Core-periphery divisions in the EU? East-west and north-south tensions compared

ABSTRACT

Divisive politicisation of inequalities among the member states in the EU is the lowest in member states where one would expect the highest level of domestic demand for it, and it is highest in member states in which one would expect much lower demand. In this paper, we argue that the territorially fragmented structure of political representation in the EU creates the incentives for politicians to engage in blaming the other states and adopting us-vs.-them positions in the national, as well as in the EU arena. Regulatory and monetary integration among economies at different levels of development provides fertile ground for such politicisation. Yet, the ability to engage in such politicisation while ruling a peripheral country is crucially shaped by that country’s form and level of economic dependency on the economies of the European core. The consumption-led and credit-based growth model of the South is much more exposed to crises and suddenly increasing levels of dependency, whereas the FDI-based growth models in the Eastern peripheries provide for much larger room for politicising dependency and cntesting the alleged dictate of ‘foreign powers’ and EU institutions.

KEYWORDS:

• Core–periphery relations
• politicisation
• European Union
• growth models

Acknowledgements

For critical comments and suggestions we are grateful to Tanja Börzel, Gergo Medve Balint, Cornel Ban, Andrea Eltetö, Dora Gyorffy, Waltraud Schelkle. Also the participants of the CEU DI Rooftop Seminar and of the workshop on Diversity Governance in the EU at the CEU Democracy Institute. We are also grateful to the editors of this collection and three anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Laszlo Bruszt

Laszlo Bruszt, Director of the CEU Democracy Institute (Budapest). He started to teach at CEU in 1992 and has served as its Acting Rector and President in 1996/97. Between 2004 and 2016 he was teaching at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. His publications focus on issues of regime change and economic transformation. His more recent studies deal with the politics of economic integration of the Eastern and Southern peripheries of Europe.

Visnja Vukov

Visnja Vukov is Assistant Professor / Universitätsassistentin at the Department of Political Science, University of Vienna. She was previously a tenure-track assistant professor at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. Her research explores how the interaction of European integration and domestic politics shapes economic transformations and growth models in peripheral countries in the EU. She holds a PhD in Political and Social Sciences of the European University Institute in Florence and an MSc in Sociology of the University of Oxford.