in Carter, C. and Lawn, L. (eds.) Governing Europe’s spaces: European Union re-imagined, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 153–171. Grek, S., Lawn, M., Ozga, J. and Segerholm, C. (2013) ‘Governing by inspection? European inspectorates and the creation of a European education policy space’, Comparative Education, vol. 49, no. 4, pp. 486–502. Grek, S., Lawn, M., Lingard, B., Ozga, J., Rinne, R., Segerholm, C. and Simola, H. (2009) ‘National policy brokering and the construction of the European education space in England, Sweden, Finland and Scotland’, Comparative Education, vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 5–22. Hearn, J. (2000) Claiming Scotland, Edinburgh: Polygon. Hudson, R. (2007) ‘Regions and regional uneven development forever? Some reflective comments upon theory and practice’, Regional Studies, vol. 41, no. 9, pp. 1,149–1,160. Jacobsson, B. (2006) ‘Regulated regulators: Global trends of state regulation’, in Djelic, M. and Sahlin-Andersson, K. (eds.) Transnational governance: Institutional dynamics of regulation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 205–225. Jacquot, S. and Woll, C. (2004) Les usages de l’Europe: Acteurs et transformations Européennes, Paris: L’Harmattan. Jessop, B. and Oosterlynck, A. (2008) ‘Cultural political economy: On making the cultural turn without falling into soft economic sociology’, GeoForum, vol. 39, pp. 1,155–1,169.

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Jones, K. (2003) Education in Britain, Cambridge: Cambridge Polity Press. Jordan, A. (2003) ‘The Europeanization of national government and policy: A departmental perspective’, British Journal of Political Science, vol. 33, pp. 261–282. Kauppi, N. (2010) ‘The political ontology of European integration’, Comparative European Politics, vol. 8 (Special Issue), pp. 19–36. Kingdon, J. (1984) Agendas, alternatives and public policies, New York: Harper Collins. Lawn, M. (2006) ‘Soft governance and the learning spaces of Europe’, Comparative European Politics, vol. 4, pp. 272–288. Lawn, M. and Grek, S. (2012) Europeanizing education: Governing a new policy space, Oxford: Symposium Books. Liebig, T. (2002) Switzerland’s immigration policy: Lessons for Germany? Research Institute for Labour Economics and Labour Law, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. Available: www.faa.unisg.ch/~/media/Internet/Content/Dateien/ InstituteUndCenters/FAA/Publikationen/Diskussionspapiere/2002/dp76.ashx. Lopez-Santana, M. (2006) ‘Domestic implications of European soft law: Framing and transmitting change in employment policy’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 481–499. Lynch, P. (2002) SNP: The history of the Scottish National Party, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. McCrone, D. (1992) Understanding Scotland: A sociology of a stateless nation, London: Routledge. McPherson, A. and Raab, C. (1988) Governing education: a sociology of policy since 1945, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Murkens, J. (with Jones, P. and Keating, M.) (2002) Scottish independence: A practical guide, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Naglo, K. and Waine, A. (2011) ‘Culture’, in Krossa, A. (ed.) Europe in a global context, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 12–25. Nóvoa, A. and Lawn, M. (2002) Fabricating Europe: The formation of an education space, Utrecht: Kluwer. Nóvoa, A. and Yariv-Mashal, T. (2003) ‘Comparative research in education: A mode of governance or a historical journey?’, Comparative Education, vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 423–443. Oberhuber, F. :(2005) ‘Deliberation or “mainstreaming”? Empirically researching the European Convention’, in Wodak, R. and Chilton, P. (eds.) A new agenda for critical discourse analysis: Theory, methodology and interdisciplinarity, Amsterdam, Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, pp. 165–187. Ozga, J. (2013) ‘Accountability as a policy technology: Accounting for education performance in Europe’, International Review of Administrative Science, vol. 79, no. 2, pp. 292–309. Ozga, J., Baxter, J., Clarke, J., Grek, S. and Lawn, M. (2013) ‘The politics of e­ducational change: Governing and school inspection in England and Scotland’, Swiss Journal of Sociology, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 205–224. Parsons, C. (2007) ‘Puzzling out the EU role in national politics’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 14, no. 7, pp. 1,135–1,149.

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Paterson, L. (1997) ‘Policy-making in Scottish education: A case of pragmatic nationalism’, in Clarke, M. and Munn, P. (eds.) Education in Scotland: Policy and practice from pre-school to secondary, London: Routledge, pp. 138–156. Paterson, L. (1994) The autonomy of modern Scotland, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Radaelli, C. (2001) ‘The domestic impact of European Union policy: Notes on concepts, methods, and the challenge of empirical research’, Politique Européenne, vol. 2, no. 5, pp. 107–142. Russell, M. (2012) ‘Speech to SNP Conference October 2012’. Available: www. snp.org/blog/post/2012/oct/snp-conference-address-michael-russell-msp. Salmond, A. (2011) ‘Speech to the Scottish National Party’, Spring Conference, Glasgow, Scotland (12 March). Available: http://caledonianmercury.com/ 2011/03/12/first-minister-alex-salmonds-speech-to-the-snp-spring-confer​ ence/0015385. Salmond, A. (2007) Speech introducing the consultation paper ‘A National Conversation’ (August). Available: www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/constitution/ a-national-conversation. Smith, A. (2009) ‘Studying the government of the EU: The promise of political sociology’, Paper presented to Europa Institute seminar series ‘Practising EU Government’, Edinburgh University: Edinburgh (20 February). Steiner-Khamsi, G. (ed.) (2004) The global politics of educational borrowing and lending, New York: Teachers College Press. Von Prondzynski, F., Brotherstone, T., McWhirter, I. and Parker, R. (2012) Report of the review of higher education governance in Scotland. Available: www.­ scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0038/00386780.pdf.

III Spaces revealed

5 Consulting to Europe: knowledge agents and the building of Europe Bruce Ross

Introduction This book invites us to re-imagine Europe and its Union. In this chapter, I contribute to this agenda by putting in evidence the various practices of consultants who, I argue, perform a critical, though informal and ill-defined role in the construction of the European Union (EU). Indeed, although consultants have become actors in European integration processes, their work in the governing of Europe has seldom been analysed. But first, who are we talking about? There is no clear definition of a ‘consultant’, other than in the medical world. It is generally understood to mean a professional who provides advice in a particular area such as management, policy-making or other specialised fields. A consultant is usually an expert in a specific sphere and has a wide knowledge of the subject. Whether working internally, in a company or organisation, or employed externally the consultant is available to be consulted by other departments or individuals, firms or other agencies requiring their specialist expertise and experience. When working within the EU policy-making process, the consultant’s expertise tends to lie in providing advice in a combination of two fields: specific EU policy areas and the decision-making process itself. The consultant advises on policy developments and on how these might affect a particular individual, company or group. Some consultancies are highly specialised; others offer a suite of services over a broad range of policy areas. As EU policies have multiplied and become more complex, the role of consultants has changed and become more important. Consultants can no longer survive by simply monitoring and describing developments. More than ever they must add value by anticipating and analysing, and helping clients to influence policy, and to disseminate their views in innovative ways. For all these reasons, some scholars have conceptualised consultants as ‘knowledge agents’ – i.e., someone who both creates and brokers knowledge (Creplet et al., 2001). In this conception, a consultant (and a consultancy firm) does not merely perform a ‘neutral role’ moving knowledge from one place to 133

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another. Rather, from this perspective, a consultant both produces knowledge and uses it strategically. When performing this role, consulting firms can emerge as ‘major actors of the knowledge based economy’ (Creplet et al., 2001: 1517). Following this interpretation, in this chapter I describe how, in advising either clients or EU public actors, a consultant can modify their positions and behaviour by deploying knowledge about the EU and its policies, thus contributing to the very construction of policy ideas. Performing this role of knowledge agent is also facilitated by the fact that consultants are often well placed to advise clients on the interaction of several policy areas and how they might have an impact on businesses or the wider public. In my own work, for example, I focus on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and related policy areas such as trade, environment, food safety, animal health and welfare. This allows clients to adapt their approach to the EU and to influence policy developments to their benefit. In investigating the professional work of consultants in the social construction of Europe, the chapter mainly deploys an autobiographical method (Coffey, 2004). My own experience and practice as a consultant are the primary sources used. In addition, and where possible, I have connected my own observations to those made in the literature, or linked them to conversations I have had with my colleagues. Yet for the most part, the contents of the chapter represent my narrative – my story – and how I make sense of the profession. This approach to the object of study is consistent with de-centred approaches on network governance (e.g. Bevir and Richards, 2009). Accordingly, and in keeping with the inclusive ontology of Europe as set out in the Introduction to this book (Carter et al., 2015),1 the EU space of action is not conceptualised ‘as any given set of characteristics. It is the stories people use to construct, convey and explain traditions, dilemmas and practices’ (Bevir and Richards, 2009: 13).

Studying the work of consultancies: how others see it The role of consultants: what the literature tells us Within EU studies, the work of consultants and consultancies in the construction of the EU is both under-explored and under-problematised. Indeed, a survey of the main literature within EU studies reveals that for the most part we only find mention of consultants when grouped together with a range of other actors described as ‘lobbyists’ or ‘interest groups’. This point was already acknowledged by Lahusen in the early 2000s who stated that consultants were only ever referred to as part of a larger group of actors: ‘European federations and associations, direct company representation and amongst others, professional consultants (e.g. Mazey and Richardson 1993; Greenwood 1997; Grant 1993)’ (2002: 695: my emphasis). Within this broad field, analytical attention has been paid to collective action, rather than to the role of specialist consultants: ‘Although these are often informally recognised as being important players in the game, remarkably few studies have dealt with third-party representation of business interest’ (Bouwen, 2002: 367).

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In these general surveys, the work of consultants has often been assumed to be that of ‘interest intermediation’ – the bringing together of seekers and providers of goods, information and services. For example, interest intermediation can mean that, instead of the state imposing its government on the economy and society, public bodies govern with and alongside groups who represent varying collective interests and thus engage in interest intermediation. This point is elaborated upon by Lahusen (2002). He argued that consultants have been able to successfully provide professional skills and services above and beyond the specific interests or issues to be dealt with … Professionalization would lead to the institutionalization of commercial consultancy, both in the sense of establishing, organizing and controlling a public affairs ‘market’ and of becoming an effective and legitimate means of interest intermediation. (Lahusen, 2002: 697)

Part of this development has been that commercial consultancies have adopted more of a business style of interest intermediation in contrast to the advocatory approach that, according to his findings, the majority of interest groups and European federations were committed to (Lahusen, 2002: 697). Lahusen questioned whether these developments led to fragmentation of the European consultancy market, or whether they bolstered business integration and concentration among businesses. His survey found that both occurred. Large European consultancy offices were often part of multinational consulting companies, ‘while more than 50% of all law firms and political consultancies had less than seven employees’ (Lahusen, 2002: 704). He found that political consultancies, in particular, were smaller operations – perhaps due to the need for personalised skills and contacts in this market segment. As far as client profiles are concerned, Lahusen found that the largest group were individual companies, as they had significant economic interests affected by EU regulation and funding. Other significant client groups were trade associations and government bodies, with NGOs being a smaller but nevertheless important group. Lahusen concluded that ‘commercial consultancies have established themselves as an accepted and important provider of policy relevant services’ (2002: 709), that ‘the [consultancy] business has grown and established itself gradually as an accepted and legitimate route of monitoring and influencing European policy-making’ (2002: 695), and that the business ‘serves as an interface between European and global, internal and external affairs’ (2002: 695). Lahusen explains that this results from an increased need for information and monitoring services and for technical support, given the expanding range and density of European law. More importantly, he cites Jones (1997) to concur with him that the increased risk and uncertainty resulting from EU policies favours a ‘“multivoice” strategy of interest representation, according to which it is better to have many voices saying the same thing’ (Lahusen, 2002: 710). In short, according to him, ‘Clients opt for commercial consultants because they need an additional

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pair of hands and/or because they believe that these consultancies are one of the best tools for furthering their interests’ (Lahusen, 2002: 710). EU consultants clearly play an important role and merit further study, in particular because the work by Lahusen was of a survey nature and very general. Other studies, such as Bouwen’s, have underlined the diversity and complexity of EU lobbying but make it difficult to generalise about the consultancy sector. These studies have focused on the supply and demand process of EU consulting, and emphasise the importance of access. Bouwen and others have postulated that studying access is ‘likely to be a good indicator of influence’ (2002: 366). For example, Bouwen cites Truman (1951) as saying, power of any kind cannot be reached by a political interest group, or its leaders, without access to one or more key points of decision in the government. Access, therefore, becomes the facilitating intermediate objective of political interest groups. The development and improvement of such access is a common denominator of the tactics of all of them. (Truman quoted in Bouwen, 2002: 366)

The concept of ‘access points’ has thus been introduced to the discussion. Bouwen notes that It is a mistake to regard business lobbying as a unidirectional activity of private actors vis-à-vis the EU institutions. Also, the EU institutions are eager to interact because they need close contacts with the private sector to fulfil their institutional role. (2002: 368)

Accordingly, businesses, often via a consultant, can offer vital information to EU public bodies about the views of business. In this regard, Bouwen also analyses some practicalities of EU lobbying. For example, it is expensive to maintain a permanent office in Brussels. An alternative is to employ the services of a consulting company. Bouwen reaches some conclusions on the relative rate of access of consultants and lobbyists to the three main EU public organisations – Commission, Council and European Parliament. National associations, European associations and individual firms have varying rates of access, depending on the organisation approached. This point is further underlined in another study by Bernhagen and Rose (2010). They argue that ‘while the European Commission attempts to be open and transparent in its interaction with societal interests, a core of insiders has nevertheless been established’ (2010: 4). This builds on earlier work by Coen (1997) whose research found that ‘access is generally restricted to a few policy players, for whom membership is competitive and strategically advisable’ (1997: 98–99). Actors with privileged access are routinely consulted, invited to workshops, consultative fora, etc., that form part of the policy-making process and allow lobbyists to influence policy more effectively. Furthermore, access provides interest groups with knowledge about political and administrative developments, which

Knowledge agents and the building of Europe137 in turn can translate into advance knowledge about EU contracts or grants, or facilitated influence on the early stages of the policy process. (Coen quoted in Bernhagen and Rose, 2010: 2)

Bernhagen and Rose argue that ‘firms operating in European markets but lacking a government patron to advance their interests in the EU institutions are even more likely to develop their own lobbying capabilities in Brussels’ (2010: 6), adding that, according to Greenwood (2007), comparative domestic styles and traditions of interest might explain differences: Anglo and American firms in particular, familiar with operating in pluralist environments, are used to operating outside of groups … whereas those used to the corporatist traditions of Germanic countries tend to place greater emphasis upon associations. (Greenwood quoted in Bernhagen and Rose, 2010: 6)

Interestingly, these academic studies reflect my own experiences as a practitioner. I, like Lahusen, believe that there has been concentration among the consultancy community but that there is still a place for specialised smaller consulting companies. I also agree that access points are a key part of the lobbying/consultancy profession. But in my view having access points to the EU’s public organisations is now only one of many important parts of a consultant’s role. And I question whether consultancy is still an Anglo-Saxon phenomenon. I think those days are gone. While many of the larger consulting companies and law firms may be British or American, or may be owned by multinationals, there are now a much larger number of consulting companies from other Member States. And of course the personnel in the EU consulting world is, as it should be, very cosmopolitan. How many EU consultants are there? From the relatively few published studies on the work of consultants we learn that the number of professional consultancies has grown over the last twentyfive years or so, and that they are playing an increasingly important role in EU public affairs (Lahusen, 2002). Lahusen suggests that, at first, this growth was closely related to the Single European Act 1986 and its contribution to European integration (2002: 696). Then, it is argued, integration brought about a shift from the ‘national route’ of interest intermediation and lobbying to a more panEuropean approach (Mazey and Richardson, 1993). As businesses became more ‘European’, and the influence of EU regulation and funding more prominent, thus their interest in understanding and influencing the EU regulatory element of their business environment (the combination of internal and external factors that influence a business’s operating situation) became more acute. As mentioned earlier there is no clear definition of a ‘consultant’. Another term used to denote ‘civil society organisations’ that interact with policy-­ makers is ‘lobbyists’. If we take this term as a point of reference, there are reported to be 15,000 of them in Brussels (Euractiv, 2008), the majority representing business interests (Greenwood, 2007).

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In reality it is difficult to estimate how many EU consultants or lobbyists there are, even taking only Brussels-based consultants as a measure. Statistics on the number/type of consultants are not readily available. A problem is that lack of a single definition; there are many sorts of consultant. And the dividing line between consultants’ work and that of trade associations, non-­ governmental organisations (NGOs) and lawyers is unclear. The European Commission and European Parliament (EP) have indirectly attempted to define the role of consultants in setting up the EU transparency register (see http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/info/homePage. do?locale=en), but its ‘glossary and useful definitions’ page is incomplete. It is not always clear how consultants should fit into the designated categories. There are no clear definitions. However, in principle all organisations and selfemployed individuals engaged in ‘activities carried out with the objective of directly or indirectly influencing the formulation or implementation of policy and decision-making processes of the EU institutions’ are expected to register. Public authorities are not expected to register; there are other excluded categories and situations. It is up to every registrant to determine to which category the organisation or firm belongs. The statistics generated by this Register are very instructive (see http:// ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/public/consultation/statistics.do?locale=en &action=prepareView). Respondents are split into many categories, one of which is ‘Professional consultancies/law firms/self-employed consultants’. There are around 6,500 registrants in the register; less than a thousand are consultants and yet many other categories could come under the definition of ‘consultant’, depending on how the registrant sees itself. The data are also incomplete – many consultancies are not registered. The website ‘bureau-brussels.com’ has also taken an interest in these questions. For example, they ran a piece which questioned the official figures. In this they cited one of the authors of the book More Machiavelli in Brussels (Van Schendelen and Van Schendelen, 2010). As they noted, not only is Rinus Van Schendelen a professor of political science at the University of Rotterdam, but he is also a partner in their own lobbying firm Bureau Brussels. They reported how, when asked about the ‘15,000 lobbyists’ figure, he said: That number is sacrosanct in EU circles. In 2007, during the European Transparency Initiative [to set a framework for relations between EU institutions and interest representatives], the magical number came under much discussion in the European Parliament. Neither Commissioner Siim Kallas nor the rapporteur, the then MEP Alexander Stubb, knew what to make of it. I remained silent … But in the upcoming German-language version of my book More Machiavelli in Brussels … I reveal that I was actually at the source of that ‘15,000 lobbyists’ figure. It happened on the fringes of the first European Parliament hearings into lobbying in 1992, to which I was witness. I came up with the figure through a simple and in itself logical calculation. If there are 2,500 interest groups in Brussels, as was stated then, and they employ on average six people, then there

Knowledge agents and the building of Europe139 must be about 15,000 lobbyists in Brussels. I told this in the company of a group of journalists, and one of them wrote a piece on it. So now you know! (www.bureaubrussels.com/2011/11/real-lobbyist-the-bulletin/)

Later on in this same piece, Bureau Brussels also discuss the first edition of Stakeholder.eu: The Directory for Brussels, edited by Schwalba-Hoth (2011). This book provides the particulars of stakeholders in Brussels. In an interview with Schwalba-Hoth, Bureau Brussels ‘express[ed] amazement’ at the apparent scale of EU stakeholdership – ‘4,500 offices and 14,000 personal addresses’. Schwalba-Hoth confirms: Yes … there are 269 regional offices, 23 UN offices, 162 law firms, more than 80 think thanks and 208 consultancy firms: people you can hire, if you don’t have a representation here. On top of that, you have 300 NGOs, 37 chambers of commerce and some 800 European Federations, like the Confederation of European Forest Owners, and national associations like the German association of airports … The list goes on and on. (www.bureau-brussels.com/2011/11/ real-lobbyist-the-bulletin/)

Bureau Brussels asked: How many people are working in these offices? Some of them, like the headquarters of the chemical industries, employ more than 100 people. Others have only one employee – or even only a desk, with someone regularly travelling over from London, Paris, Copenhagen. (www. bureau-­brussels.com/2011/11/real-lobbyist-the-bulletin/)

Bureau Brussels then asked: ‘So, should we speak of 500,000 lobbyists instead?’ Schwalba-Hoth replied: The definition of a ‘lobbyist’ is not very clear. If there are twenty people working with a European Association or an NGO, are they all lobbyists? Some of them are in contact with policy-makers and civil servants. Others do research or administrative work. To me, a ‘lobbyist’ is the one who is actually asking for a meeting, knocking on doors, meeting people. Based on the lobbyists’ register of the European Commission and the European Parliament, there’s only a few thousand of those. (www.bureau-brussels.com/2011/11/real-lobbyist-the-bulletin/)

It follows from the above overview of existing material that work on the role of consultants continues to raise many more questions about these actors’ role than it provides answers. On the one hand, consultants are grouped together with other actors to the extent that it is hard to disentangle their contribution from lobbying groups or associations. This is particularly evident when it comes to either identifying them as a distinct category of actors or even counting them. Further, these challenges stem partly from the very nature of consultancy itself and the very first question I ask in this chapter: ‘who are we talking about?’ In short, there is much scope for learning about consultants and in particular for learning about what consultants actually do. It is to this I now turn in the section below.

