Changing Narratives on EU Multi-level Space in a Globalizing Era: How Hungary as a National Space became Part of the Story

Abstract

The political nature of spatial restructuring has featured prominently in recent discussions of globalization. This paper argues that we cannot understand these political processes by focusing on the interaction of institutional actors alone; we also need to consider how various spatial narratives are mobilized and interact to naturalize “given” scales and spaces. To illustrate these points, this paper first assesses the construction of a multi-level, united European Union (EU) space. It then more closely examines the narratives induced by Hungary's accession to complement institutional analyses in explaining why it was Hungarian national space—rather than the newly created regional spaces—that joined the EU in 2004. As will be shown, understandings of globalization, as part of these narratives, are indispensable to understand the re-scaling of governance.

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on research funded by the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research, NWO-Shifts in Governance, Grant 450-04-142. The author is grateful to Arnoud Lagendijk and Ton van Naerssen for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Notes

Following Althusser, “interpellation” denotes the process through which language constructs a social position for the individual and thereby makes him or her an ideological subject (see Phillips & Jørgensen, 2002, p. 15).

According to Eurobarometer surveys, psychological attachment to the EU among citizens of the EU-15 is weak and no truly European identity has yet developed (CEC, 2001). People who identified exclusively with their nationality were the largest group in 10 countries. In the remaining five countries, most people said they identified with their nationality first, and with Europe second. As the survey further noted, 49% of interviewees disagreed with the notion that there is a shared European cultural identity. People's acceptance levels of EU citizenship largely depended on their satisfaction with the way democracy works in the EU.

This remains the case in the 2003 document More Unity and More Diversity. The European Union's Biggest Enlargement (CEC, 2003), which only includes simplistic representations of the new member states.

My translation. All quotes of Hungarian politicians are originally in Hungarian and translated by myself.

To illustrate this, Böröcz (2001b, p. 64) invites us to interpret the Internet address of the EU's homepage, http://www.europa.eu.int. The microscopic world model pictured by this formula, deciphered according to the naming conventions of the Internet, presents “europa” as a subset of “eu”. Being outside the EU and being part of “Europe” is thus logically impossible.

The exam young Hungarian adults (aged 18 or 19) take at the end of their secondary education is called érettségi (vizsga), i.e. “examination of maturity”.