CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2007
| Author | Sadre, Zanda |
|---|---|
| Title | Building legitimacy for economic policies in Latvia: a question of disputed identity, "rhetorical action" and the EU Competition policy |
| Summary | This thesis is based on a constructivist approach to economic restructuring in Latvia, with comparative insights from Estonia. The aim of the project is to apply constructivist epistemology and Frank Schimmelfennig`s model of rhetorical action to study how ideas or discourses shape and reflect economic structures. The project is relevant, because economic restructuring in Latvia and post-communist contexts in general has been studied mostly with a political-economy approach. This thesis aims at offering an alternative perspective, a perspective that focuses on ideational and ideological aspects of post-communist transition and Europeanization as analytical categories. The aim of the empirical analysis is to illustrate the general phenomena of interest here – the discursive creation of economic identity of a nation – creation of an ‘economic self’ in Latvia. This macro-level social construction is evident also in the micro-level, that will be illustrated with two case studies related to disputes on EU`s Competition policy in Latvia. Case studies were chosen as samples of the most vividly discussed issues in Latvia in the period after accession to the EU. The puzzle that will be addressed is the absence of such disputes or “rhetorical action” in Estonia, a structurally very similar system. This puzzle allows relating this study the current debates in Europeanization literature. The case of Estonia will be evaluated as an explanatory variable for the hypothesis, that misfit between Europeanization pressures and domestic social context trigger rhetorical action. |
| Supervisor | Greskovits, Bela |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2007/sadre_zanda.pdf |
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