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Being a consultant in and on Europe: a consultant’s view In this section, I set out the various meanings which I (and my colleagues) give to our professional practices of consultancy. In proceeding thus, my aim is not to provide an exhaustive account of the work of consultants. Rather, I narrate my multiple understandings and interpretations of what I do. In particular, I want to argue that, for me, being a consultant is not just about interest intermediation: it is also about knowledge agency. As a consultant, my work engages me in strategic thought; it requires that I explain EU policies to others and charge money for this; my work further entails the turning of knowledge into tailored objects or courses; in the course of all these working activities, certain social images of Europe and its policies and values are espoused. For all these reasons, I conceptualise consulting practices as creating a space of European action in the sense described in the Introduction in this book (Carter et al., 2015), that is, as a set of interactions in which the EU is interpreted, described and produced on a daily basis – and in which consultants are important performative actors (and not mere passive conduits of information). In this section, I will explain these various processes and activities. I have organised the material around themes and topics which made sense to me, based on the questions I asked myself in the preparation of this chapter. Presenting the work of EU consultancies EU policy-making and decision-making is a very complex business. Many in the EU outside the ‘Brussels bubble’ believe that the European Commission is an un-elected and unrepresentative body of civil servants that writes all legislation and then forces it on to an unknowing and often reluctant citizenry. Furthermore, they think that the Council of Ministers and EP play a lesser role acting on self-centred national interests. This is a very simplistic view. It exaggerates the importance of certain aspects of the process while ignoring others. The reality is much more complicated and subtle. The fact is that citizens, industries and interest groups (e.g. all stakeholders) have the opportunity to influence the policy and decision-making process and this from a very early point in the process. There are many opportunities during the decision-making procedure for these actors to influence policy. The problem is that many actors (especially industrial players) do not have a strong EU trade association, and many organisations/companies don’t have the in-house expertise to follow and analyse developments, and put their case to EU public bodies. They need help. Sometimes they need continuous help, sometimes assistance with a one-off problem. Many actors, from within the EU and from third (non-EU) countries, lack the resources and/or expertise to follow the EU’s regulatory activities. They face a dilemma – do they employ in-house specialists to follow and interpret and seek to influence EU policies, or do they use the services of an outside agency? Even if they are, for example, an EU company, they may feel that their interests are not

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being fully served by their national or EU trade association and they may employ external help from a consultant to guide them through the Brussels jungle. My aim here is not to describe the process as such, but to explain that consultancies play a role in assisting these players. The main functions of an EU consultant are usually to:

establish and maintain a network of contacts on behalf of their client; monitor developments in policy areas identified as important to their client’s business or other activities and report on this to the client; help clients develop strategies and materials to assist them in influencing those policies; set up the necessary contacts and follow up lobbying activities; organise alliances of like-minded stakeholders to strengthen the client’s case; help develop communications actions to accompany lobbying efforts. How does this fit with how the EU works on a daily basis? While some activities can take place at a sort of philosophical level (e.g. reflections in think tanks about the future of the EU, etc.), without reference to a day-to-day calendar, most activities are linked to the short- and long-term rhythms of the policymaking process. Both the Commission and the EP, especially the former, develop their own policy ideas. In addition, ideas are developed in Member States, and by stakeholders, and are then brought to the EU organisations. The monitoring and networking functions allow stakeholders either to feed in their own policy ideas or to support or counter the ideas of others before EU public bodies are anywhere near formulating and drafting policy proposals. Then at every stage of the policy-making process – from drafting, consultation, impact assessment through to the presentation of policy ideas to the Commission hierarchy and thence to the EP and Council, there are numerous opportunities for the wellconnected stakeholder to contribute ideas or try to remove unwelcome parts of any policy proposal. This is what gives some structure to a consultant’s daily life. While trade associations and NGOs are often consulted by EU public actors during the ­policy-making process, other players more often are not. It is up to them to initiate contacts and offer their input and advice. Consultants are there to advise their clients and to help them to have a voice. It is true that this creates an illdefined space for EU action. Those who consultants give advice to are usually those that otherwise would find it difficult to have a voice in the EU other than on an individual basis. Yet the consultant’s role can transcend individualised relationships – especially when the ‘client’ is a collective association.

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The importance of Brussels A perennial question is – if I want to be involved in, and influence, the EU policy-making process, do I have to be in Brussels? The answer is no, you don’t have to be in Brussels permanently, but it helps. And if you cannot be here permanently you should be here frequently, very frequently when there are issues that you are concerned with under discussion. Being in Brussels is obviously important as it is home to all the major EU public actors; it therefore hosts most policy-making and policy-makers. This is what brings lobbyists to Brussels. But there is more to it than that. Being present in Brussels is underestimated – there are subtle indirect benefits from being present. It is rare that one walks from A to B in the Rond-Point Schuman/Place Luxembourg area, where the European Commission, Council and EP offices are located, without meeting a professional contact. Such an impromptu meeting may amount to nothing concrete but it at least is a networking opportunity and occasionally results in a gem of information being uncovered. What do consultants do? As discussed above, consultants help their clients to influence the direction/ detail of EU policies, using the many opportunities that present themselves. But is there a single defining characteristic? The one common denominator is expertise in specific areas of EU activity. In my case, that expertise is in the agri-food sector. I do not work outside that area (though I sometimes draw the boundaries quite widely). Other consultancies specialise in, say, white goods, fuels or transport. Others again do not have deep sectoral expertise but have skills and contacts, for example in lobbying the EP, a function that arguably requires more staffing resources and communications skills than deep sectoral expertise. In order to explain the function of a consultant, let’s take a practical example. Imagine an EU trade association employing around twenty people with great expertise in forestry and energy policies. They know that a reform of the CAP will have an impact on supplies of their member companies’ main raw material. They know they do not have sufficient detailed knowledge of the CAP, yet they know that the reform of the CAP is important and that they should at the very least make their members aware of this potential impact in order that they can prepare for it. Ideally the association would like to get some amendments to the Commission’s proposals before they become law. As they do not have the expertise in-house they look for a consultant with the relevant skills and knowledge and hire that person for the necessary length of time to supplement their in-house resources. I argue that EU consultants are little different from company or trade federation representatives. They are simply employed as external advisers rather than internal. This suits clients’ needs for assistance in the short term but often relationships between consultants and clients last for many years until the consultant can become, in effect, the longest-surviving ‘employee’ in the client’s business!

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In the box below, one of my colleagues provides his snapshot view of the role of a consultant, referring to his professional identity as ‘company man’. A different type of EU actor – the ‘company man’ Consultants can add considerable value in enhancing public affairs activity, provided there is clear communication and a high level of trust. From opening up a broader network of key policy-makers and stakeholders to providing a flexible resource that can support during the busiest times, consultants can be an invaluable partner. The best consultants also bring a fresh and more objective perspective which can be invaluable.   The client-consultant relationship requires careful management. Clear objectives need to be set by the client and consultants must be honest in helping to ensure those objectives are realistic. Regular exchanges beyond simple reporting must determine whether progress is being made as planned or if objectives, strategy or resourcing need to be revised.   Crucially, consultants must be welcomed into the client’s organisation and treated as members of the team, with the necessary safeguards in place to prevent disclosure of confidential information. If consultants are kept at arm’s length their ability to deliver true value diminishes.   Given realistic expectations, cooperation, coordination and trust consultants and clients can make a winning team. Karl Cox – Vice President, Global Public Affairs Oracle A common discussion among the consulting community is over the dividing line between consultants and lawyers – where does it lie? I don’t believe much time needs to be spent on this. Only lawyers can give formal legal advice to clients, because of their training and formal qualifications. However, lawyers can also give consultancy advice as part of their service if required. In many cases lawyers know a policy area in which they work very well. In my view if lawyers can perform a consultancy role properly, then why shouldn’t they? However, consultants, while they can advise on regulatory developments and the meaning of legislation, cannot give formal legal advice. It can be argued that the legalistic character of EU policy favours law firms as, apart from knowing the law itself, they are adept at the administrative language and procedures of the EU. A number of Brussels law firms have chosen to develop public affairs skills in-house so that they know more of what is needed, and also are available to sit in at the outset of the process, and brief themselves.

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Traditionally, German and French firms were said to be reluctant to work with external consultants. Says one public affairs consultant Philippa Ward, ‘­Anglo-Saxon firms are comfortable with external consultants. With German firms, it is an uphill struggle to get a seat at the table’ (see www.jeneweingroup. com/dokumenty/fipra/a_who_is_who_of_Brussels.pdf). French firms apparently prefer to call a political ‘fixer’. According to some sources, the reluctance also reflects France and Germany’s earlier grasping of the importance of Europe’s organisations. This led French and German firms to develop links to directorates in the Commission that are now useable in other ways, when the need arises. In the US, all final decisions are made by courts, whereas the European Commission is a political body that takes many of the key decisions on policy direction. And the European Commission has more ‘entry points’ at which pressure or influence can be applied. Says Mathew Heim of the firm The Centre: ‘A particular of the EU system is the level to which DG Comp [Competition] must formally consult with other DGs, competition authorities and companies. This brings public affairs into play, especially as relations between these groups are ever-changing’ (see www.jeneweingroup.com/dokumenty/fipra/a_who_is_ who_of_Brussels.pdf). A day in the life of a consultant There are many different types of EU consultant, operating in a variety of policy areas. There is no such thing as a typical day in the life of a consultant. My days involve a mix of monitoring of all sorts of media for recent developments, some calls to contacts, some drafting of position papers and arrangement of meetings. Some clients require weekly or monthly reports. On occasions I have written detailed reports and drafted publicity materials for the EU organisations. I have made several presentations to EP committees. I have presented on agri-food subjects to industry groups, academics and students, and have chaired seminars and conferences. One of the attractive elements of EU consultancy is the variety it offers and the direct access to the key people both in EU public bodies and in the clients’ organisations, access that it is not always available to those within a hierarchy. Work also involves making presentations to clients as well as to EU players, stakeholders and decision-makers. In recent weeks I have accompanied non-EU clients on visits to their EU industry counterparts, arranged and attended meetings with members of EU public bodies for the client, taken part in industry seminars and assisted in the drafting of letters to the Commission for the client. From what I am describing it can be seen that an interactive process is going on. The client is being kept informed and, in discussion with the consultant, contact with EU public actors has been initiated and pursued. The consultant is trying to explain the Commission’s intentions in a particular policy area while advising the client on how to influence those intentions.

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Key activities The most important activities are gathering early intelligence on potential policy changes and maintaining the contacts and credibility to be able to contribute ideas at an early stage in the process. This sounds obvious – the key word is ‘early’. In an ideal world a consultant would be in touch with Commission officials (the Commission has the sole right to initiate policy proposals) on such a frequent basis that the consultant would become aware of a possible policy development months in advance of Commission officials putting pen to paper. This early intelligence allows time not only for the consultant to alert the client of that development, its potential importance for the client and the timescale for any new legislation, but also for the client to feed in ideas to the Commission. Commission officials cannot be experts in everything and, generally, welcome input from informed outsiders provided that this input is constructive and helpful. This is the ideal point in the process for lobbying to take place: it is better that the Commission’s proposal starts off in the right direction at the initial draft stage than that the consultant and the client to try to get changes made to a proposal after that first step has been taken. The latter move is not impossible of course, just more difficult. For such an ideal set of circumstances to occur, relationship building is vital. A client or consultant cannot march into an unknown Commission official’s office and make demands, not without careful preparation and identification of a mutual interest. Hence the advantage of having a presence in Brussels, in order for the consultant and the client to be able to establish and maintain a wide network of contacts. So, in an ideal world, the consultant and client can play a role in the original drafting process. However, it is rare that a piece of draft legislation will be constructed exactly as desired as a result of such individual actions. Other stakeholders will be trying to influence the process as well, possibly in a different direction. A vital element of consultancy (and EU advocacy in general) is to help the client to construct alliances of like-minded stakeholders to make the case stronger. Finding allies, agreeing on joint positions, drafting policy papers and then arranging meetings to lobby EU public actors are all part of the process – the consultant plays a vital role in this. The focus of EU consultants is on EU public organisations and on ­Brussels-based players. However, on occasions it is necessary to lobby national representatives (often government departments and politicians). This is more difficult, though less so for the bigger consulting companies with a presence in several countries. As explained above, the Commission is lobbied by many players, including these national political players. And, once a Commission proposal has been presented to the Council and EP, a negotiation process that can take up to two years is underway until ultimately decisions are made.

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Collective action versus individual initiatives It is theoretically possible, even advantageous, for more than one client to engage in a joint action, organised by the consultant. However, in the case of a smaller consulting company this is likely to be rare as a small company cannot work for more than one player in a sector at the same time due to the danger of conflicts of interest arising. In a larger consulting company it might be possible to work for different clients in the same sector, though this remains difficult – Chinese walls are very thin! More common, and more appropriate, is the formation of networks and communities of like-minded clients and other stakeholders in order to try to influence legislation in a mutually desirable direction. This needn’t be on a systematic basis – joint actions on mutually agreed positions can be a powerful tool, one I have used on many occasions, even involving EU actors and a third country client acting in tandem. For example, I might work on behalf of an industry sector from a non-EU country that is exporting a (much-needed) raw material to make biofuels; unclear EU rules about importing the raw material are being interpreted in different ways by various importing Member State authorities, leading to some shipments being delayed or even stopped. The importer is an EU biofuels manufacturer; the exporter and importer have a mutual commercial interest in getting a clear interpretation of EU rules in the area. So I as a consultant am trying to coordinate the lobbying actions and messages being put over to the Commission by the two players. It is possible of course for the two parties to work together without the consultant; however, it is much easier to have an ‘honest broker’ who understands not only the interests of the two but also the regulatory environment they are working in. EU public actors don’t act out of principle alone. They try to respond to what they think are the interests of the main stakeholders in a particular question. Stakeholders need to make these actors aware of their point of view. EU decisions, often derided as compromises, are usually a careful balance between competing interests. How is consultancy evolving? As EU policies have multiplied and become more complex, the role of consultants has changed and become more important. Consultants can no longer survive simply by monitoring and describing developments. More than ever, they must add value by anticipating, analysing and helping clients to influence policy. There has been a growth and gradual institutionalisation of commercial consultancies. This combined with the increased amount of legislative activity and the fuller engagement of the EP in the decision-making process has created a greater number of ‘access points’. Consultants have had to become more professional. This has led to an important transformation of European public affairs. The growing size and complexity of the EU increases the value of specialist EU consultants.

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Access to EU public actors, while still important, is no longer the main attribute that an EU consultant has to offer. Other access goods, such as expert knowledge and the ability to offer information/analysis, can be used to help Commission officials or MEPs understand the positions of various stakeholders. Probably the EU consultancy world is now mature and is unlikely to grow more (though it may become more specialised). There may be some shifting in the relative importance of big consultancies and more specialised ‘boutique’ consulting companies. The growth in the importance of the EP is perhaps an exception to this slow-down in growth, notably following the 2009 Lisbon Treaty. The EP has insufficient resources to research all the subjects coming across MEPs’ desks, many of which are very complex. The EP engages many outside experts and consultants. At the same time, the fact that over 700 MEPs are involved in the decision-making process in a way that they weren’t before has meant that consultants have had to develop new contacts and skills to be able to guide clients through the process. Such a trend is facilitated by the use of new media (internet, video use, blogs, Twitter, etc.). Indeed there are several tools, largely unknown or unused twenty-five years ago, that consultants are heavily involved in, for example: use of academia/think tanks; consultations with independent groups; impact assessments/evaluations; EU ‘communications’ and strategic approaches; surveys; public hearings; online discussions/consultations. Even petitions and referendums are more commonplace than in the past. The consulting game has changed. Publicity can now provoke or drive an issue. NGOs and other organisational ‘outsiders’ can stimulate debates and action on individual issues. EU public actors and industry must embrace new players. They must develop skills in the tactical use of traditional and social media. In order to do these things they need to develop the ability to simplify complex EU issues. Below is another vision from a colleague – this time on new styles and new media. New styles/new media Social media and new media are changing the ways stakeholders are involved in and/or try to influence the EU decision-making process. Over recent years, there has been a surge in the use of on-line communication tools and social media platforms by all those involved in shaping the European Union, including the EU institutions themselves.   This does not come as a surprise in a fast-changing landscape in communication. Today, people want to communicate quickly and in a few words, they love sharing their ideas on social networks and interacting with multimedia, for example by using videos.

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  Innovative tools are increasingly being used by consultants and their clients although many of them have not fully seized on the opportunities that these tools can bring to their work. New media bring a competitive edge and allow them to differentiate t­ hemselves in a context of an overflow of information. They also offer a ­different format and manner to deliver their arguments towards decision-makers and to a much wider audience.   Videos can be an effective instrument in a lobbying campaign as the power of the moving image is undeniable. Social medial channels, when used properly, can also deliver great results. They provide a non-expensive way to engage people in a debate, notably younger audiences (who are often ignored by the EU); they also facilitate the creation of highly visible communities and coalitions which are key to any campaign.   However, these new tools require new skills that consultants/ stakeholders need to master if they want to make the most out of them. It takes time and training to understand how to communicate in a transparent and interactive web 2.0 environment, but there is no doubt that this can be cost-effective. David Thual, Managing Director and Publisher, viEUws (www.vieuws. eu/), the EU policy broadcaster How are consultants perceived by EU public actors? Generally EU public actors are understanding of, even welcoming of, consultants and the role they play. They recognise that consultants save them much time and trouble in the drafting, negotiation and explanation of EU policy developments. EU officials welcome well-argued, well-researched and wellpresented policy ideas at all stages of the decision-making process. EU officials, no matter from which body, are often better at taking outside advice than their national counterparts (after all EU officials cannot be experts in everything they are responsible for in 28 Member States, nor in the views and positions of third countries!) In some cases the relationship can arguably become too cosy (Bernhagen and Rose, 2010). In simplistic terms the consultant gets out what he puts in. If what a consultant offers in terms of expert opinion and advice is worth something to EU public actors, they are likely to reciprocate by consulting the consultant again in the future. Given the poor quality of media coverage of the EU, consultants (and other EU players) can play an important role in explaining the EU to the wider world. In many EU countries, national governments will blame the EU for unpopular measures they take (though they will not give the EU credit for any benefits from EU measures). Consultants can explain the EU’s position via their activities with clients. However, this can also happen via lecturing and media activities. I have

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written for many journals and lectured within the EU and in far-flung places such as Bosnia, northern Cyprus and Taiwan on a variety of EU topics. My favourite memory as a consultant came when I became aware that a new regulation was coming in that would involve farmers in a horrendous amount of paperwork in order to obtain a small subsidy payment for the production of a particular – very specialised – crop. At the same time the buyer of that crop made it clear that it would reduce its purchase price by the amount of the subsidy. So farmers would have to go through the bureaucratic process of obtaining the subsidy but would gain nothing from it. At the same time, I was aware that the Commission wanted to save money from the CAP budget wherever it could. It seemed a perfect fit – farmers (for one of the few times in history) wanted to get rid of a subsidy; the Commission wanted to save money and administrative hassle. However, the subsidy could not be removed without a strong demand from farmers in other Member States plus support from Member State ­administrations to vote the change in regulation through. I, and others, motivated farmers and processing organisations in a number of key states to call for removal of the subsidy; a common message was prepared and used in tandem with national administrations; the Commission meanwhile drafted, with advice from us, the necessary repeal of the measure. It was duly voted through. The process took a couple of weeks but was a model of early action, cooperation with the Commission, organisation and motivation of an alliance of like-minded stakeholders, preparation and use of common position papers and concerted follow up action. The only thing missing was a publicity campaign, but this was a very detailed corner of the CAP, not one that would have appealed to the wider public! In summary, my aim in this section has been not only to describe my daily work, but to explain that consultancies play a role in assisting a range of actors. They therefore fit the description ‘knowledge agent’ rather well. They are not just intermediaries. They create knowledge and use it strategically. In so doing, they help to build the EU as they help their clients to approach the EU from a position of knowledge, not ignorance. Furthermore, by explaining clearly their interests and concerns to the EU organisations and other players, they make it more likely that policy development takes the views of as many actors as possible into consideration. This is in any case a good thing but, from a practical point of view, it minimises the likelihood of disputes at a later stage in the policy process when vested interests might bring national governments into play, for example. Most consultants are trying to help their clients to influence the direction and detail of EU policies that have an impact on their ‘business environment’ but also, sometimes, have an impact on the public perception of their activities.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have sought to re-imagine Europe and its Union by providing an autobiographical narrative of the daily working practices of consultants,

