Economic Imaginaries in Crisis. on Europe's Potential to Imagine a Better Economic Future

As taken for granted truths were called into question, the ongoing economic crisis has revealed a multitude of opposing assumptions about where Europe’s economic system should be heading. Though the economic crisis is shaking Europe to its very core, European governments desperately struggle to find a common perspective on how to tackle or even make sense of the sever situation. The European discord is particular perturbing, as economic integration, considered as the attempt to establish a common economic system, has been at the heart of the European project ever since the treaty of Paris in 1951. Therefore, the current crisis is not only an economic challenge but a threat to the unity of Europe in itself.

Referring to this state of problem, this sociological proposal makes Europe’s divergent economic imaginaries its object of investigation. In this context, the notion of economic imaginary describes a vision of a better economic state or system which is assumed to be accomplished in the future. The paper argues that any conjoint attempt to overcome the current situation, requires 1) the shared conviction that the economic future can be intentionally designed and 2) a common understanding of a desired state to be established. The project’s core objective is therefore to seize such economic imaginaries in the European context and investigate how the current economic crisis has influenced them. The proposal offers both a theoretical framework and an empirical analysis of inter-governmental discourse on the European level. 

The theoretical framework is inspired by the general theory of Pierre Bourdieu. With reference to Bourdieu the European Union can be considered as field of symbolic struggle, where different interpretations of the current situation are fought over.  In this field, different positions (e.g. nations, experts) are vying for predominance. Conflicting discourses, e.g. concerning the economic future, are to be conceived as symbolic struggles for interpretative control. In accordance with Foucault’s concept of discourse, Bourdieu assumes that interpretative control is a major source of (symbolic) power, as it enables actors to impose what is real, what is worth and moreover, what future is imaginable. Changing economic imaginaries in times of crisis have thus to be considered in the light of crisis affliction and changing power positions. Referring to field theory, the proposal draws on an approach already well established in Economic Sociology and is well in line with recent attempts to open International Relations to Bourdieuian ideas.

The proposal’s empirical study focuses on the analysis of economic debates which national governments take part in and in which economic imaginaries are evoked. To do so, the discourse emerging within the context of Lisbon Strategy/Europe 2020 is scrutinized over the course of crisis. In National Action Plans national governments legitimize their actual economic policies in the face of EU institutions and other national governments. They thus need to clarify, what a better economic future might look like, whether and by what interventions it can be achieved. Seizing these economic imaginaries, the analysis can show, 1) whether the ongoing crisis has hampered Europe’s potential to imagine a better economic future and 2) whether the vision of a “good” economic state and the means to achieve it have changed, converged or diverged over the course of crisis. The analysis is primarily conducted using lexicometric, quantitative text analysis but it also includes qualitative elements.