Supranational governance as economic patriotism? The European Union, legitimacy and the reconstruction of state space

Abstract

‘Economic patriotism’ (EP) and ‘European integration’ might normally be regarded as antonyms. The argument is made for reading some actions and discourses of the EU in terms of EP. Two assumptions are relaxed: that EP is an exclusive property of nation-state space and that is necessarily associated with the suspension of economic liberalism. By relaxing the first, the article shows how many aspects of EU discourse and practice can be thought of as EP-like. The institutionalized economic liberal biases of the EU tend to constrain the possibilities for supranational EP in its two principal guises, labelled here as ‘Schmittian’ and ‘Listian’. The relaxation of the second assumption allows for a third variant of EP to be introduced: ‘market-making’ EP. This is shown to be a particular feature of Commission discourse since the mid-1980s. The move to market-making EP discourse demonstrates the particular quality of legitimacy dilemmas faced by the EU.