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including the meaning these activities hold for me (and others). For the most part in the literature which has researched the role of consultants in the EU, their key function is assumed to be one of interest intermediation. However, following the work of Starbuck (1992), Alvesson (1993, 1992) and Creplet et al. (2001), and based on my own experiences, I would rather describe my work as one of ‘knowledge agent’. Starbuck (1992) and Alvesson (1992, 1993) both consider consultancy work and consultancies to be good examples of knowledge work and knowledge intensive firms. These are firms within which ‘knowledge is the key asset’ (Creplet et al., 2001: 1,519). According to Creplet, in this knowledge work, interactions with clients are potentially t­ ransformative – you don’t leave these interactions the same as you went into them; you learn. Creplet et al., point out that, The consultant and the expert produce knowledge in their firms and in the clients’ ones. Several modes of capitalisation of this knowledge, of organisational memories, have been described. The production of these actors takes the form of codified outputs, but the capitalisation processes are not so uniform. We identified three types of possible capitalisation: one form was based on codification, relatively hierarchical and universal, another form based on personalisation entailing a kind of interactive organisation, and lastly a mix of the two. (2001: 1,532)

My experience confirms these arguments. Consultancies come in all shapes and sizes. Nearly all EU-related consultants I know are performing multiple roles. We are jugglers in some respects – the trick is to keep all the balls in play without dropping any. My consultancy has performed the classic roles of the EU consultant described above. It has also involved writing and lecturing about the EU, specifically about the CAP and related policies, as well as advising clients about it. I am not unique in this – many consultants I know are also involved in this sort of activity, particularly in giving university lectures and courses. This I contend is the point at which the consultant starts to go beyond simply assisting clients in the pursuit of their particular interests and becomes a knowledge agent or creator. For example, I have been involved in:

lecturing to students and industry groups about the EU in general or certain policy issues in particular; writing publicity material for EU public organisations, aimed not just at the EU ‘bubble’ but at the general public (writing intelligibly about EU policies for the public is very challenging given the arcane nature of much EU policy); editing online debates about particular subjects (the Commission in particular has taken to using online forums as a means to communicate with a wider audience, particularly with taxpayers, and to ‘legitimise’ its later policy proposals); moderating/chairing debates about EU policies. EU public actors and major stakeholder groups often turn to consultants or journalists to perform these

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roles as they require knowledge and expertise but also presentation skills and an independent point of view. Finally, of course, this vision of the consultant as knowledge agent is directly linked to our re-imagination of the building of Europe and its Union. This is because the metaphor of building Europe can be mechanical or technical – i.e., building links, creating actions etc. – but it can also be political and organisational – i.e., this is the way it is being built. So, it is not necessarily about the great so-called ‘European Institutions’ or ‘levels of governance’ as an exclusive ontological positioning would have it, but rather about a constant series of informed, expert and ‘knowledgeable’ movements and consequent actions. Moreover, and as is clear from the above accounts, there are rules and norms guiding these various moments, relationships and interactions. This Europe is a structured space – there are things you can do and things that you cannot do in this space of action. The consultant (whether internal to a company or independent) is the person in the middle – sometimes the key person – whose daily work holds these interactions together in a series of intelligent and mutually beneficial conversations.

Note 1 According to an inclusive ontology, Europe’s ‘reality is not natural, but co-produced by people as groups’; ‘institutions are not detached from actors but their interactions are critical’; ‘political action is guided by individuals whose interests are socially constructed’; there is an ‘emphasis on the ties between the macro and micro, institutions and power and actions of individuals and groups in more or less structured social spheres’ (all from Kauppi, 2010: 28–31).

References Alvesson, M. (1993) ‘Organizations as rhetoric: Knowledge intensive firms and the struggle with ambiguity’, Journal of Management Studies, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 997–1,015. Alvesson, M. (1992) ‘Leadership as social integrative action: A study of a computer consultancy company’, Organization Studies, vol. 2, no. 13, pp. 185–209. Bernhagen, P. and Rose, R. (2010) ‘European Interest Intermediation vs. Representation of European Citizens’, Paper presented at the Fifth PanEuropean Conference on EU Politics, European Consortium for Political Reserch (ECPR): Porto, Portugal, 23–26 June. Available: www.jhubc.it/ecpr-porto/­ virtualpaperroom/156.pdf, pp. 1–13. Bevir, M. and Richards, D. (2009) ‘Decentring policy networks: A theoretical agenda’, Public Administration, vol. 87, no. 1, pp. 3–14. Bouwen, P. (2002) ‘Corporate lobbying in the European Union: the logic of access’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 365–390. Carter, C., Freeman, R. and Lawn, M. (2015) ‘Governing Europe’s spaces:

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European Union re-imagined [Introduction]’, in Carter, C. and Lawn, M. (eds.) Governing Europe’s spaces: European Union re-imagined, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 1–23. Coen, D. (1997) ‘The evolution of the large firm as a political actor in the European Union’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 91–108. Coffey, A. (2004) ‘Autobiography’, in Lewis-Beck, M., Bryman, A. and Futing Liao, T. (eds.) The SAGE Encyclopedia of social science research methods, online. Available: http://srmo.sagepub.com/view/the-sage-encyclopedia-of-social-­sci​en​ ce-research-methods/n39.xml. Creplet, F., Dupouet, O., Kern, F., Mehmanpazir, B. and Munier, F. (2001) ‘Consultants and experts in management consulting firms’, Research Policy, vol. 30, pp. 1,517–1,535. Euractiv (2008) ‘EU lobbyists scramble over their exact numbers’ (10 June). Available: www.euractiv.fr/. Grant, W. (1993) ‘Pressure groups and the European Community: An overview’, in Mazey, S. and Richardson, J. (eds.) Lobbying in the European Community, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 27–46. Greenwood, J. (2007) Interest representation in the European Union, 2nd edition, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Greenwood, J. (1997) Representing interests in the European Union, London: Macmillan Press. Jones, T. (1997) ‘Business interview. Jeremy Jennings: New broom sweeps in for British industry’, European Voice, vol. 3, no. 20, p. 29. Kauppi, N. (2010) ‘The political ontology of European integration’, Comparative European Politics, vol. 8 (Special Issue), pp. 19–36. Lahusen, C. (2002) ‘Commercial consultancies in the European Union: The shape and structure of professional interest intermediation’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 9, no. 5, pp. 695–714. Mazey, S. and Richardson, J. (1993) ‘Interest groups in the European Community’, in Richardson, J. (ed.) Pressure groups, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 191–213. Schwalba-Hoth, F. (2011) Stakeholder.eu: The directory for Brussels, Berlin: Lexxion. Starbuck, W. (1992) ‘Learning by knowledge intensive firms’, Journal of Management Studies, vol. 6, no. 29, pp. 713–740. Truman, D. (1951) The governmental process, political interests and public opinion, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Van Schendelen, M. and Van Schendelen, R. (2010) More Machiavelli in Brussels: The art of lobbying the EU, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

6 Measuring Europe: making sense of Europe through data and statistics Sotiria Grek and Martin Lawn

Introduction This chapter focuses on education policy in Europe and shows its significant, yet largely disregarded, role in the making of the European Union (EU). Although education can be seen as a cornerstone for building a common European identity and collective demos, it has never been an EU ‘competency’. On the contrary, that Member States should retain formal control over education politics has been a consistent political choice. This historical reality has meant that education policy in Europe has primarily been seen as a domestic matter – an image often compounded by a scholarship impressed with the formal rules of subsidiarity. When they do acknowledge the role and impact of international policy agendas, the focus is still primarily on what the effects are on the ‘country’. In short, national borders in education research still hold strong, irrespective of a sway of social and political developments that may suggest otherwise. On the other hand, those disciplines that have traditionally been studying European integration have been quick to turn to an esoteric battle about which particular approach may yield the best understanding of Europeanisation. Yet, we contend, these conflicts tend still to be dominated by an EU studies grounded in an exclusive ontology of Europe, whereby their focus of analysis has been on settled levels of governance, e.g., ‘the EU’ or the ‘national’ (Smith, 2009). Consequently, research has tended to miss a lot of trans-European mediation, flows and practices, resulting in education policy in Europe under the research radar for a very long time. Indeed, the construction a European education policy space has been aided in the last decade by the gradual use of OECD data, and especially the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).1 Significant use of this data by states worldwide, and especially across Europe, has mobilised European states to acts of comparison about performance in education. Although PISA is not an EU action, the Commission worked closely with its body, the OECD, and PISA has had a great effect on national education policies across Europe (Grek, 2009). 153

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In this chapter, and through building upon a political sociological approach grounded in an inclusive ontology of Europe as set out in the Introduction of this book (Carter et al., 2015),2 we argue that education in Europe can and should be seen through a different lens. First, and as we have argued elsewhere, we conceptualise education in Europe as an autonomous policy space that is both common and complementary and built on historical and contemporary exchanges of ideas and practices (Lawn, 2006). Second, and this is the very focus of this chapter, we argue that the physical properties of this policy space are not so much formal rules, but data, indicators and benchmarks. Indeed, measurements in all their various forms, we contend, both create and sustain this space. It is over these that we find primary actor interactions and struggle; it is the way in which these conflicts are resolved that determines hierarchy and political ordering of actors. To explore these points in detail, we build on theoretical and empirical resources to demonstrate how the fabrication of Europe through education can be found and described through the tracing of constructions and ‘flows of data’ and the discussions around them. On the one hand, data stimulate and support constant comparison; on the other, indicators can steer and shape policy from a distance. In setting out our argument, we show the ways that data, indicators and benchmarks have become the primary tools for the construction of the policy space of education in Europe. Having clarified our theoretical position, we start with a brief history of the formation of education as a policy arena in Europe, a history which, although now somewhat remote, was nonetheless important for preparing the groundwork for later programmes of convergence. We will then continue with a discussion of the effects of the Lisbon Strategy, launched in 2000. Indeed, Lisbon was the first ever attempt to govern education systems ‘from a distance’, that is, the Commission had its own education data and no longer relied upon national data, and it began to develop its own indicators and benchmarks on the progress of integration. It checked performance against agreed targets, and the Ministers of Education meetings discussed progress. By applying the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) to national education systems, more effective comparisons were made possible between countries than the kind of judgements available when the countries provided their own data. This development, the higher education policy convergence through the Bologna Process, and the accelerated role of performance comparisons promoted by the OECD and PISA have all been important in creating and sustaining this common policy space. Together, they have produced a policy space which is standardising and transparent. The chapter draws on research data derived from three projects, namely ‘Fabricating Quality in European Education’ (2006–9); ‘Knowledge and Policy’ (2006–11); and ‘Transnational Policy Learning’ (2010–12).3 Methodologically, data were collected through qualitative research and more specifically through the analysis of policy documents and interviews with key European policy actors. Both data sources have informed this chapter and are used throughout in supporting our argument.

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Overall, by stressing the importance of critical assessments of measurement – and, in particular, of measurement’s constitutive properties – we contribute to the book’s agenda to re-imagine Europe. In our re-imagination, data and numbers are the material and digital props supporting the very building of Europe. In our case studies, Europeans make sense of their worlds through data; they make sense of European education through measuring it. For all these reasons we contend that by studying education policy in Europe, we can better understand Europe itself. For in our accounts, the rise of performance measurement is given meaning through the EU-wide global narrative of becoming the most competitive knowledge economy in the world. To govern this economy, measurement and comparison are creating a perspective of the world that persistently fabricates, illuminates or defines certain objects while at the same time obscuring and hiding others. Indeed, the massive growth in data production and use, and its new capacity to flow across Europe (and beyond), may illustrate a shift from its role as providing a ‘state optic for governing’ (Scott, 1998: 2) into becoming the very fabrication of Europe. From 1990 to 2010 in particular, first with the rise of lifelong learning in the mid-1990s and then with milestones like the Lisbon Strategy in 2000, the Bologna Process and the recurrent OECD PISA study, the trans-European (and global) education flows and exchanges have been of such intensity so as to be considered as important nodes and conduits in the building of the European project. Disregarding such activity because of the ‘rule’ of subsidiarity suggests not simply lack of imagination and curiosity; it would be a misrepresentation of an important and ever-growing reality where, despite the EU’s competencies or lack of competencies, governing is indeed happening.

The formation of a policy space: conceptual and physical underpinnings Education as a new policy space has been created incrementally from a narrow focus on vocational education and targeted actions for the building of a common, cultural Europe into an integrated policy of continuous benchmarked improvement (Lawn and Grek, 2012). In this transformation, education has acquired a renewed role in the project ‘Europe’ – not only as a comparable area of public policy, but as the main means for securing both economic progress and social cohesion. The growing ambitions about education in the EU, the political sensitivities which have been enveloping it over recent decades, and the gradual consolidating of European rather than merely domestic policy goals, have meant that it has developed a distinctive style of governance. Although affected by different policy instruments – for example, the OMC, voluntary agreements, standard setting, international comparative tests and others – European governance in education has relied on two very distinct and interlinked modes of political work: measurement and comparison. In making our argument, we draw upon histories of statistics which demonstrate the political, technical and cognitive work necessary to the emergence

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of both the nation and national statistics and their imbrication in each other (Desrosières, 1998; Porter, 1995). A number of histories of statistics demonstrate the intimate and interwoven relationships between the development of state administrative structures, or what Bruno Latour (1987) calls a ‘centre of calculation’, and the development of standardisation, methodologies, technologies and related cognitive schemes of statistics and scientific thinking (Desrosières, 1998; Porter, 1995; Hacking, 1990, 1975). The nation constituted as a ‘space of equivalence’ is necessary to the construction of statistics (Desrosières, 1998), but also statistics and numbers which elide the local are equally important to the construction of the nation. In parallel with the internal construction of the nation state in Europe through statistics and standards, nations have also compared themselves internationally. The systems of schooling, for example, including buildings, texts and teachers, were created after study visits, and communications with other countries, and special reports. Comparison was made against the best. This was a question of judging progress by adopting recognised models from leading system elements elsewhere (Lawn and Grek, 2012). Apart from applying to EU-building these general claims made within a literature which discusses the role of numbers historically for the purposes of nation-building, we are also pre-occupied with the idea of ‘Europeanisation’. This we understand to have the potential to be simultaneously a response to and conduit of globalisation (Rosamond, 2003). By this we mean that on the one hand ‘Europeanisation’ can provide a vehicle for the transmission of global and European agendas into the domestic arena. On the other, it can also provide a focus for support of a European social model in response to neo-liberal pressures from transnational organisations like OECD. The processes of Europeanisation are complex and so far we have looked at the construction of a policy space through data and comparison, yet the EU has been a space of attraction in the sphere of education. It has not dominated the local and the regional, it has provided supportive and networking actions, and it has acted through light standardisation. In effect, this is a policy of persuasion, a policy of soft governance in education (Lawn, 2006). It does not just happen. Rather, it results from the political work of a range of actors. In order to analyse actors’ strategies in Europeanisation practices, we follow Smith’s definition of political work as ‘behaviour which both discursively and interactively seeks to change or reproduce institutions by mobilising values’ (2009: 13). This chapter thus builds upon political sociological approaches to the EU, an emergent research agenda which has been unfolding through important scholarly work especially in France since the mid-1990s (Georgakakis, 2008). Our analysis of education as a European policy space places its very emphasis on the mediating practices between ‘transnational’ and ‘European’ political work. We cannot discuss our approach to globalisation in any detail here but simply state that, for this discussion, we are particularly interested in its nature as a political process that involves real economic and political actors with real interests, rather than in its economic or technological development (Niukko,

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2006: 299; Robertson and Dale, 2006: 228). Hence, we recognise Europe to be fluid and changing, constantly swept by international pressures; further, we understand Europe to be simultaneously located in and constantly produced by the global, and the idea of the European and the national and the regional. In order to capture this constantly moving European education space, we start the analysis from its past. Early beginnings Historically, education policy activity in the EU could be classified in several ways; for example the Treaty of Rome (1957), the Single Act (1987) and the Maastricht (1992) and Amsterdam (1997) treaties could be seen as five stages (1957–87; 1987–93, 1993–99; 1999–2009; 2009–) (Blomqvist, 2007; Ollikainen, 1999; Shaw, 1999). Yet this European education policy space has not been determined merely by the geographical boundaries of a common market. As early as the 1960s, it became a shared project and a space of meaning, constructed around common cultural and educational values. Indeed, from the 1960s to the 1970s, the discourse of a common culture and shared histories was slowly being produced as a cluster of facts and myths about the European ‘imagined community’ rising from the ashes of a destructive Second World War. Education policy-making for the ‘people’s Europe’ took the forms of cultural cooperation, student mobility, harmonisation of qualification systems and vocational training (European Commission, 2006). It did not constitute a purely discursive construct, adding to the list of European myths. It was concretised and pursued through Community programmes, such as Comett and Erasmus, involving large numbers of people and ideas that travelled (European Commission, 2006). Its impact was arguably limited in relation to the ways European education systems constructed their curricula and tools of governance; subsidiarity was the rule. However, regardless of its relatively limited effects, the project of a ‘people’s Europe’ had a clear ambition: to create a distinct European identity and culture – and to use these resources to enable the governing of a shared cultural and political space. This brief reminder of the foundational characteristics of this policy space is important; it helps to throw into relief the defining events that would later turn the European education space from a rather idealistic project of cultural cohesion into a much sharper competitive reality. This is because, following these early beginnings, the discourse would change from one of cultural underpinnings to one of measurement. Indeed, the next stage in the evolution of this policy space is marked by a discourse of improvement through measurement. This discourse, and its demands, had many sources; these were not necessarily European. They came from the wider world of OECD, Unesco and even the World Bank. In terms of these more global influences, Nóvoa and Yariv-Mashal (2003) have outlined a new mode of transnational ­governance of education, based on processes of ‘international spectacle’ and ‘mutual accountability’. In particular, they have pointed to the immense influence of OECD PISA – a

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­ on-curriculum-based measure of comparative educational performance of n students at the end of compulsory schooling in literacy, maths, science and problem solving. The conclusions and recommendations derived from this programme were to shape policy debates and set new discursive agendas, influencing the formation of educational thinking across Europe. In particular, PISA produced definitions of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ education systems, defined policy ‘problems’ and offered directions towards solutions. In this way PISA gradually became d ­ ominant globally (at least in the global North) as the key international comparative measure of the effectiveness of schooling systems. Over time, these data sets were heavily utilised by the European Commission and Member States, particularly as they related to education in those Member States that were also OECD members. As a result, actors began to align statistical categories across the OECD, Eurostat and Unesco and work together as a ‘magistrature of influence’ constituting Europe as a space of governance (Lawn and Lingard, 2002). Indeed, during this time, while the OECD still predominantly remained a ‘think tank’ focusing on matters of economic policy, through this measurement work it gradually became a policy actor in its own right in the context of globalisation (Rizvi and Lingard, 2006; Henry et al., 2001). In this role as policy actor, the OECD created a niche as an agency of high technical competence for the development of educational indicators and comparative educational performance measures. EU data collection soon began to intersect with OECD work; this in turn may contribute to the emergence of a global education policy field (Lingard et al., 2005). In the framing and use of data we can see at play here social-spatial networks of the national, international (between nations), transnational (passing through nations) and global. The creation of indicators and benchmarks: measurement and comparison By the turn of the millennium, the goal of a knowledge economy and the problem of governing the market were moving beyond mobilisation, systematisation and collaboration in the vocational and higher education arena. Education, in its new transparency as an area of goals and data about progress, would move from out of the shadows of building a common culture and identity to ‘[the] gradual construction of an open and dynamic European educational area’ (European Commission, 1997: 3). Critically, policy-makers became far more interested in outputs of the education systems, than in inputs. This policy shift focused on European and national system information and progress towards common goals, and it involved a range of new actors in cities, companies and public-private partnerships. The European Commission’s White Paper on education and training, Teaching and learning (European Commission, 1995), signalled a major reworking of its goals in the domain of education. The idea of learning (and not education) acquired significance as it led to a powerful drive linking lifelong learning and the knowledge economy, combining citizenship and work.

