Narrative-Based Production of State Spaces for International Region Building: Europeanization and the Mediterranean

Abstract

Europeanization, defined as a multidirectional process that entails changes in the rationales and structures of state action, involves the diffusion of distinctive forms of political organization and governance and the promotion of “European” solutions outside of European Union territory. I examine Europeanization in the context of international region building in the Mediterranean and demonstrate how geopolitical narratives for Europeanization are constructed by state and European political actors. These narratives serve as an instruction for the sociopolitical mobilization of states in their search for new economic and geopolitical advantages. Through a rigorous empirical analysis, I seek to meld narrative-based political geographies and state space regulation and show how international region building is a messy, problematic, and highly contested activity for parceling, regulating, and representing geopolitical space.

Key Words:

• Europeanization
• geopolitical narrative
• Mediterranean
• state spaces

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Angus Cameron and Julian Clark for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article, Audrey Kobayashi for her kind advice, and three anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions. Any errors or omissions are entirely my responsibility.