Shattering the Single European Sky: Argument from authorities in dealing with the SES initiative

ABSTRACT

The article scrutinises the European Commission’s Single European Sky (SES) initiative from a neoinstitutionalist epistemic governance perspective. The focus is on the rhetorical tools actors deploy in accounting for SES and the problems in it. We argue that the slow progress made in realising SES is not simply due to conflicting national interests. Member states are not uniform actors with a single, easily defined will or interest but rather, several entities appeal to national interests and other shared values to defend their position in the process. The delay in realising SES does not stem from the Commission’s inability to reconcile the distinct stakeholder interests but it is due to diverse discursive skirmishes the SES project has triggered. These skirmishes amount to a persuasion game whereby various actors account for SES in ways that do not endanger their own interests in the initiative, thus constantly transforming the SES project and its outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• Neoinstitutionalism
• epistemic governance
• political rhetoric
• Single European Sky
• argument from authority

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Hannele Palukka for her contribution to data collection. We also want to thank all the members of the Tampere Research Group on Cultural and Political Sociology (TCuPS), who gave us valuable feedback on the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Pertti Alasuutari http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4111-9641

Notes

1. ‘Functional airspace block’ is defined in the SES II legislative package as follows: FAB is an airspace block based on operational requirements and established regardless of State boundaries, where the provision of air navigation services and related functions are performance-driven and optimised with a view to introducing, in each functional airspace block, enhanced cooperation among air navigation service providers or, where appropriate, an integrated provider (European Commission, 2017).

2. Apart from Weber’s (1978) famous classification, this categorisation is close to that proposed by Avant et al. (2010), who see five bases of authority for global governors – institutional, delegated, expert, principled, and capacity-based authority. Avant and colleagues, however, deal with individuals and treat organisations as one base of authority, which is why their classification makes it difficult to unpack organisations as authorities.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Academy of Finland under projects Epistemic governance in policymaking, 2014–2019 [276076] and Epistemic capital in the synchronization of national policies, 2016–2020 [292353].