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Making the link between knowledge and lifelong learning was a necessary solution to the problem of invisibility and the lack of formal power over education. In this way, education could be redefined as an individual necessity, rather than as patrimony or as part of community systems. Member State comparison was to be the means for achieving European goals. Indeed, the shift to the OMC under the Lisbon Process in 2000 signalled the move by the EU into internal and cross-EU (and international) comparison as a form of governance (European Commission, 2001). This was the first time that the Member States acting within the European Council had promoted a clear need for European education systems to converge: the continuance of previous work in the fields of lifelong learning, vocational training and higher education was encouraged but not demanded. More importantly, the coordination of European education systems at the level of compulsory schooling was a fairly new endeavour. Throughout, Europe’s role in education was clearly articulated with the broader goals of Lisbon to establish a competitive economy: indeed, education ministers were appointed with a mission to achieve the Lisbon goals for 2010. This was therefore a new policy stage for the EU, as it involved a new way of working in education and training.

Contested physical properties of the policy space: data, indicators and benchmarks In this section, we now go on to offer a critical assessment of the physical properties of measurement which would come simultaneously to institutionalise and legitimise this European policy space in the making. More specifically, these data, indicators and benchmarks would define the frontiers of this policy space, imbue it with values and be the source of key actor conflicts. Importantly, the contribution that different data agencies would make in this process, including towards establishing appropriate benchmarks, was taken for granted right from the start. Numerical data requires a firm basis for comparison and cross-systemic analysis of the data; developing the discourses for the justification of measuring specific indicators and benchmarking would soon come to fulfil this need. According to Pépin, the objective was not to create new indicators in such a short time but to identify the quality-related problems which were politically most relevant for European countries, and then determine which of the existing indicators – mainly from Eurostat, the OECD, the IEA4 [International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement] and Eurydice – could shed most light on these problems. (2006: 196–197)

Indicators were not devised from scratch, but were constituted on the basis of triangulating existing data that at this point were deemed useful; in a sense, most of the work towards establishing a common space of comparison for European education was already in place. What was necessary now was to

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coordinate data, organisations and minds towards the requirements of the new knowledge economy. The OMC created a step change in the scale and speed of the data which the Commission now had available; it began to generate a range of new data tools and processes to govern this new area of work. Beginning with an agreement about the common objectives and key issues, the Directorate-General Education and Culture (DG EAC) within the European Commission built up an EU knowledge base through the development of a common set of indicators for quantitative benchmarking. This included the engagement of a wide range of experts and stakeholders, both through ‘projects’ and peer reviews. Finally, the process would involve the preparation or adoption of reports and recommendations (Lelie and Vanhercke, 2013: 14–15). Indeed, from 2002 onwards, a Commission-led complex and continuing process of fixing guidelines, establishing quantitative and qualitative indicators and benchmarks, and national and regional targets, and periodic monitoring, evaluation and peer review (organised as mutual learning processes) was set in motion (Lelie and Vanhercke, 2013: 11). National experts, acting within the various working parties, managed this production process. It is a moot point whether academic experts see themselves as policy or scientific actors in this process (Gornitzka, 2006: 21) but they are seen as partners by the Commission which ‘sets their agenda, and regularly briefs them on new developments’ (Lelie and Vanhercke, 2013: 23). For example, a commissioned report on the ‘benchmarking of Education’ was produced by experts from seven countries, mainly drawn from specialist research centres or universities, who, while scientifically independent, had long experience of national evaluations and commissions. They reviewed the whole field of education quality and indicators, and used data sets from the OECD, the EU, the French Ministry of Education, and a range of national cases in Europe, and ended with recommendations. In other words, they were carefully chosen (probably through the Ministers of Education or Commission sources) to produce a favourable guide to action across the EU. They were not direct government actors but drawn from that growing category of technical experts who exist inside the research community but are dependent on government funding. The Commission created a regular series of funding calls which produced exchanges, cooperation and focused study by experts, especially with regard to benchmarking or evaluation and peer reviews. For the Commission, working with these actors was to be a stepping stone in a longer process of building European consensus on a topic (and thereby influencing the European policy agenda) – for example, a peer review built on earlier work done in the context of EU and national expert networks. It also provided legitimacy for funding subsequent EU studies, resulting in an EU seminar or a Commission Communication, ultimately followed by a new peer review on the same (or similar) topic – in other words, a virtuous circle of governing (Lelie and Vanhercke, 2013: 39).

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As already indicated, the OMC quickly became the stimulus for a series of initiatives to create the basis for the measurement and comparison of European education systems. One of the first initiatives was to set up nine working groups of national experts and a Standing Group on Indicators and Benchmarks. Information exchange, study visits and shared ideas of good practice would guide the work of the groups for the next three years (European Commission, 2007a, b; 2003). This process connected a range of academic and private experts in quality assurance or benchmarking; for example, projects on Benchmarking the Quality of Education involved seven countries and 17 experts (Scheerens, 2004), and on the Equity in European Educational Systems, six countries and 19 experts (EGREES, 2005). The latter was a collaboration of six university teams, funded through a Socrates Action, supported (or guided perhaps) by several members of DG EAC Policy division, with the task of measuring and comparing the equity of the education systems in the EU Member States, to enable ‘decision makers’ to be better informed about equity and to ‘refine their educational policies’. Initially, the collection of data and its analysis did not appear to threaten the autonomy of Member States, especially in this sensitive area and for those who felt protected by the formal rules of European law and formal applications of subsidiarity. For these actors, data gathering appeared innocuous, a policy of non-interference which excluded EU politics from education, yet at the same time, the issue of equity was seen as worthwhile and non-controversial in the field of education. However, within the space of a few years, the OMC began to have a much more intrusive and punitive side: The Open Method of Coordination has fallen far short of expectations. If Member States do not enter the spirit of mutual benchmarking, little or nothing happens. But neither has the Community method delivered what was expected. Member States are lagging behind the implementation of what has been agreed and the transposition of directives is in almost all Member States far behind the target … It is clear that both methods depend to a high degree on political will … The European Commission should present to the Heads of State or Government and the wider public annual updates on these key 14 Lisbon indicators in the format of league tables with rankings (1 to 25), praising good performance and castigating bad performance – naming, shaming and faming. (High Level Group, 2004: 42–43)

However, lagging behind was not the only major problem – the problem of definitions and of what exactly the OMC set out to achieve was soon to become another issue. Although indicators were adopted and became education policy, it was not clear in the early years, even within the Commission, exactly what this new OMC direction implied: The issue of benchmarking something like quality in education at a European level, is still, at this stage, very much hampered by a debate on definitions – what is an indicator, what is it supposed to do, what is it supposed to measure, why do we want it? … All of the Commission’s benchmarks have been placed in the

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future as targets to be reached, which, if you take the term benchmarks literally, is not actually the most appropriate meaning. A benchmark in industry, where the term is most often used, is basically a competitor’s performance in certain fields, against which you want to benchmark yourself in the hope of overpassing it. So a benchmark in industry is something which is placed in the present to give direction to action in the future. The Commission however has placed ‘benchmarks’ in the future to give direction to action in the present. This is confusing – but perhaps we have to recognise that in education we do actually need to come up with our own concept of benchmarks … : we also have to recognise that we cannot treat education in the same way as industry and that the one education system should not be conceived as the competitor of another education system. (Tersmette, 2001, emphasis in original)

Even though the terms used were not clear, and there was no experience in the Commission, at least in education, of managing the process, it was clear that a new direction in the governing of education was on the way. Terms were changing and becoming firmer – from harmonisation, to convergence, and now commonalities. A ‘common language’ of indicators and benchmarks was being created to manage the common challenges in the European education systems: You cannot have an indicator on school drop-out, for instance, if you don’t agree on what it is. And once you do agree on an indicator then clearly you have agreed that it is something worth measuring, you have agreed that it is a policy objective. So fixing the indicator is often fixing a concept and fixing a policy objective – and that in itself is a step ahead. (Tersmette, 2001)

With the agreement of the ministers, the task of developing the common language, and its practices, became the responsibility of experts. DG EAC has always depended on the use of experts (Pépin, 2006; Lawn and Grek, 2012) but the OMC move into data strengthened and mobilised this process. With the ‘Education and Training 2010’ Work Programme, practices and experience on the common objectives adopted by ministers were exchanged; DG EAC defined indicators for monitoring progress and produced European references to support national reforms. These covered teacher competences and qualifications; efficiency of investment; lifelong guidance; validation of non-formal and informal learning; quality assurance and mobility. It is clear from the above, therefore, that the work to set indicators was not just technical, but also political and ‘depended largely on the willingness and commitment of the Member States to take account, at national level, of the common objectives that they had fixed for themselves at European level’ (Pépin, 2006: 32). By 2004, it was becoming clear that many reforms were conducted in all countries, but they were no match for the challenges faced; the Union continued to lag behind its main competitors on the international stage in the areas related to the knowledge-based society; the greater

Europe through data and statistics163 public and private investment required in human resources was not forthcoming. The Commission called on the Member States to accelerate the pace of reforms. The education and training sector was thus one of the first to issue an alert about the danger of failure of the Lisbon strategy unless more substantial investment was made in human resources and more extensive reforms were conducted. (Pépin, 2006: 32)

At the end of 2004, the Commission proposed developing a limited number of new indicators in the short, medium and long term in areas which were ­ considered to be inadequately covered. These included the following: ­learning to learn, investment efficiency, information and communication t­echnology, mobility, adult learning, vocational education and training. Officials further proposed adding three fields which they believed to be equally ­important for effective implementation of the ‘Education and Training 2010’ process: languages, training of teachers and trainers, and social inclusion and active citizenship (Pépin, 2006: 216). Finally, three years later, in 2007, a Commission progress report on the Lisbon Process (European Commission, 2007b), aiming to provide strategic guidance, described the growth and the revision of the indicators as unprecedented. This was confirmed on interview: Because of Lisbon and because of the open method of coordination and because of the role of indicators and benchmarks in the open method of coordination, we started developing ways of working on more analytical aspects of the indicators, saying something about progress, developing indicators, quantitative indicators that say something about the quality of education … There has been a lot of resistance in using indicators and statistics and we simply didn’t have the competence in the house for doing it. So we developed that slowly and I think that now, five, seven years later we … between 40 and 50 people working in the field. Inside the Commission. It is exploding. Extraordinary. (Senior EU official, DG EAC, interview, 2010)

So, within seven years, and despite definitional problems and local specificities, indicators and benchmarks had become the new language of education in Europe; they had grown in scope, they had been revised and new areas of measurement had been added to them. The range of data produced and the task of making sense of it expanded the Commission’s Directorate in education, and it could no longer rely on national agencies or on the OECD. Rather, it had to create its own specialist research centre: a special unit to deal with studies, indicators and statistics was set up at the beginning of 2005 within the Directorate-General for Education and Culture. A cooperation agreement was also concluded in 2004 between the Education and Culture DG and one of the institutes of the Commission’s Joint Research Centre based in Ispra (Italy) for establishment of a lifelong learning research unit. This will provide scientific support for the Commission’s work … and afford general support for work on indicators. (Pépin, 2006: 219)

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One of the key actors who played a major role in the development of this work sums up the growth and focus of work on the development of education data within the Commission: We created a specific unit for the analysis of indicators, statistics and benchmarks … They are researchers and statisticians, econometricians, people that are able to work on data, the data flows … This is a massive change. Apart from that we have also seen a booming of budgets available for it, which means that we are able to co-finance an awful lot of development of new indicators that we do ourselves … We invested also in a European survey on learning to learn skills which is a completely new instrument in development based on the bad experiences in PISA and TIMMS [Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study] and then we support OECD and IEA in carrying out a number of surveys by supporting member states. We pay 80% of the national costs by the budget of the Union. So we have a budget for doing these things – I would believe around 20 million euros a year, it is around that. It is changing from year to year. (Senior EU official, DG EAC, interview, 2010)

The virtuous circle continued to spin throughout the post-2002 decade and continues. Invited experts produce reports, reports are adopted and demand funding, subsequent actions create more expert and new policy actors, and throughout, DG EAC grew. Comparable data regarding the education systems in Europe continues to be gathered in ways that often reflect the shifts of discourses and governing processes. Since 2000, a number of key European agencies, working in education or collecting data about education within social and economic policy generally, have worked more closely in producing research data, and have altered their data categories to work more effectively together. The Centre for Research on Lifelong Learning (CRELL) (discussed by the EU official above) was founded to produce research explicitly in the area of indicators and benchmarks, combining the work of economics, econometrics, education, social sciences and statistics (Hoskins and Crick, 2008). Eurostat and Eurydice, on the other hand, have been the oldest data collection agencies in the Commission in education. In recent years, Eurostat has worked with additional partners to extend and deepen the range of its educational statistics, for example, the OECD and the IEA, and other international organisations (such as the UN, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank). Statistics in education across Europe have not flowed through one agency but, increasingly, they are managed by a coalition of agencies, particularly Unesco, OECD and the EU (through Eurostat); the merging of their statistical work means that it is difficult to separate them. In this policy space, and as the EU harmonised its data across different fields of education and through producing new intensive and detailed ­indicators, data management and distribution became more and more important. There are several sources of comparative information which are increasingly combined and which depend on each other. Firstly, the standardisation

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tasks, necessary for comparison, were produced over time within Eurostat (for quantitative information) and by Eurydice (system comparative information and the European Education Thesaurus). The Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat) is tasked with providing a high-quality statistical information service on an EU-wide scale that enables comparisons between countries and regions, and which uses a common statistical ‘language’ – embracing concepts, methods, structures and ­technical standards – developed over time. The European Statistical System (ESS) was built up gradually with the objective of providing comparable statistics across the EU. The ESS comprises Eurostat and the statistical offices, ministries, a­ gencies and central banks that collect official statistics in EU Member States. It functions as a network in which Eurostat’s role is to lead the way in the harmonisation of statistics in close cooperation with the national statistical ­authorities. The ESS then processes, analyses and publishes EU-wide data, following common statistical concepts, methods and standards. Eurostat defines common methodologies together with the Member States, consolidates the data collected in each country, ensures that it is harmonised and as comparable as possible, and then creates European aggregates for the 25 Member States and the euro area. It then publishes most of these data and analyses on its website and in many cases also in the form of paper publications (European Commission, 2002). ESS work concentrates mainly on EU policy areas – but, with the extension of EU policies, harmonisation has been extended to nearly all statistical fields. Since 1998, Unesco/ OECD/Eurostat have jointly collected data on education statistics to develop international, comparable information on education. The International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) was revised in 1997 to facilitate international compilation and comparison of education statistics so as to take into account changes in education and anticipate future trends. This connection between the OECD, Eurostat and Unesco means that the problems of diverse international classification systems, necessary to judge c­ ompetitiveness and improvement (and to ‘govern’) are gradually being overcome through collaboration. Finally, the dependence of classifications upon the traditional areas of education such as education programmes in formal education systems is changing also. New education policies in Europe, especially the integrated knowledge economy approach, need data on continuing vocational training. Therefore, Eurostat sources go beyond the standard education data and include data drawn from demographic statistics, the Labour Force Survey (LFS), the 2000 LFS ad hoc module on Transition from School to Working Life, the European Community Household Panel (ECHP), Research and Development statistics, health statistics and economic statistics, and others. In summary, in this section, we have sought to show the various ways that data and their continuous measurement and comparison have produced significant policy effects in the governance of European education. Above all, we evidenced a substantial growth in exchanges and negotiations for policy objectives which suggested a much higher degree of Europeanisation than education had

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ever seen before. This is demonstrated through an account of the history of the development of indicators and benchmarks, an overview of the problems and difficulties of pushing reform through the OMC, and also through the views and accounts of key actors, and the role of research agencies. In particular, we have shown how in a short timeframe a large measuring apparatus was set up. And whereas, of course, its effects on domestic education systems are arguably diverse, its impact on constructing a new single and governable European eduation space has been immense. This is not to suggest that this has been a conflict-free process. On the contrary, despite the apparent dominance of the data system, the translation of information needs and conduits into a distinctively European form of governance was not without difficulty. Policy objectives and their benchmarking frameworks were often barely realised (Codagnone and Lupiañez-Villanueva, 2011: 9); rather, data became the means of formulating policy and influencing reform on Member States, despite the fact that targets were almost never achieved. The data produced was sometimes of intermittent quality, ritualistic and eventually often became an end in itself. There were problems, too, making comparisons within elements of the education system within one country, and certainly between countries. A method which was used to avoid political conflict began to cause problems: Member States wanted to be compared according to strengths of their education particularities. Choosing performance indicators was not a technical process. Ministers of Education did not demur in European meetings from agreeing indicators but then lobbied hard for indicators which would be preferable nationally. The task of making indicators comparable would arguably suggest choosing those more straightforward valid measures for comparison. Units of measurement had to be uncomplicated, easy to monitor, locally and regionally valid and therefore easily comparable and interpreted. Although their purpose was to aid ‘learning’ and so make governable a common Europe, they were often imputed to be a centralising action for controlling Member States. Over time there came the recognition that choosing an indicator, and collecting data, would also shape the object or phenomenon studied; as a result, political decisions proposed certain areas of emerging political interest to be included for performance audit. In addition, indicators could create an area or bring it into operation. Education as a policy space was slowly being re-imagined; it was simplified and re-arranged and this had intended and unintended effects. For example, the 2000 shift in the Commission’s Eurydice Key Data on teachers shifted the indicator from teachers’ working hours to time working in teams, a feature which became prominent in the next ten years. Ultimately, indicators are indications of a shift in data collection, from recording the past to shaping the future. In the process, they excise reference to politics and values, and longfought national arguments about key education policy aspects are bypassed. What is measured, counts. Without indicators, there is no performance. Indicators point out the direction and indicate progress.

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Conclusion This chapter has shown how a fundamental reordering of the governing of European education has taken place through measurement. The speed of change has been swift and underpinned by data, indicators and benchmarks, which have made change possible and hard to undo. At the same time, the growth of data and its use to audit performance and to make constant comparisons between schools, regions and nations have barely been studied. This study of measurement is of especial value because it works well with our desire to re-imagine Europe and its Union. Both are in constant creation, demanded and necessary, yet simultaneously voluntary and open. Numbers bring into being both values and actors and shape the subject to be studied: national education now involves the potential to be a common governable European education space. As Felouzis and Hanhart (2011) put it: the important thing here is to stress that while becoming essential as the bond which links the public policies on the one hand and their concrete realisation in teaching devices on the other, the evaluation became, much more than one external and ex post measurement of the educational action, a tool for modelling its form and its direction. (quoted in Borer and Lawn, 2013: 50)

Governing through measuring thus creates a lightly regulated, persuasive and self-managing approach in which data depoliticise policy; it relies on ­negotiation and persuasion, and agreed performance and standardisation of expertise that supports it. It also excludes conflict: ‘statistics were presented like an essential tool for the ‘rationalization’ of the control of the human ­business, by substituting the reason of measurement and calculation for the arbitrariness of passions and the play of the power struggles’ (Desrosières, 2000: 122, our translation). However, it should never be assumed that ‘soft’ power lacks ­coercive force or that it is a weak and restricted option: peer pressure, the opening of new areas of governance and the steady force of European construction are also present in this concept (López-Santana, 2006). The use of governing standards and data requires a range of experts with portable skills, drawn from universities, research centres, quality or standards associations and private companies. The shift into governing by indicators and benchmarks is a continuous and an active one in which performance requirements, checked through systematic quality management, are under constant review. The field of education has become less visible and less contentious; it is amorphous, it is not owned, it is normative and it has many expert and professional actors. Our argument about the significance of the policy space of education, and the way in which measurement and comparison have become the primary tools in its construction, is part of more general argument about the construction of the EU. Governing Europe is a distinctive mode of governing, formed in the early years of the Coal and Steel Community by Jean Monnet. In Laïdi’s terms,

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it was not based on the realist approach of self-centred sovereign states, but a constructivist view in which it is formed through co-construction (Laïdi, 2008). Norms circumvent sovereignty, discipline states and manage unpredictability, and through the agency of standards, became the European way of governing. It is a principled and effective way of managing state power and involving actors in a distributed, low-key and often hidden system of coordination, in which the European policy space is both constructed and integrated. Therefore, Europe as a commensurable policy space has been constructed around particular data sets, including indicators and a range of performance measures in respect of education. Comparison is now cross-border; it is both an abstract form of competition and an element of it; it is a proxy for other forms of rivalry. Comparison is highly visible as a tool of governing in multiple spaces of action – e.g., within the organisation (to manage) or within the state (to govern); indeed comparison events or ‘political spectacles’ (such as PISA) may be used because of their visibility. The data have to cross borders ‘well’ – that is in a form that is unchallenged and clear (but not all data travel well). If they do not travel they cannot be used to govern. Thus, in our framing of the issue of re-imagining Europe through data, we see the co-dependence of commensurability and comparison as key in making data work as governing technologies. Finally, although this chapter has focused on education, these ­developments have not been limited to this policy area. Indeed, the role of indicators is reflected in the growth of their volume and range in many European policy areas, especially since the emergence of the OMC. Indicators have appeared as the solution to the logjam around shared policy-making, community regulation and market changes, and have been given meaning through a narrative of the knowledge-based economy. Consequently, we contend, it is not only through measuring education that Europeans interpret and understand Europe. On the contrary, across a range of areas, Europeans and others make sense of Europe through measurement.

Notes 1 www.oecd.org/pisa/. 2 According to an inclusive ontology, Europe’s ‘reality is not natural, but co-produced by people as groups’; ‘institutions are not detached from actors but their interactions are critical’; ‘political action is guided by individuals whose interests are socially constructed’; there is an ‘emphasis on the ties between the macro and micro, institutions and power and actions of individuals and groups in more or less structured social spheres’ (all from Kauppi, 2010: 28–31). 3 Both authors would like to acknowledge the Economic and Social Research Council for supporting their research through the following project grants: ‘Governing by Numbers: data and education governance in Scotland and England’ and ‘Fabricating Quality in European Education’ (2006–9) (RES-000-23-1385); and ‘Transnational Policy Learning: a comparative study of OECD and EU policy in constructing the skills and competencies agenda’ (2010–12) (RES-062-23-2241). Also, our thanks for

Europe through data and statistics169 the support of the European Union’s Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development on the theme of socio-economic sciences and the humanities – the KNOWandPOL (Knowledge and Policy in Education and Health Sectors) project, Contract Number 028848-2.

References Blomqvist, C. (2007) Reports from Acta Universitatis Tamperensis 1205, Tampere, Finland: Tampere University Press. Borer, V. and Lawn, M. (2013) ‘Governing education systems by shaping data: From the past to the present, from national to international perspectives’, European Educational Research Journal, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 48–52. Carter, C., Freeman, R. and Lawn, M. (2015) ‘Governing Europe’s spaces: European Union re-imagined [Introduction]’, in Carter, C. and Lawn, M. (eds.) Governing Europe’s spaces: European Union re-imagined, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 1–23. Codagnone, C. and Lupiañez-Villanueva F. (2011) A composite index for benchmarking e-health deployment in European acute hospitals: Distilling reality into a manageable form for evidence-based policy, JRC-IPTS EUR 24825, Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Desrosières, A. (2000) L’histoire de la statistique comme genre: style d’écriture et usages sociaux, Genèses, No 39, pp. 121–137. Desrosières, A. (1998) The politics of large numbers: A history of statistical ­reasoning, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. European Commission (2007a) Communication from the Commission: A ­coherent framework of indicators and benchmarks for monitoring progress towards the Lisbon objectives in education and training, COM(2007) 61 final, Brussels. European Commission (2007b) Progress towards the Lisbon objectives in education and training: Indicators and benchmarks, Commission Staff Working Document. Available: www.ecnais.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/EandT_ in_Europe_2008–report_indicators_and_benchmarks.pdf. European Commission (2006) Time to move up a gear: The new partnership for growth and jobs, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. European Commission (2003) Communication from the Commission: Education and training 2010: The success of the Lisbon Strategy hinges on urgent reforms, Draft joint interim report on the implementation of the detailed work, COM(2003) 685 final, Brussels. European Commission (2002) Education and training in Europe: Diverse systems, shared goals for 2010. The work programme on the future objectives of ­education and training systems, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. European Commission (2001) European report on quality of school education: 16 quality indicators, Report based on the work of the Working Committee on Quality Indicators (May 2000). Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

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European Commission (1997) Towards a Europe of knowledge: Communication from the Commission, COM(97) 563 final, Brussels. European Commission (1995) White Paper on education and training: Teaching and learning towards the learning society, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. European Group for Research on Equity in Educational Systems (EGREES) (2005) ‘Equity in European educational systems: A set of indicators’, European Educational Research Journal, vol. 4, pp. 1–151. Felouzis, G. and Hanhart, S. (2011) ‘Politiques éducatives et évaluation: Nouvelles tendances, nouveaux acteurs’, in Felouzis, G. and Hanhart, S. (eds.) Gouverner l’éducation par les nombres? Usages, débats et controversies, Brussels: De Boeck, pp. 7–31. Georgakakis, D. (2008) ‘The historical and political sociology in the EU: What’s new in France?’, Paper presented at the ECPR Conference, Rennes (April). Gornitzka, A. (2006) ‘The open method of coordination as practice: A watershed in European education policy?’ ARENA Working Paper OSLO, no. 16. Available: www.efta.int/~/media/Documents/eea/2006)seminars/omc-140508/gornitzka.ashx. Grek, S. (2009) ‘Governing by numbers: The PISA effect in Europe’, Journal of Education Policy, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 23–37. Hacking, I. (1990) The taming of chance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hacking, I. (1975) The emergence of probability, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. High Level Group (2004) Facing the challenge: The Lisbon strategy for growth and employment [Kok Report], Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. Henry, M., Lingard, B., Rizvi, F. and Taylor, S. (2001) The OECD, globalisation and education policy, Oxford: Pergamon Press. Hoskins, B. and Crick, R. (2008) ‘Social justice, research and European policy: Defining and measuring key competences in education [Introduction]’ European Educational Research Journal, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 308–310. Kauppi, N. (2010) ‘The political ontology of European integration’, Comparative European Politics, vol. 8 (Special Issue), pp. 19–36. Laïdi, Z. (2008) Norms over force: The enigma of European power, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Latour, B. (1987) Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lawn, M. (2006) ‘Soft governance and the learning spaces of Europe’, Comparative European Politics, vol. 4, pp. 272–288. Lawn, M. and Grek, S. (2012) Europeanizing education: Governing a new policy space, Oxford: Symposium Books. Lawn, M. and Lingard, B. (2002) ‘Constructing a European policy space in educational governance: The role of transnational policy actors’, European Educational Research Journal, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 290–307. Lelie, P. and Vanhercke, B. (2013) ‘Inside the social OMC’s learning tools: How “benchmarking social Europe” really worked’, OSE Paper Series, no. 10 (February).

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Lingard, B., Rawolle, S. and Taylor, S. (2005) ‘Globalising policy sociology in ­education: Working with Bourdieu’, Journal of Education Policy, vol. 20, no. 6, pp. 759–777. López-Santana, M. (2006) ‘The domestic implications of European soft law: Framing and transmitting change in employment policy’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 481–499. Niukko, S. (2006) ‘OECD in the eyes of Finnish education policy makers’, in Kallo, J. and Rinne, R. (eds.) Supranational regimes and national education policies: Encountering challenge, Reports from the Finnish Educational Research Association 24, Turku, Finland: Painosolama, pp. 299–333. Nóvoa, A. and Yariv-Mashal, T. (2003) ‘Comparative research in education: A mode of governance or a historial journey?’, Comparative Education, vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 423–438. Ollikainen, A. (1999) The single market for education and national education policy, Turku, Finland: Research Unit for Sociology of Education RUSE. Pépin, L. (2006) The history of European cooperation in education and training: Europe in the making. An example, Luxembourg: European Communities. Porter, T. (1995) Trust in numbers, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rizvi, F. and Lingard, B. (2006) ‘Globalisation and the changing nature of the OECD’s educational work’, in Lauder, H., Brown, P., Dillabough, J. and Halsey, A. (eds.) Education, globalisation and social change, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Robertson, S. and Dale, R. (2006) ‘Changing geographies of power in education: The politics of rescaling and its contradictions’, in Kassem, D., Mufti, E. and Robinson, J. (eds.) Education studies: Issues and critical perspectives, Maidenhead: Open University Press, pp. 221–232. Rosamond, B. (2003) Globalisation, EU economic policy communities and the c­onstruction of European identities (ESRC End of Award Report No. L213252024). Scheerens, J. (2004) ‘Perspectives on education quality, education indicators and benchmarking’, European Educational Research Journal, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 115–138. Scott, C. (1998) Seeing like a state: How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Shaw, J. (1999) ‘From the margins to the centre: Education and training law and policy’, in Craig, P. and de Búrga, G. (eds.) The evolution of the EU law, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 555–595. Smith, A. (2009) ‘Studying the government of the EU: The promise of political sociology’, Paper presented to Europa Institute seminar series ‘Practising EU Government’, Edinburgh University: Edinburgh (20 February). Tersmette, E. (2001) ‘Benchmarking of quality of education: A European perspective’, International meeting on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Netherlands Inspectorate of Education, ‘Inspecting in a new age’, Utrecht (19 October).

7 Depoliticising Europe: collective private action and sustainable Europe Caitríona Carter

Introduction This book sets a broad agenda challenging dominant rationalist assumptions about the European Union (EU). Rather than reifying Europe as an entity with intrinsic properties – e.g., supranational, intergovernmental or multi-level Europe – it makes the case for conceiving of the EU instead as a real and imagined space of action, which exists only to the extent that ‘Europeans’ and others act in and on it, and are shaped through it. Indeed, ‘Europe’ is seen as many possible spaces of action whereby European actors come together and make sense of their respective worlds. In this way, this book invites us to re-think what Europe is, rather than what it is, including which values are enacted in its name. Its politics, rather than being assumed to be rooted in conflicts over ‘pre-defined’ images of the EU, are studied instead as ‘a complex and continuous struggle over [Europe’s] definition and [very] meaning’ (paraphrasing Hajer, 2005 [1995]: 15). The book therefore also invites reflection upon how this re-imagined Europe can be brought to light through empirical demonstration – and this to counter scholarship which insists that only rationalist approaches generate knowledge worth obtaining.1 What ‘awkward knowledge’ (Waldow, 2008) about the governing of Europe is excluded or unacknowledged in conventional accounts and how can this be generated? I respond to these challenges in this chapter through critically assessing the reglementary action2 of groups of public and private collective actors to give social meaning to European ‘sustainable development’. As others have argued, the EU’s Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS) has been a self-acclaimed EU strategy since the mid-1990s, building upon ‘environmental policy integration’, itself ‘a long-standing aim of EU policy’ (Jordan et al., 2013: 227). However, for many EU studies scholars working on environmental policy, the SDS is largely regarded as a failure: either scholars contend that it has not been applied at all, or that it has been applied in a reductionist way through ecological modernisation (see various contributions to Jordan and Adelle, 2013). 172

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These conclusions on the alleged failure of the SDS merit closer scrutiny. First, they rarely derive from research on practices beyond those occurring within the traditional arenas of the ‘EU’, assumed to be located in Brussels, and within and between the European Commission, the Council and the European Parliament. Given the emphasis placed by the SDS on sectoral integration as the mechanism for its implementation – whereby sustainable development choices are expected to be taken up by actors within sectors – this raises the question are the scholars always looking in the right place? Second, EU scholarship highlighting the failure of the EU’s SDS tends to be somewhat normative in its approach (Connelly, 2007), and rarely moves beyond rationalist conceptions of its politics. For example, in line with other rationalist analyses of environmental conflict (as documented by Hajer, 2005 [1995]), scholars have been inclined to focus more on the question ‘why has no action been taken?’ than the question ‘how has the problem been tackled?’ Even when they do ask how SDS has been addressed, a common assumption is that there is an a priori understanding of what sustainable development should be that is not matched by public action. Tensions over the SDS are thus discussed in binary terms of ‘strong’ versus ‘weak’ sustainability, whereby the ‘EU’ – considered an intrinsic entity in its own right – is understood to be pursuing a ‘weak’ SDS. Yet, the actual valuecontent of a strong versus a weak SDS is rarely discussed in detail. Rather, the reader is presumed to be sufficiently equipped to be able to navigate metaphors of ‘light’ versus ‘dark’ green SDS or to decode characterisations of ‘ecological freakish’ versus ‘laggard’ strategies of SDS action (see, for example, contributions to Jordan and Adelle, 2013). The ambition of the chapter therefore is to address these twin challenges of place and value-content of SDS through offering an alternative assessment grounded in an inclusive ontology as proposed in the Introduction to this book (Carter et al., 2015; Kauppi, 2010). My starting point is to replace realist assumptions about the SDS with constructivist ones and argue that, like Europe itself, sustainable development is not a thing. ‘Sustainable Europe’ too only exists to the extent that ‘Europeans’ and others act in and on it, and are shaped through it. In presenting empirical research on how actors have given social meaning to sustainability in fish farming in the EU, I show the multiple ways in which sustainable development has been done and carried out in this industry. My analytical focus throughout is on the ‘politics of ideas’, rather than the ideas themselves (Jabko, 2006: 8). This means that although the outcome of these political struggles might be to give a particular definition to sustainability with which I take issue, my aim is to make explicit the value choices being chosen. In particular, this entails unpacking the different and varied interpretations of the meta-narrative of ‘ecological modernisation’ – which I also do not treat as a single approach. More precisely, I argue that for this industry at least, rather than being absent, sustainable development is omnipresent; rather than being natural and failed, its reality is co-produced and unfinished; rather than

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being c­haracterised by non-action in the black boxes of ‘comitology’ and ‘the sector’, sustainability is given social meaning through the action of a range of actors (here inter alia Directorate-General for Health and Consumers (DG SANCO) officials, fat renderers, feed companies, fish farmers, supermarkets, NGOs), whose value choices are constantly depoliticised. I hypothesise that although in this chapter I consider only one industry – and hence one case of sectoral integration – the example of aquaculture is no exception. Indeed, empirical findings from research on this very question in respect of other industries – such as fisheries (Carter, 2014; Van den Bossche and Van der Burgt, 2006) and pharmaceuticals (Scheerlinck and Van Leeuw, 2006) – have also demonstrated the mobilisation of sectoral sustainable development p ­ ractices. But, I contend, it is only by shifting our ontology and re-imagining the EU that research can capture these changing practices to build an a­ lternative critique.

Re-imagining the EU’s Sustainable Development Strategy and ecological modernisation As most scholarship on the EU’s ‘Sustainable Development Strategy’ (SDS) explains, the EU’s formal commitment to ‘sustainable growth’ and ‘sustainable development’ dates back to the 1980s/90s – announced in European Council Conclusions in 1988 and then codified first in the Treaty on European Union in 1993 and second in its amending Treaty of Amsterdam in 1999 (via Article 6) (Pallemaerts, 2013). Since then, a series of policy documents have been published which collectively develop its contents (5th Environmental Action Programme 1993–97 (European Commission, 1993); Cardiff Process of Sectoral Integration (European Council, 1998); the European Commission’s Strategy for Sustainable Development, 2001; Göteborg European Council Conclusions (European Council, 2001); Renewed Sustainable Development Strategy (Council of the European Union, 2006). In very general terms, in these policy documents, sustainable development refers to the potential for European societies to reconcile objectives of economic growth with those of environmental protection and social justice. For example, the European Commission has stated that: ‘sustainable development must strike a balance between the economic, social and environmental objectives of society, in order to maximise well-being in the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs’ (2002: 3). The principal procedural mechanism for achieving sustainable development in Europe is sectoral integration. Sectoral integration has been defined in different ways (Carter, 2012). It has been interpreted as meaning that those responsible for governing sectors, such as aquaculture,3 must take the responsibility for the sustainable development of their industry: this no longer falls solely to environmental departments to ensure (i.e. a form of mainstreaming). However, when setting instruments to govern their sector, these same actors

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must in turn seek ‘some balance of economic, environmental and social priorities’ (Connelly, 2007: 269). An overview of the EU studies literature on the implementation of the EU’s SDS reveals a number of criticisms levelled against this strategy. First, scholars are largely disappointed with its actualisation. Over time, they see the EU’s commitment to the SDS as weakening. For example, Benson and Adelle state that ‘sustainable development has dropped down the EU’s policy agenda in recent years’ (2013: 41); Krämer claims that Article 6 remains ‘an empty shell which has not had much substantive content’ (2005: 555); Pallemaerts asserts that ‘the SDS has virtually been “mainstreamed” into oblivion’ (2013: 361); Jordan et al. argue that ‘[Environmental Policy Integration] has proven to be much harder to implement than many people had originally expected’ and that ‘politically speaking [the Cardiff process of sectoral integration] is dead in the water’ (2013: 228, 235). Though accordingly the EU’s SDS is considered symbolic rather than concrete (Baker, 2007), a second criticism advanced is that if the SDS has been implemented at any stage, this has happened in a reductionist way. This basic starting point assumes a ‘natural’ state of a ‘strong’ sustainable development policy, the value-contents of which are not always easy to discern. For example, Burns argues that today’s MEPs are rarely radical and that ‘although the Parliament has been prepared to propose environmental amendments that impose significant costs upon the member states and industries, broadly speaking, it has adopted the ecological modernisation agenda of the Commission, based upon greening capitalism and furthering growth’ (2013: 134). Ecological modernisation comes across as the weak option – a view supported by others: ‘there are limitations to how far ecological modernisation can function as an ideology that promotes sustainable policy solutions’ (Grant, 2013: 174). But which values precisely are not being implemented? What are the possible alternatives?4 This is not always clearly stated and is compounded by the findings of others who, on the one hand, evidence a failed SDS by the fact that DirectorateGeneral for the Environment (DG ENVI) today finds itself ‘in a three way battle with those representing the economy and social pillars of sustainability’ (Jordan et al., 2013: 239) and, on the other hand, conclude that the ‘EU’s own [sic] philosophy …. seeks to reconcile economic development with a high quality of environmental protection’ (Jordan and Adelle, 2013: 371). My contention in this chapter is that this line of critique is grounded – either consciously or subconsciously – in an exclusive ontology of Europe and its Union5 and that this ultimately weakens its critical analysis of European sustainable development practices. First, although the SDS is considered a failure because it ‘“seems rather remote to sectoral policy makers” (Pallemaerts et al., 2007: 34)’ (Jordan et al., 2013: 239), rarely are such conclusions based on empirical research actually focused on the reglementary action of a range of sectoral actors over the setting of instruments which govern their industry.6 This is surprising given that one of the consequences of sectoral integration

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is that the responsibility for taking political choices on meanings of sustainability, including the prioritisation of values therein, is re-assigned away from DG ENVI, the European Parliament (EP) Environmental committee and the Environmental council to other spaces of EU public and European private collective action – and this is acknowledged within the literature. Yet although EU studies research on the environment has examined, for example, the political mobilisation of private groups, such as environmental lobby groups, the role of private companies has been less studied. Of course, there are exceptions: for example, Grant explains how the EU’s focus on the sustainability of products ‘from conception to destruction … brings a whole host of other actors into the fray’ (2013: 173). But, for the most part, systematic work on sectors as discrete spaces of EU action, potentially critical for the building of sustainable Europe and its values, is largely missing in contemporary EU studies analyses.7 Of course, part of the explanation for not giving this collective private action sufficient attention in evaluation of EU environmental policy is linked to scholarship’s general ‘neglect of implementation issues’ (Lenschow, 2013: 59): ‘In fact, scientific knowledge of the situation regarding the practical application of Community law [in the environment] is still very limited’ (Jordan and Tosun, 2013: 253). However, this is not the only challenge. My argument is rather that continued attachment to an exclusive ontology of the EU limits research’s ability to see beyond public actor conflicts. This is when clashes between EU ‘institutions’8 (here referring to the Commission, EP, Council) and between ‘intergovernmental and supranational parts of the EU’ (Jordan and Tosun, 2013: 258) are largely represented as emblematic of EU environmental politics in general and as causes of its failure in particular. Indeed, thinking in terms of these dichotomies ultimately hinders scholars from enlarging their scope of analytical attention (Carter et al., 2015). This happens when politics are imagined through binary categories not only of intergovernmental versus supranational, but also of political versus technical (Smith, 2009). Indeed, one of the spaces of action in which implementation takes place on an EU-wide scale is within comitology processes. Comitology refers to a series of committees which bring together Member State governmental experts and Commission officials to implement EU regulation. However, we find that these have been disqualified as potential spaces for environmental politics. Instead, comitology is referred to as dealing with ‘practical issues’ such as ‘reporting elements and technical specification’ – ‘a highly technical process’ (Adelle et al., 2013: 212). Another potential space for action over sustainable development is in the setting of private sustainability standards on food products. Yet ‘the issue of environmental standards is tackled mostly from a state-centric, rationalist perspective’ (Lenschow, 2013: 66), resulting in these also largely being ignored in otherwise extensive overviews of EU environmental policy (Jordan and Adelle, 2013). Adopting an exclusive ontological starting point also produces a second difficulty for analyses of SDS. This is when scholars hold realist assumptions about both sustainable development and ecological modernisation. For neither

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is ­sustainable development a natural state of affairs, nor is ecological modernisation an essentialist strategy of action. On the one hand, as Haughton and Counsell have argued, there is no ‘definitive meaning of sustainable development’, rather ‘it is necessary to recognise the multiplicity of sustainabilities and to analyse the ways in which these are shaped and mobilised in political discourse’ (2004: 72–73). On the other hand, to argue that sustainable development has been given a ‘weakened’ meaning through ecological modernisation does not tell you very much either about its content. This is because ecological modernisation is neither a unified environmental social theory (Mol, 2002; Christoff, 1996) nor an essentialist approach. On the contrary, it is a living theory, a narrative, a ‘web of beliefs’ (Bevir, 2011: 189). Clearly, as an approach it makes certain assumptions which set it apart from other ecological approaches, such as neo-Marxist ones (Lippert, 2010; Pepper, 1998) or ‘traditional pragmatist’ ones (as documented by Hajer 2005 [1995]). For example, ecological modernisation assumes that ‘industrial/capitalist societies are not inherently unsustainable’ (Lippert, 2010: 9); it assumes that ‘the environment and the economy, if properly managed, are mutually reinforcing; and are supportive of and supported by technological innovation’ (OECD, 1985: 10); it assumes a de-coupling of economic and ecological rationalities (Mol, 2002: 94); it assumes that the notion of sustainable growth is a ‘positive-sum game’ (Hajer, 2005 [1995]: 26). Yet over and above these general assumptions, there are many possible interpretations of ecological modernisation. This is because, critical to this approach, is a theory of ‘incremental change within the existing system of capitalism’ (Couturier and Thaimi, 2013): The theory sees environmental problems as being successfully dealt with by the ecological transformations of 1) science and technology 2) market dynamics and economic agents 3) nation-states 4) social movements 5) discursive practices and emerging ideologies. (Lippert, 2010: 11, my emphasis)

And it is precisely over this question of incremental change, including over, for example, changing problematisations of science or the market or the state, that a range of difference amongst theorists (and practices) can give rise to multiple applications of ecological modernisation. For example, one could imagine a minimal interpretation of ecological modernisation which focuses mainly upon technical innovation as transformation and fails to re-problematise markets, interpreting these through neo-liberal beliefs as supply and demand processes; or which fails to re-problematise human–nature relations and continues to apply ‘command and control’ solutions to environmental problems; or which fails to re-problematise the state and endorses state-centric structures, etc. – versus a maximal interpretation which re-problematises science–politics relations; sees the market place as socially constructed and institutionalised; re-problematises the state; re-problematises nature as ecosystems; endorses participatory practices and reflexive engagement of society over human–nature relationships.

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All of these interpretations are potentially consistent with ‘ecological modernisation’, especially when we treat it as practice. Therefore, its reification as a single approach obscures the important value choices which it contains. This is particularly problematic when it comes to assessments of sustainable development. Indeed, for some scholars, ecological modernisation and sustainable development potentially have in common assumptions on causal relations between the economy, the environment and society: ‘ecological modernisation is even a synonym of sustainable development’ (Lippert, 2010: 8, referring to the work of Buttel, 2000). For them, ‘ecological modernisation theory suggests that “modernity” enters the stage of sustainable development through ecological modernisation’ (Lippert, 2010: 11). Yet others disagree, and in particular on questions of causes of social transformation and justice (Giddings et al., 2002). Consequently, to be able to critically assess sustainable development value choices, we require recognising ecological modernisation as non-essentialist. This is facilitated by drawing upon the work of others who have sought to demonstrate its different interpretations. For example, Hajer has documented the contrasting political choices made of those who endorse a predominantly economic as opposed to an environmental commitment in reconciling the market and nature (2005 [1995]: 164–165). Pallemaerts has described an EU ‘sustainability … narrow[ed] … towards a rather one-dimensional concept of eco-efficiency’ and ‘the environmental dimension of sustainability … reduced to energy and resource efficiency’ (2013: 363, 361). Of particular interest here is the work conducted by Horlings and Marsden to distinguish between ecological modernisation practices which institutionalise a ‘bio-economy’ and those which create an ‘eco-economy’ (2011, 2014).9 Drawing on Marsden, they have developed descriptors to compare a bio-economy as generally ‘addressing environmental problems by technocratic and corporatist modes of policy-making’ (Horlings and Marsden, 2014: 4) with an eco-economy as broadly containing ‘a stronger institutional embeddedness of activities in specific contexts of space and place’ (Horlings and Marsden, 2014: 7). Terms associated with the bioeconomy are: global, national or regional scale; de-coupled from local environmental conditions; economic growth; corporate control; supply chain logistics; energy, waste, eco-efficiency; eco-industrial sites (Marsden, 2014). By contrast, the eco-economy is associated with: regional and local scales; embedded in local environmental conditions; small-scale economy; citizens and consumer networks; value capture; ecological conditions and natural growth processes; rural landscapes (Marsden, 2014). These descriptors consequently provide a useful starting point for unpacking the politics of ecological modernisation and hence improving our critical assessment of actor choices over what constitutes ‘sustainable Europe’. In summary, the adoption of an inclusive ontology I contend not only enables research to treat industries (sectors) as potential spaces for EU sustainable development politics – and hence the making of Europe – but also encourages critical reflections upon the value-content of these politics. Crucially,

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this ­analytical added-value stems from recognising ecological modernisation practice as potentially giving rise to multiple interpretations of transforming relations between nature, the state, the market and society.

Depoliticising Europe: bio- versus eco-economic sustainable Europe In this section, I present a different image of ‘sustainable Europe’ grounded in an inclusive ontology. I show how a range of actors along the fish farming supply chain (from feed to farm to fork) have mobilised around a politics of European sustainability as the primary struggle for their industry (Carter, 2012). In so doing, I part company from an exclusive ontology in a number of ways. First, I no longer conceptualise the ‘EU’ as a single entity, but see it as about people organised in various groups who come together and seek to make sense of their production worlds and the meaning of sustainability therein. Here these include European Commission officials in DG SANCO, animal fat renderers and processors, feed manufacturers, fish farmers, aquaculture policy officers in environmental NGOs, seafood policy officers working for supermarkets. Second, I understand their action to be organised around objects and instruments. Third, I do not view their strategies in rationalist terms, but see their interests as socially constructed. Indeed, in this reglementary work, these various actors have – at times without realising it, or giving it a name – enacted different interpretations of ecological modernisation which I will document. Fourth, I understand ecological modernisation in an interpretivist way, i.e. as a ‘web of beliefs’ (Bevir, 2011: 189), which exists only when produced or reproduced through practices (Bevir and Rhodes, 2003: 33–35). I acknowledge the potential range of value choices within ecological modernisation and which are mobilised (either consciously or sub-consciously) by actors when seeking to give social meaning to sustainability.10 The cases I present concern the question of the sustainability of feeds used in fish farming.11 Fish farming consists of the raising of fish in cages and tanks, either in the sea (e.g. salmon, seabass and seabream) or in rivers (e.g. rainbow trout). Feeds are an integral part of this process, whereby choices over the contents of feed ingredients are potentially informed through values of food safety, animal and human health and the sustainability of natural resources. And whereas the usage of feed ingredients is subject to EU regulatory control on grounds of food safety, animal and human health and local environmental impact, it is not subject to the equivalent control on grounds of sustainability of natural resources. However, in the rest of this chapter, I will present two cases where (sector) actors have ‘owned the problem’ (Gilbert and Henry, 2012) of sustainability of feeds; socially constructed its meaning for them; and have institutionalised European commitments as a result. Both cases can thus be read as concrete examples of sectoral integration. More specifically, the first case concerns the re-authorisation of the usage of Processed Animal Proteins (PAPs)

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in fish feeds by a comitology committee, whilst the second tackles the setting of sustainability standards for EU-produced salmon. In each case, very different applications of ecological modernisation (and hence sustainability) have been at work, even if this term was not one deployed by actors we interviewed.12 Sustainable feeds: ecological modernisation as the bio-economy The first case concerns a recent decision taken by one of the EU’s comitology committees – the Standing Committee of the Food Chain and Animal Health (SCFCAH). This regulatory committee brings together scientific experts representing the governments of the Member States, as well as Commission policy officials, and has responsibility for decisions over food and feed safety, animal health and welfare and plant health. It was established by Regulation 178/2002 on food law and safety during EU reform of its policy in the aftermath of food safety crises – in particular, those stemming from the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) and dioxin epidemics. In July 2012, the SCFCAH took the decision to re-authorise the use of PAPs in fish feed diets; this was based on a scientific risk safety assessment conducted by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). PAPs are rendered products and had initially been banned in 2001 from usage in animal and fish feeds following food safety crises. They are sourced from abattoir or catering waste of animals which have been certified as ‘fit for human consumption’. In making this decision, the SCFCAH clarified that only non-ruminant PAPs were subject to re-authorisation. This meant that whereas rendered poultry and pig by-products could now be fed to farmed fish, by-products from cows could not (this was linked to the SCFCAH’s continued responsibility to eradicate BSE in Europe). It might be tempting to consider this decision as essentially technical, limited to food safety and the action of national governments and the Commission. I argue, however, that the process of amending the authorising instrument produced new European spatial action which 1) extended far beyond the meeting room of the SCFCAH; 2) pre-dated July 2012 by many years; and 3) socially constructed sustainability of feeds amongst certain groups of actors. Indeed, the very way in which SCFCAH instrumentation was brought about produced flowing interactions and informal and shifting alliances between actors across different industries, in turn re-shaping their interests. First, actors other than those in the committee’s meeting room imagined the ‘place of practice’ of the SCFCAH as beyond its physical frontiers. One such group of actors were those within the animal rendering industry. Indeed, already in the 1970s, US and Canadian renderers had worked together in their professional association to publish a book on their industry, entitled The invisible industry. This publication was followed by two others: one in 1996 The original recyclers and a third in 2006 Essential rendering (edited by Meeker). These collective writing and publication projects stabilised certain professional identities of renderers in relation to nature and the environment: ‘The Original Recyclers was published to tell everyone in government, academia,

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and the public what renderers are – environmentally aware producers of safe products – the original recyclers’ (Preface, Meeker, 2006). As acknowledged by David J. Kaluzny II, Chairman of the (US) National Renderers Association, Essential rendering was written and published following a period of food safety crises: ‘society needs to know how renderers handle, in a biosecure manner, over 59 billion pounds of the by-products … and what the ramifications are of not having rendering’ (Preface, Meeker, 2006). Re-constructing the history of rendering as far back as the ‘cave people’, through to usages of tallow to produce candles or soap, the 2006 book describes the evolution of the rendering process as integral to what scholars call our common ‘industrial heritage’ (Cazals, 2012). Critically, it sets out to problematise today’s rendered products as nutritionally valuable (especially for fish – Bureau, 2006) and safe. But these are not the only claims made. Rather, a narrative runs through this book which presents rendering as producing inherently sustainable products. On the one hand, this is linked to the idea that rendering is part of the way in which people have been recycling animal products for decades. But, on the other hand, and looking to the future, the book also discusses transformations in technical innovation which are shown to be achieving energy efficiency of production processes and producing ‘environmentally neutral, sustainable’ products (Woodgate, 2006: 293).13 Moreover, the book also tries to imagine a world without rendering – and this world is largely depicted as unsafe and unsustainable. The potential usage of rendered products for fish feeds is specifically discussed in this context and as one important means for meeting the sustainability goals of this industry (Nates, 2006: 276). One of the accusations levelled against fish farming on grounds of sustainability has been that marine ingredients used in fish diets are sourced from fisheries in Peru, Chile and the NE Atlantic whose stocks are either at risk of collapsing or finite. Therefore, continued use of these ingredients contributes to unsustainable fish farming practices. One of the responses to this claim has been to substitute marine ingredients (fishmeal and fish oil) with other ingredients, e.g., vegetable proteins/oils. Renderers argue that PAPs too can be substitutes. Moreover, not only can PAPs be used to replace fish proteins in diets: PAPs are simultaneously more effective and sustainable protein replacements than vegetable ones; they are easily converted by fish, have nutritional value and are recycled products. In short, PAPs are sustainable both via substitution and by their very nature. Second, these North American problematisations were taken up and advanced by European fat processors and renderers seeking to re-authorise PAPs’ usage in feeds – in some cases, through exchanges with some of the chapter authors of the The original recyclers (interview) and in others, from having contributed to the book (Woodgate, 2006). Of course, a clearly expressed motive for seeking to render PAPs in the EU and place these products on the EU’s internal market was to grow the rendering industry (interviews). Already in the mid2000s European renderers had started to lobby MEPs through their collective

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association, the European Fat Processors and Renderers Association (EFPRA), and had been successful in having the question of PAPs’ safety sent to EFSA for a risk assessment – a favourable opinion being given in 2007 (interviews). They subsequently worked with one of the European Commission’s research partners to design a ruminant detection test (essential to ensure that PAPs were indeed non-ruminant products); lobbied DG SANCO officials; and conducted exchanges with slaughter houses, feed companies, farmers and fish farmers. Yet during the course of these interactions which brought these otherwise disparate groups into a continuous dialogue over the potential re-authorisation, neither were economic growth nor safety the sole values discussed. To begin with, EFPRA placed constant emphasis on the sustainable identity of its industry: for example, on stressing the potential use of animal fats to create bio-diesel products (interviews). European feed companies similarly discussed PAPs in terms of the sustainable substitution of proteins. Indeed it was through narratives of sustainability that fish farmers moved in and out of this space of action (supporting renderers mostly behind the scenes, for example, in telephone exchanges or lunchtime exchanges – interviews). Fish feed and farming companies we interviewed had this to say about PAPs: it’s exactly what fish should be eating … [but] we throw it away. (Niche organic/ sustainable Greek seabream farmer, interview, 2012) nutritionally fantastic … but not getting the full value … going into landfill. (MNL salmon feed company, interview, 2012) this might sound strange, but it is not so much the cost as the sustainability issues. (MNL salmon producer, interview, 2010) It would be a huge step forward if we could use PAPs. It is a scandal not to do this. It is a monstrous waste of economic and ecological resources. (French organic fish feed manufacturer, interview, 2012)

Officials within DG SANCO who led the negotiations with the Member States also espoused these narratives of sustainability (in addition to safety – Carter, 2015). These were mobilised in more formal interactions with members of the SCFCAH in the months leading up to the taking of the decision. The Commission’s way forward, as set out in its roadmap (European Commission, 2010) contained statements to this effect; when the re-authorisation was announced, the Commission’s press release said explicitly that this would ‘improve the overall sustainability of the sector’ (European Commission, 2012). PAPs were sustainable not only because they could be used to replace fishmeal as a source of protein, thereby reducing pressures on wild fish stocks (a ‘politics of substitution’); their use would valorise by-products which would otherwise be wasted and thrown away (DG SANCO, interviews, 2013). In summary, important value judgements were made in the course of these long interactions which spanned many years and culminated in the committee’s

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decision in July 2012. And, although the final re-authorisation was ­presented in scientific format and over the question of PAPs’ safety, this was in keeping with the discursive logic of SCFCAH. Critically, the usage of scientific safety language at this final stage in the process did not mean that other value judgements had not also been made in the course of this re-authorisation. I have shown that in fact important political choices were made giving social meaning to sustainability in the market place which reconciled it both with economic growth and safety. Yet to clarify the value choices inherent in these interpretations of sustainability, I need to go further than simply labelling this ‘ecological modernisation’. To do this, I mobilise criteria used by Horlings and Marsden. Accordingly, I contend that the choices made institutionalised a form of ecological modernisation qua bio-economy rather than eco-economy. Environmental problems were addressed through technological innovation in rendering and scientific innovation in ruminant DNA detection. Constructions of nature were ones coherent with a narrative on the EU’s knowledge bio-economy and renewable waste: ‘some natural resources are seen as inherently sustainable and/or eco-efficient because they are renewable’ (Birch et al., 2010: 2,902, my emphasis). Concerning the role of government in the market, this was interpreted as limited to ‘the removal of “barriers” to the exploitation of renewable resources’ and to ‘provide an innovation-friendly market for its business’ (Birch et al., 2010: 2904). Rendering plants (although in the process of being established) are more likely to be placed in eco-industrial than in rural landscapes. Furthermore, the space of action which I have described can also be considered ‘decoupled and fragmented from [other European space[s] and place[s]’ (Horlings and Marsden, 2014: 5). This is because the interactions described above, although extensive and inter-sectoral, were for the most part limited to private industry actors. Indeed, these ways of constructing PAPs, which were shared by many groups who engaged either directly and constantly in this space of action (e.g. EFPRA, European Feed Manufacturers’ Federation), or randomly and at the margins (fish farmers), were not ultimately shared by many other groups and individuals in European society who had been ‘outside’ these processes. Indeed, when published, the decision to re-authorise PAPs in feeds experienced public backlash. For example, UK and French newspaper articles were written upholding the views of those who claimed this decision to be against nature. The upshot of this is that in practice not all EU-produced farmed fish will be fed on diets containing PAPs: rather EU-produced PAPs will most likely be exported – in itself a strong symbol of disconnection between the content of the decision and European societal values. Sustainable feeds: ecological modernisation and the eco-economy? The second case also concerns feeds. Here, I show how practices of standardisation in the market place have simultaneously given meaning to ‘sustainable salmon’ and created new European spatial action. These are practices to set criteria for EU-produced ‘sustainable’ or ‘responsibly sourced’ salmon, which

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includes setting criteria on salmon feeds. EU salmon production takes place mostly in Scotland, where c. 90 per cent of the fish are farmed (c. 10 per cent in Ireland). This case differs from the previous one not least over the process through which actors came to take up ownership for sustainable feeds (i.e., over how sectoral integration came about). Whereas over PAPs actors came to ‘own’ their giving of meaning to sustainability in the course of reglementary work on an EU food safety instrument, in this second case, the assignment of the ‘ownership of the problem’ of sustainability to certain groups of private actors occurred prior to its subsequent instrumentation through standards. Indeed, and as I show in detail elsewhere (Carter, 2015), during the early 2000s a range of UK and European private actors (academics, consultants, environmental NGOs (env-NGOs), salmon farmers, feed companies, supermarkets) began to problematise European sustainability in feeds in terms of a ‘politics of provenance’ in addition to the aforementioned ‘politics of substitution’. According to this narrative, if percentages of marine ingredients were reduced in fish feed recipes,14 and if fishmeal and fish oil were sourced from well-managed capture fisheries, feeds (and hence the salmon themselves) could be deemed sustainable: ‘there is nothing necessarily unsustainable about feeding fish-based feeds to fish, so long as the source feed grade fisheries are managed in a sustainable way’ (Nautilus, 2003: 5). These debates not only posed the question of how to judge whether a feed fishery was itself sustainable; there was also the matter of who should decide whether it was or not. Whereas some EU-funded research projects concluded that this was a matter for governmental action (Nautilus, 2003), env-NGOs placed the responsibility firmly on the shoulders of private companies, for example supermarkets, salmon producers, feed companies (in keeping with their strategies in other sectors, e.g. retail, forestry – Bartley, 2007), as did private companies themselves, although this for different reasons (Carter, 2015). Therefore, when private firms began to mobilise to give sustainable salmon social meaning, as well as paying attention to production processes, for example environmental impacts of salmon farms, a central question posed was how to score feed fisheries on grounds of sustainability. As with the previous case, it might be tempting to view this process of standardisation as ‘technical’ – as mobilising scientific knowledge about environmental impacts of farms or the biological status of fish stocks to set standards – and ‘independent’ of politics. Indeed, this temptation is further encouraged by the fact that, in these cases of standardisation, we are not talking about the construction of one single standard for sustainable salmon with a visible label transparent to consumers. On the contrary, our story is one of the action of different companies, in particular supermarkets, and feed companies, setting criteria for product sourcing, which were either written down in in-house documents detailing rating systems or written into business contracts. However, I contend that these micro reglementary practices produced multiple and overlapping spaces of new collective private action in which certain ­problematisations of the state,

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the market, science and nature were prioritised over others – that is, they were inherently political. This is because even if value choices made were not always transparent – for example, rating systems were not always available on request, or published on the internet15 – their lack of visibility did not mean that they were non-existent. Rather, the meaning given to EU sustainable salmon in these multiple standards was value-laden (and contested), even if these value choices were hidden from view and depicted as technical. This can be seen if we examine the building of expertise, which was critical to the peopling of this space of action. As they began to set standards and develop sustainable sourcing policies, supermarkets began to create new posts – such as sustainable seafood sourcing policy officers – and the people who came to occupy these positions were often marine biologists or fishery scientists, some of whom had previously worked in salmon farming in Scotland. But actors who built expertise to engage in standardisation practices were not only private firms. Indeed, although standardisation happened in the market place, nonmarket actors interpreted its ‘place of practice’ as extending beyond its frontiers. Already when the very need for supermarkets to develop sustainable sourcing policies was being discussed, env-NGOs had positioned themselves as eligible and legitimate actors both creating and accessing this space of action. This was achieved when they mobilised as ‘holders of relevant knowledge’ about aquaculture and feed fisheries. On the one hand, NGOs such as World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Marine Conservation Society (MCS) created new posts of aquaculture policy officers, appointing at times former fish farmers to these positions. On the other hand, env-NGOs collectively commissioned work from consultancy firms to gather expertise. The fostering of alliances amongst these different actors has been variable and dependent on individual firm’s sourcing strategies. For example, some supermarkets have set up partnerships with env-NGOs and feed companies to begin initial discussions over standards. For some NGOs, retailers have been ‘proactive’ and have sought them out as knowledge resources (env-NGOs interviews). Partnerships were described by these same actors as being ‘very effective’ and ‘working very well’. In other cases, criteria have been set inhouse based on internal expertise; in others still, criteria have been set when one supermarket, one salmon producer and one feed company have agreed a standard for a bespoke sustainable salmon. Although the linking narrative is ‘sustainability’, these spaces and their occupants are thus fluid – actors move in and out of dialogue with one another. Accepting this politics of standardisation, the question emerges: which values are being chosen? For, on the surface, this standardisation looks like a narrow interpretation of ecological modernisation associated with corporate control and supply chain logistics. However, I contend that these practices are being given meaning through a more complex hybridity of bio-economy and eco-economy sets of beliefs. First, concerning problematisations of the transformations of the ‘state’,

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public authority is represented here not as national governments but by the EU and the region (Scotland). On the one hand, the EU is constructed as the public actor which has transferred its authority to private actors to set ­standards through its policies of sustainable development of aquaculture and traceability (interviews). On the other, standardisation also takes place in a Scottish ­political context in which the Scottish government has developed public policy to grow aquaculture in Scotland; the implementation of this public policy has brought actors along the supply chain together with public officials and env-NGOs to reflect upon sustainable practices in Scotland. Standardisation is thus not only happening in a European context, but is also linked in place and space to local debates. Indeed, discussions on criteria ­pertained not only to feed fisheries’ conditions in other parts of the world, but critically to local environmental conditions (interviews). At times, for example, actors compared their practices with those of the global salmon dialogue. The aim of this dialogue was to set international standards for the Aquaculture Stewardship Council certificate. The ASC therefore claims to have set agreed global standards for a sustainable salmon. However, for some actors who were otherwise engaged in ‘European/Scottish’ spaces of standardisation, the ASC was seen as remote and detached from local territorial identities: But I also noticed at the time that it was very much Americas; it was very focused on non-European aquaculture. (Salmon producer representative, interview, 2012) Two or three things that are fundamental problems for us in Scotland were right up writ large on the table at that meeting – and they still haven’t gone away. (Salmon producer representative, interview, 2012)

Indeed, currently many actors within the European salmon industry in Scotland will continue to rely on their own business contracts, rather than sign up to this global standard, precisely because of this perceived disconnection from local conditions: No matter how many things we could put in place to try to mitigate this, or have derogations or to have a process of lead-in to it, it is just so difficult for our industry and the way we actually operate to get onto that standard. (Salmon producer representative, interview, 2012)

Second, standardisation also revealed changing problematisations of the role of the ‘firm’ in the market place. This could not be reduced to firms as mere ‘sellers’ or ‘buyers’ of salmon as a commodity in a neo-classical vision of supply and demand economics. In their formation of supply, large firms employed narratives of voluntary ‘corporate social responsibility’16 and saw themselves as both environmentally and territorially responsible. They constructed the market place as an institutionalised space in which they could intervene

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through determining the route to market by the demonstration of sustainability as defined in private standards: things have evolved. It is not simply, here is the contract, there is the price, this is the quality we want. (Feed company, interview, 2012) we live and breathe [sustainability)]… we are taking care of sustainability. (Supermarket seafood policy officer, www.j-sainsbury.co.uk/responsibility/casestudies/2013/responsibly-sourced-salmon/)

Additionally, and as argued above, in some cases it is not only actors along the supply chain who have engaged in standard setting, but also env-NGOs. Whereas the above problematisations reveal changing notions of state and market, there was less evidence of change on questions of society and nature. These spaces of action were peopled with elites whose constructions of the social aspects of sustainable development were more in keeping with industrial ecology (i.e., a narrow interpretation of ecological modernisation – although once again they did not use these words). Accordingly, the citizen’s role was one of a consumer who was expected to rely upon their relationship with the supermarket and ‘trust’ that the supermarket had done its job. Everything was based on reputation, whereby the person buying the salmon had to believe in ‘the basic tenets of ecological modernisation’ and that the products on the shelves had been responsibly sourced (Couturier and Thaimai, 2013: 11). Finally, concerning problematisations of nature, here too changing approaches were not in evidence. Indeed, one of the early arguments of the env-NGOs was that feed fisheries were not sustainable because they were not managed though an ecosystem approach. One key such report was written by Huntington (2004) and criticised the way in which feed fisheries supplying marine ingredients were being scored. This was because env-NGOs held a political position that a feed fishery could only be judged sustainable if fishing practices complied with ecosystem-based management standards as set down by global certificates, like the Marine Stewardship Council certificate. Since no feed fishery had, or has since, been certified by MSC, all feed fisheries were judged by them as unsustainable. This was a potentially critical debate, because those feed fisheries whose products were being sourced were still managed – but, they were managed through instruments of fishing quotas and single stock assessment methods. Indeed, for feed companies developing salmon feeds, it was common practice to base sourcing choices on assessments made by the Fishmeal Information Network (FIN) Sustainability Dossier, which did not evaluate feed fisheries according to ecosystem management criteria. The FIN SD based its assessment on scientific stock reports (e.g. by the International Council of the Exploration of the Sea) and the presence of ‘command and control’ regulatory frameworks. Env-NGOs argued that this approach missed wider ecosystem impacts that could only be captured through applying ecosystem based methods instead, e.g.

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biodiversity impacts, usage of local knowledge and a greater focus on issues of compliance. Further, beyond these criteria for judging a fishery sustainable there was also the problem of uncertainty: Many of the feed grade fisheries are in good condition as measured by traditional single stock criteria (as reported by ICES [International Council for the Exploration of the Seas] etc). However, information is poor for several stocks and their status unknown. Blue Whiting (W Scotland) is outside biological limits and subject to very limited management. Information and understanding relating to wider ecosystem and socio-economic issues (such as global equity and nutrition) is very limited at the present time, and there is no consistent and standardised monitoring and reporting. (Nautilus, 2003: 11)

Yet criteria set in standards, even when they were established following extensive algorithmic work of companies in alliance with env-NGOs, still relied heavily on the FIN SD system to score fisheries and the existence of command and control policy instruments. In this sense, standards were not pulling in a different direction from traditional approaches – nor can they, because feed fisheries have not been evaluated on these grounds. ‘Nature’, therefore, was not re-problematised in such a way as to stretch the boundaries of a maximalist interpretation of ecological modernisation. In summary, simply labelling standardisation as ‘ecological modernisation’ tells us little about its politics. In these spaces of European action over sustainable salmon which I have described, actors gave meaning to sustainability through a mixture of bio-economic and eco-economic values. Consequently, standards set were not entirely disconnected from place or local politicalinstitutional structures; yet, at the same time, they relied on segmented visions of nature and citizens were represented by proxy.

Conclusion In conclusion, this chapter has argued that European sustainable development is being implemented – although not amongst those actors nor in those arenas often identified in EU studies scholarship as representative of the EU. Grounding my approach in an inclusive ontology, I have shown that in the case of aquaculture, a range of actors have acted in and on sustainable fish farming, and hence sustainable Europe, and have furthermore been shaped through their interactions. In coming to these conclusions, I have replaced exclusive realist assumptions about Europe and its Union, with inclusive constructivist and interpretivist ones. I have argued that concepts like ‘intergovernmentalism and supranationalism’ (Nugent, 2010) or metaphors like ‘light’ or ‘dark’ green do not help research grasp EU sustainable development. Mobilising instead the intermediary concept of Europe as a space of action as set out in the Introduction to this book, the empirical evidence has revealed ‘awkward knowledge’ about its sustainability.

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I have shown how in this sector, European sustainable development was omnipresent, not absent; was ­co-produced and unfinished, not natural and failed; was the result of action, not non-action; its value choices depoliticised, not ‘apolitical’ and ‘technical’. I have further c­ ontended that I could only have come to these conclusions through grounding my research in an inclusive ontology and re-imagining Europe. I have additionally argued that, in the making of any critical assessment of sustainable development politics, it is important to acknowledge the potential range of value choices within ecological modernisation, which can be mobilised (either consciously or sub-consciously) by actors when seeking to give social meaning to sustainability. I have shown that in the case of sustainable feeds, very different interpretations of ecological modernisation were in evidence and institutionalised in policy instruments – whether public or private. Yet I have also shown how, in this sustainable Europe, these value choices were constantly depoliticised. This is one of the features of sectoral integration. In shifting sustainability choices to these new spaces of action, where they are measured and where scientific debates are entered into in detail, we depoliticise. Yet it is important not to confuse actors’ political strategies of technicisation with our own scientific understandings of what politics is. Depoliticisation does not mean no politics. Rather than blaming ‘the EU’ for its failure to implement its SDS, therefore, the analysis provides a more robust basis for mounting a future and more targeted, value-driven critique of European sustainable development politics.

Notes   1 ‘The rational choice institutionalist approach is the most suitable one to use. Many other theoretical approaches have been applied to the study of the EU, but these provide relatively few insights into specific decisional outcomes’ (Thomson et al., 2006: 5).   2 We define reglementary action to mean actors’ institutional and political work to set rules or standards.   3 Fish farming is a form of aquaculture.   4 For example, at least three alternatives to ecological modernisation can be proposed. One is policy based on economic growth with no attention to environmental concerns, what Lippert refers to as the ‘pre-EM nation state’ (2010: 12). The second is a neo-Marxist alternative which argues that ‘ecological modernization is at best weakly sustainable’ (Pepper, 1998: 1) and that ‘capitalist societies cannot be environmentally benign and socially just’ (Lippert, 2010: 23). Third, we have deep ecology with a ‘no growth’ strategy and where nature holds intrinsic value (Dobson, 2007).  5 The exclusive ontology is set out in detail in the Introduction to this book. It assumes that ‘[Europe’s] reality is natural’; ‘[its] institutions are viewed as somehow detached from individuals’; ‘[its] political action is guided by “rational” individuals’; ‘there is a production and maintenance of dualisms, e.g. rational/irrational, national/supranational’ (all from Kauppi, 2010).

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  6 The focus has rather been on EU public organisations, for example, the weakening of the commitment to green politics amongst MEPs (Burns and Carter, 2010); the inter-service work of the European Commission (Wilkinson, 1997); the use of joint Council meetings (Russel and Jordan, 2008).  7 When scholars outside EU studies do examine the uptake of sustainable development within sectors, they find EU sustainable development politics, e.g. see Scheerlinck and Van Leeuw, 2006; Van den Bossche and Van der Burgt, 2006.   8 In this exclusive ontology, ‘institutions’ refers to EU public organisations, not rules and expectations.  9 It is perhaps important to note that, for Horlings and Marsden, eco-economic practices reflect ‘real’ ecological modernisation, i.e., for them, there is a normative dimension to this categorisation. 10 This of course assumes that in reglementary action over sustainability, actors are seeking to reconcile economic growth with environmental protection and not (in our case studies at least) proposing neo-Marxist or deep ecology alternatives. 11 Environmental impacts of fish farming production practices are governed through EU environmental rules, e.g., on stocking densities of fish in cages; on ­environmental impacts on water quality or benthos; on reporting mechanisms for companies; on choices of sites and respect for biodiversity; on usage of marine and fresh water resources – for details see Carter and Cazals, 2014; Carter et al., 2014. 12 The chapter is based on research carried out within a collective project funded by the French Agence National de la Recherche (ANR), ‘The European Government of Industry’ (Co-ordinators Bernard Jullien and Andy Smith; 2009–13). The research on aquaculture was conducted with Clarisse Cazals, Irstea Bordeaux. Research methods for investigating European aquaculture included documentary and statistical analysis, situated observation of practitioner meetings, and over sixty semi-structured elite interviews conducted in Scotland, France, Greece and Brussels with actors from a range of public bodies, collective private interest groups and individual firms along the feed and food chain (feed manufacturers, fish farmers, processors, retailers, env-NGOs). I would like to thank all those actors who agreed to be interviewed for the purposes of this research. 13 Stephen Woodgate at the time was the Technical Director of the European Fat Processors and Renderers Association (EFPRA). 14 By 2013, this had become common practice, whereby standard fish feed diets had reduced percentages of marine ingredients from c. 75–85 per cent to c. 20–25 per cent. One important exception is for salmon farmed for quality labels – like Label Rouge – which continue to demand a high percentage of marine ingredients. Consequently, for many actors, Label Rouge salmon are not sustainable salmon. 15 In these cases, the researcher relies heavily upon aggregation of interview material. 16 By this we mean reporting environmental impacts over and above those required by public rules.

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Index

Abélès, Marc 30, 40, 51n.3 Acker, Joan 56, 60 actions and interactions 11–13 see also discursive practices; ‘political work’; politics Allen, John 119 Alvesson, Mats 150 Amin, Ash 119 Anderson, Malcolm 13 anthropology 9–10, 13 see also discursive practices; ethnography; social science; sociology aquaculture see fish farming Arendt, Hannah 28 Arnott, Margaret 112, 117 Asdal, Kristin 86 authority 86, 89 and Integrated Impact Assessments (IIAs) 16, 84, 87, 92, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101n.12 see also experts; power; science Bacchi, Carol 56 Bäcklund, Ann-Katrin 91 Baker, Susan 175 Ball, Stephen 115 Barry, Andrew 86–7, 100n.3, 101n.9 Benedetto, Giacomo 36, 37, 39 Benhabib, Seyla 29, 120 Benschop, Yvonne 60 Benson, David 175 Bernhagen, Patrick 136, 137, 148 ‘Better Regulation’ agenda 83, 84–5, 94, 98, 100, 102n.14 see also Integrated Impact Assessments (IIAs); regulation

Bevir, Mark 7, 134, 177, 179 bio-economy 178, 183–8 see also ecological modernisation Birch, Kean 183 Blok, Anders 86 Blomqvist, Carita 157 Bologna Accord 113, 114, 121 Bomberg, Elizabeth 6 Bordeaux, Irstea 190n.12 borders 13–14 Borer, Valérie 167 Börzel, Tania 2, 56, 59 Boswell, Christina 89 boundary objects 13, 19n.11 Bourdieu, Pierre 27–8, 31, 32 Bouwen, Pieter 134, 136 Bretherton, Charlotte 60 Brewer, John 33–4 Briquet, Jean-Louis 89 Britain 115, 116, 137, 144 see also Scotland Brown, Alice 116 Bruno, Isabelle 85 Brussels 2, 10, 138–9, 142, 145 see also European Commission; European Court of Justice; European Parliament Bulmer, Simon 6, 12 Bureau, Dominique 181 Bureau Brussels (consultants) 138–9 Burns, Charlotte 37, 175, 190n.6 business see consultants; lobbying Buttel, Frederick 178 Callon, Michel 11, 57, 60, 61, 100 Caporaso, James 59 195

196 Centre for Research on Lifelong Learning 164 Charter of Fundamental Rights 56, 59 Charteris-Black, Jonathan 51n.5 Chilton, Paul 28, 51n.5 Christiansen, Thomas 6 Christoff, Peter 177 Clarke, John 112 Clavero, Sara 59 Cleaver, Frances 8 co-decision procedure 35–6, 37–9, 38fig. Coal and Steel Community 168 Codagnone, Cristiano 166 Coen, David 136–7 Coffey, Amanda 134 cognitive models 49, 51n.12 Colebatch, H. K. 57, 61 collectivism 3, 7 see also ontology; social constructivism Collingridge, David 87 Collins, Harry 88 comitology 174, 176, 180, 182–3 committees 11, 12, 29, 33, 35–6, 37, 50, 61, 63 Civil Liberties (LIBE) 35, 37–8 comitology and 174, 176 Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) 67 performance at 47–8 see also meetings Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 134, 142, 149, 150 Common Fisheries Policy see fish communication see linguistic practices ‘communities of practice’ 33, 34fig., 50 Competitiveness Advisory Group 29 Connell, Raewyn 56, 60 Connelly, Steve 173 consultants 16–17, 133–9, 140–6, 149–51 evolution of 146–8 see also data; experts; lobbying ‘corporate social responsibility’ 186–7 see also sectoral integration Council of the EU (Council of Ministers) 3, 7, 19n.8, 35, 64, 140 IIAs and 85, 100 on sustainability 94, 102n.17 Counsell, Dave 177 Couturier, Anna 177, 187 Cox, Karl 143 Creplet, Frederic 133–4, 150 Cresson, Edith 65

Index Daly, Mary 60 Danermark, Berth 41 data 1–13, 17, 61, 91, 155, 164–5 education and 114, 117, 121–4, 125, 154, 158, 159–60, 161–8 passim gender and science and 65–6, 69, 70–1, 73–4, 76–7 protection 37–8 see also measurement de Certeau, Michel 11 De Francesco, Fabrizio 91, 102n.15 decision-making see policy-making deep ecology 189n.4, 190n.10 Delanty, Gerard 2, 4, 9, 13 Delors, Jacques 18n.3 ‘democratic deficit’ 30, 50–1 depoliticisation 30, 88–9, 90–1, 98, 99, 100, 167, 184–5, 189 see also science Desrosières, Alain 156, 167 devolution see Scotland DG Education and Culture see education policy DG Environment 175, 176 see also sustainable development DG Fish 84, 92–3, 95–6, 97, 98–9, 101n.7, 102n.17 see also fish DG Research 15, 58, 61–72 passim, 74, 75–7 see also gender mainstreaming DG SANCO 179, 182 discourse 8, 34fig., 113–14, 116–17 analysis of 15, 27, 29, 32, 39, 40, 41–9, 50, 51n.5 see also linguistic practices discursive practices 8, 15, 29, 32–3 see also actions and interactions; linguistic practices; ‘political work’; politics Dobson, Andrew 189n.4 Dowlatabadi, Hadi 90 Duranti, Alessandro 29 Durkheim, Émile 18n.1 early agreement procedure 37 see also co-decision procedure Eastern Bloc countries 41 eco-economy 178, 180–3 see also ecological modernisation ecological modernisation 18, 172–3, 175, 176–9, 189, 190n.9

Index197 bio-economic 178, 180–3 eco-economic 178, 183–8 see also science; sustainable development Edelman, Murray 27, 31 Eden, Sally 86 education policy 16, 17, 112–14, 119, 126n.5, 153, 156–8 canton Zurich 119, 121–4 indicators 159–66, 167–8 measurement 154, 155–6, 158–9, 167–8 Scotland 115, 117–19 election campaigns 29 employment policy 40, 47 enlargement of the EU (2004) 41, 47, 48–9, 50, 51n.3 environmental policy see sustainable development ethnography 33–4 see also anthropology; social science; sociology EU studies 2–3, 5–7, 9, 27, 134, 153, 175, 176 Euractiv 137 Euro-scepticism 115 European Commission 18n.6, 39, 48 common view of 140 consultants and lobbyists in 136, 138, 144–5 education policy 114, 154, 158–9, 160–4 fisheries policy and 93–4, 95, 97–8, 101n.7, 182 gender policy and 58, 59, 65, 66, 67 Integrated Impact Assessments (IIAs) and 83, 84–5, 90–1, 102n.14 inter-service work 190n.6 online forums used by 150 policy-making and 141, 144, 145 Sustainable Development Strategy and 173, 174, 175, 176, 182 see also DG Environment; DG Fish; DG Research; DG SANCO; policymaking European Council 56, 58, 159, 190n.6 access (consultants and lobbyists) 136 sustainable development 92, 173, 174, 176 European Court of Justice 56, 58 European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) 180, 182 European Parliament 18n.6, 27, 28, 35–40 common view of 140

communities of practice in 33, 50 consultants and lobbyists in 136, 138, 142, 147 debates in 37–8 Framework Programmes and 63, 63fig gender and 58, 62, 65, 67, 73, 74 Integrated Impact Assessments (IIAs) and 85, 102n.14 policy-making and 141, 146, 147 politics at 30 Sustainable Development Strategy and 173, 176 see also Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) European Research Area (ERA) 64, 73 European Statistical System 165 European Technology Assessment Network (ETAN) 66 European Transparency Directive 138 Europeanisation 2, 6, 15, 83, 116, 153, 156–7 of gender norms 56–7, 59, 75, 76 see also institutionalisation; standardisation Eurostat 158, 164, 165 Eurydice (education network) 159, 164, 165 exclusion, politics as 28, 29 exclusive ontology 3, 4, 5, 6–7, 18n.5, 50, 175–6, 179, 188, 189n.5, 190n.8 see also ontology experts 12, 39, 43, 150, 185 comitology and 174, 176, 180 education benchmarking and 160 see also consultants; data; knowledge Fairclough, Norman 42, 51n.5, 114–15 Favell, Adrien 9, 92, 112 Felouzis, Georges 167 FEMM (Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality) 61 Ferguson, Yale 9 fish DG Fish 84, 92–3, 95–6, 97, 98–9, 101n.7, 102n.17 farming 173–4, 179 feeds 179–89, 190n.12 fisheries policy and 84, 85, 92–9, 102n.21 stocks 16, 18 see also sustainable development Fisher-Vanden, Karen 90

198 Fishmeal Information Network (FIN) Sustainability Dossier 187, 188 Fligstein, Neil 8 Flowerdew, John 29, 33, 51n.5 Flückiger, Yves 120 food safety crises 180–1 Fordism 112 ‘Fortress Europe’ 13 Foucault, Michel 32, 86, 100n.4 Framework Programme 62–4, 63fig., 67, 68, 70, 77n.5 France 144, 160 functionalism 2, 6, 7 Funtowitz, Silvio 88 gender 15, 60–1 Gender Action Plans (GAPs) 67, 68, 68fig., 69, 70, 71, 75, 76 (in)equality 56–7, 58, 66–7, 75 women in science 64, 67, 68, 68fig., 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75 see also gender mainstreaming gender mainstreaming (GM) 15, 56, 57, 58–9, 61–2 implementation of 59–60, 61, 64–6, 63, 67–74, 68fig., 75–7 Genieys, William 11 geography (discipline) 9–10 Georgakakis, Didier 9, 156 Germany 144 Geyer, Robert 91 Gibbons, Michael 88, 89, 101n.11 Giddings, Bob 178 Gieryn, Thomas 89 Gilbert, Claude 179 Ginsberg, Roy 6, 35 globalisation 156–7, 158 Goffman, Erving 29, 31–2 Gomolla, Mechtild 122 Gornitzka, Åse 114, 124, 160 Gough, Clair 87, 90 Grant, Wyn 134, 175, 176 Graziano, Paolo 2 Greens 41 Greenwood, Justin 134, 137 Griesemer, James 19n.11 Griffin, Liza 99, 102n.18 Guiraudon, Virginie 9, 112 Guston, David 89 Haas, Ernst 2, 6 Habermas, Jürgen 28

Index habitus 32, 34fig., 52n.12 Hacking, Ian 156 Hafner-Burton, Emile 60 Hajer, Maarten 172, 173, 177, 178 Halffman, Willem 87, 89 Hall, Peter 5 Halpern, Charlotte 85 Hammersley, Martyn 33 Hanhart, Siegfried 167 Harmonising of Public Schools (HARMOS) 121 ‘harvest control rules’ 93 Haughton, Graham 177 Hawkesworth, Mary 60 Hay, Colin 2, 5, 30 Hearn, Jonathan 116 Heer, Hannes 29 hegemony 28, 43 Hegland, Troels 99, 102n.21, 103n.22 Helsinki Group 67, 68, 68fig. Henry, Miriam 158 Hertin, Julia 91, 92, 98, 101n.13 High Level Group 161 Hindess, Barry 11 ‘historical context’ 32–3 Hix, Simon 6, 18n.6, 19n.9 Holzsheiter, Anna 29 Hood, Christopher 85 Hoppe, Robert 87, 89 Horlings, Lummina 178, 183, 190n.9 Hoskins, Bryony 164 Howarth, David 7 Huber, Katrin 37, 39 Hudson, Ray 119 Hunt, Jane 87 Huntington, Tim 187 Hurka, Steffen 36, 39 identities 33, 34fig., 112, 114–15 education and 116–24 see also nationalism Ilie, Cornelia 51n.5 inclusive ontology 3–10 passim, 15, 17, 18n.5, 50, 51n.2, 85, 100n.5, 126n.10, 134, 151n.1, 154, 168n.2, 173 ‘sustainable Europe’ and 178–9, 188–9 see also exclusive ontology individualism 3, 5, 6 institutionalisation 8, 14 Integrated Impact Assessments (IIAs) 15–16, 83–5, 88, 89, 90–2, 101n.14, 103n.23

Index199 fishing industry and 93–100 passim integration (of Europe) 18n.5, 112–13, 119–24, 125 integration (of migrants) 120–1, 124, 125 interest intermediation 135, 140, 150 see also consultants; lobbyists intergovernmentalism 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 18n.8 International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) 159, 164 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) 92, 94, 188 International Relations 18n.4 International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) 165 Interpretative Policy Analysis (IPA) 15, 57–8, 60–1, 75 intertextuality 32, 33, 43, 47 Israel 29 ITRE 67 Jabko, Nicolas 173 Jacobsson, Bengt 114 Jacquot, Sophie 120 Jäger, Siegfried 29 Jarren, Otfried 29 Jasanoff, Sheila 86, 87, 88, 89, 99, 100, 101n.12 Jentoft, Svein 102n.21 Jessop, Bob 28, 112 Jones, Ken 115, 117 Jones, Tim 135 Jordan, Andrew 112, 172, 173, 175, 176, 190n.6100n.1, Jørgensen, Knud 6 Jullien, Bernard 8, 9, 88–9, 190n.12 Kallas, Siim 138 Kaluzny, David J. 181 Kantola, Johanna 56, 58 Kauppi, Niilo 3, 5–6, 7, 10–11, 18n.5, 19n.10, 51n.2, 101n.5, 126n.10, 151n.1, 168n.2, 173, 189n.5 Keating, Michael 6 Kingdon, John 125 knowledge 49–51, 88, 140 economy 155 ‘knowledge agents’ 133–4, 149, 150–1 see also consultants; data; experts Krämer, Ludwig 175

Kriszan, Andrea 60 Krzyz˙ anowski, Michal 8, 9, 29, 30 Laclau, Ernesto 27, 28 Lagroye, Jacques 89 Lahusen, Christian 134, 135–6, 137 Laïdi, Zaki 168 Lakoff, George 51n.5 Lascoumes, Pierre 85, 87, 88 Latour, Bruno 13, 57, 61, 100n.1, 156 Lave, Jean 32, 33 Law, John 60 Le Galès, Patrick 85, 87, 88 ‘leaky pipeline’ (women in science) 66, 67 Leibert, Ulrike 56, 59 Lenschow, Andrea 176 LIBE EP (Committee) 35, 37–8 Liberal Intergovernmentalism 2, 6 Liebig, Thomas 120 Lightfoot, Simon 91 Lindberg, Leon 2, 6 linguistic practices 29, 30, 32, 43–8, 50 politics du couloir and 31, 43, 48–9, 50 see also discourse; discursive practices; politics Linke, Sebastian 102n.21 Lippert, Ingmar 177, 178, 189n.4 Lisbon Agenda (Lisbon Process) 114, 121, 124, 154, 155, 159, 161, 163 lobbying 39, 56, 134, 136–9, 176 access points 40, 136, 137, 146 see also consultants; non-governmental organisations; stakeholders Lopez-Santana, Mariely 112, 114, 167 Lord, Christopher 37, 39 Lupiañez-Villanueva, Francisco 166 Lynch, Peter 116 Maasen, Sabine 89 MacKenzie, Donald 85, 86 McCrone, David 115, 116, 117 McPherson, Andrew 117 MacRae, Heather 56 Mandelkern Group 85 Mangenot, Michel 8, 9, 85 Manners, Ian 19n.9 Marine Conservation Society (MCS) 185 Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) 187 Marks, Gary 2, 6 Marsden, Terry 178, 183, 190n.9 Marshall, David 39 Mazey, Sonia 137

200 measurement education policy 154, 155–6, 158–9, 167–8 indicators 159–66, 167–8 women in science and 66, 67 see also data; Programme for International Student Assessment mechanical Europe 1, 18n.1 Meeker, David 180–1 meetings 11, 16, 30 see also committees Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) 15 green politics 190n.6 linguistic practices 29, 30, 32, 43–8, 50 politics du couloir 31, 43, 48–9, 50 working practices of 15, 27, 33, 35–6, 49–51 ‘metrological regimes’ 86–7 Meuwese, Anne 85, 91, 92, 98, 99, 102n.14 migrants 119–20, 113, 115, 119–24, 125 Miller, Clark 87 Miller, Peter 86 Mol, Arthur 177 Monnet, Jean 168 monotopia 2 see also Europeanisation; standardisation Moravcsik, Andrew 2, 6, 18n.6 Mouffe, Chantal 27, 28 multi-level governance 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 Muntigl, Peter 8, 9, 30 Murkens, Jo 116 Naglo, Kristian 114 Nates, Sergio 181 nationalism 33, 112, 115, 116, 117, 120 ‘modernised nationalism’ 112, 117, 121 statistics and 155–6 see also identities naturalisation (migrants) 120–1 Nautilus 184, 188 neo-liberalism 156 neo-Marxism 189n.4, 190n.10 Netherlands 94, 95, 97–8, 99 Niukko Sanna 156–7 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) 29, 88, 135, 138, 139, 141, 147 environmental 94, 174, 179, 184, 185, 187–8

Index feminist 56 see also lobbying North Sea Regional Advisory Council (NSRAC) 93–5, 96–7, 98–9, 102nn.18–19 Nóvoa, António 113, 114, 121, 157 Nowotny, Helga 88, 89, 101n.11 nuclear power 89, 101n.8 Nugent, Neill 188 Oberhuber, Florian 8, 9, 30, 115 OECD 113, 114, 121, 153–9 passim, 160, 163, 164, 165, 177 Ollikainen Aro 157 ontology 4–5, 18n.4 of the EU: exclusive 3, 4, 5, 6–7, 18n.5, 50, 153, 175–6, 179, 188, 189n.5, 190n.8 inclusive 3–10 passim, 12, 15, 17, 18n.5, 50, 51n.2, 85, 100n.5, 126n.10, 134, 151n.1, 154, 168n.2, 173, 178–9, 188–9 Open Method of Coordination (OMC) 114, 154, 155, 159, 160–2, 166, 168 organic Europe 1, 18n.1 Owens, Susan 85, 91–2 Pallemaerts, Marc 174, 175, 178 Parson, Edward 90 Parsons, Craig 8, 9, 120 Pasquier, Romain 113, 119 Paterson, Lindsay 112, 116, 117 Paul, Katharina 89 Pépin, Luce 159, 162–3 Pepper, David 177, 189n.4 performance see linguistic practices; politics pharmaceuticals 174 plenary sessions of the EP 36, 37, 42 policies Integrated Impact Assessments (IIAs) and 85, 88 outputs 57 processes 57–8, 61, 62 see also education policy; fish; policymaking; sustainable development policy-making 7, 13, 15, 101n.13 committees of the EP 35 consultants and 133, 134, 140–1, 143, 144–5, 150–1 discourse and 114 environmental problems and 178

Index201 gender mainstreaming 40, 57, 62, 75 measurement and 154, 155–6, 158–9 indicators 159–6, 167–8 policy instruments 83, 87 Integrated Impact Assessments (IIAs) 90–2, 93, 99–100, 101n.14, 103n.23 maximum sustainable yields (MSY) 93 political work 89, 99 see also committees; depoliticisation; European Commission; meetings; lobbying; politics; regulation political parties 37 see also Scottish Nationalist Party ‘political work’ 89, 92, 99, 125, 156, 189n2 regional–EU interaction 113–14 see also discursive practices; politics politics 27–30, 83 as performance 31, 32–3, 34fig. backstage 15, 29–30, 31–2, 33, 37, 39, 42–7, 50–1 frontstage 15, 29–31, 40, 42–3, 47–8 political sociology 16, 83, 84–5, 88, 89, 100, 156 technology and 85–7 see also linguistic practices; ‘political work’; politics du couloir politics du couloir 30, 31, 43, 48–9, 50 politolinguistic approach see linguistic practices; politics Pollack, Mark 6, 18n.6, 60 Pollak, Johannes 35, 38fig. Porter, Theodore 156 post-normal science 88 power 8, 28, 32, 34fig., 43, 84 see also authority; Integrated Impact Assessments; science presentation of self 34fig., 43 see also politics Processed Animal Proteins (PAPs) 179–80, 181–3, 184 processes of governing 112 see also depoliticisation; soft governance; ‘political work’ Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 121–4, 153, 154, 155, 157–8, 164 see also education policy; measurement ‘Protected Geographical Status’ 14 Radaelli, Claudio 88, 91, 92, 98, 99, 102n.15, 120 rapporteurs 36–7, 39, 40

rational choice 6, 35, 39, 189 rationality 3, 5–6, 7, 8, 19n.10 ‘re-imagining’ Europe 172 recontextualisation 32 Rees, Teresa 58, 60 Reeve, Colin 87 Regional Advisory Councils (Fisheries) 93 North Sea 93–5, 102n.21 regions 111–12, 113, 119 regional–EU political work 113–14 regulation 4, 13, 88 consultants 137 gender 59 standards 12 see also ‘Better Regulation’ agenda; Integrated Impact Assessments; policy-making Reisigl, Martin 29, 51n.6 Renda, Andrea 91 rendering (food industry) 180–2 research see science Richardson, Tim 2 Ripoll-Servent, Ariadna 35, 36, 39 risk management 87 Risse, Thomas 2, 56, 59 Rizvi, Fazal 158 Robertson, Susan 157 Rosamond, Ben 156 Rose, Richard 136, 137, 148 Rotmans, Jan 90 routines 46, 49 Rowell, Jay 8, 9, 85 Rubery, Jill 59 Rumford, Chris 2, 4, 9, 12, 13 Russel, Duncan 190n.6 Russell, Michael 114, 115, 117, 118 Salmond, Alex 117, 118 Salter, Liora 87 Saurugger, Sabine 9 Scheerens, Jaap 161 Scheerlinck, Ilse 174, 190n.7 Schmidt, Verena 60 Schneider, Stephen 90 Schwalba-Hoth, Frank 139 science community 58, 63, 64–5, 75 scientific project officers (SPOs) 68, 69, 70, 75 policy process 87–90, 95–7, 101n.11, 102n.19

202 project officers (SPOs) 68, 69, 70, 75 women in 64, 67, 68, 68fig., 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75 see also ecological modernisation; power; Science and Technology Studies Science and Technology Studies (STS) 13, 16, 83–92 passim, 100, 103n.23 ‘scissors diagram’ 66 Scotland 16, 111, 113, 116–17 devolution 111, 115, 116, 124 education in 115, 117–19, 124, 126n.5 salmon production in 184, 185, 186 see also Scottish Nationalist Party Scott, James 155 Scott, Joan 60 Scottish Nationalist Party see Scotland sectoral integration 174–6, 189 see also corporate social responsibility Shackley, Simon 87, 90 Shaw, Jo 56, 58, 59, 60, 157 Shore, Cris 9 Single European Act (1986) 67, 137, 157 Slapin, Jonathan 37 Slominsky, Peter 35, 38fig. ‘small-scale policy entrepreneurs’ 43, 50 Smith, Andy 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 85, 88–9, 99, 100, 112, 156, 176, 190n.12 Smith, Steve 6 Smyrl, Marc 11 social constructivism 6–11 passim, 16, 18n.7, 101n.5, 111, 126n.10, 134, 177 gender and 57, 60 states and 168 sustainable development and 173, 179, 180 see also ontology social media 147–8 socialisation 3, 9, 32, 40, 52n.12 sociology 9–10 feminist 60 Sociology of Knowledge 15, 60 Sociology of Politics 16, 83, 84–5, 88, 89, 100, 112, 156 see also anthropology; ethnography; social science SOCRATES project 37, 161 soft governance 113–14 see also education; processes of governing

Index spaces 3, 4, 9–13, 14–18 borders 13–14 stakeholders 84, 87–8, 90, 91, 92 consultants and 140–1, 143, 145, 146, 147–8, 149 education benchmarking 160 see also lobbying standardisation of the market 183, 184–6, 188 of measurement 156, 164–5, 167 of working conditions 41 see also Europeanisation; monotopia Standing Committee of the Food Chain and Animal Health (SCFCAH) 180, 182–3 Star, Susan 19n.11 Starbuck, William 150 statistics see data Steiner-Khamsi, Gita 123 Stirling, Andy 87 Sundqvist, Göran 100 supranational Europe 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 18n.8, 176 sustainable development 173–9, 190n.7 fish farming 179–189 maximum yields (MSY) 92–3, 95, 98 Sustainable Development Strategy 17–18, 84, 172–3 world summit on (WSSD) 92, 93, 95 see also ecological modernisation Switzerland 16, 120–1, 124, 125 canton Zurich 16, 111, 112–13, 115, 119–24 symbols 8, 10, 27–8 technology 12–13, 83, 85–7, 101n.8 see also Science and Technology Studies Tersmette, Edward 161–2 third wave (Science Studies) 88 Thomson, Robert 3, 6, 189n.1 Thual, David 147–8 Tönnies, Ferdinand 18n.1 Torriti, Jacopo 90, 91 Treaty of Amsterdam (1999) 35, 56, 59, 157, 174 Treaty of Lisbon (2009) 35, 56, 59, 64, 72, 147 Treaty of Maastrict (1992) 56, 59, 67, 157 Treaty of Rome (1957) 56, 58, 65, 67, 77n.3, 157

Index203 Treaty of the European Union (1993) 35, 174 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS) 164 Turman, David 136 Turnpenny, John 92 Unesco 157, 164, 165 United Nations 29 universities 113, 114, 118, 121, 154, 155 see also education policy USA 29, 36, 137, 144, 180–1 Van Asselt, Marjolein 90 Van den Bossche, Koen 174, 190n.7 Van der Burgt, Nienke 174, 190n.7 Van der Slujis, Jeroen 90 van Dijk, Teun 49, 51n.12 Van Leeuw, François 174, 190n.7 Van Schendelen, M. P. C. M. 138 Van Schendelen, Rinus 138–9 Vauchez, Antoine 9 Von Prondzynski, Ferdinand 118 Wagenaar, Hendrik 57, 60, 61 Waldow, Florian 172 Wallace, Helen 12

Walters, William 2, 100n.4 Waterton, Claire 87, 100 Weber, Max 32 Weihe, Anne 11 Weingart, Peter 89 Weiss, Gilbert 29, 32 Wendt, Alexander 5 Wennerås, Christine 65 Wiener, Antje 6 Wight, Colin 18n.4 Wilkinson, David 91, 190n.6 Wilson, Douglas 99, 102n.21, 103n.22 Winner, Langdon 85, 89, 101n.8 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 32, 44 Wobbe, Theresa 58, 59 Woll, Cornelia 120 Women’s Rights Committee 67 Woodgate, Stephen 181, 190n.13 World Bank 157 World Wildlife Fund 185 Wynne, Brian 87, 88, 100 Yanow, Dvora 29, 57, 60, 61 Yariv-Mashal, Tali 121, 157 Yearley, Steven 87, 97, 99 Yordanova, Nikoleta 35, 36, 37, 39 Zimmerman, Ann 9