Evrópa, hnötturinn og alíslensk þjóð

Ég er semsé kominn til Lubljana, á fræðiráðstefnu um hnattvæðingu- og alþjóðastjórnmál. Í fyrramáið mun ég flytja fyrirlestur um áhrif þjóðernisstefnu á stöðu Norðurlandanna í Evrópusamstarfi, sér í lagi út frá Íslandi. Fyrirlesturinn byggir á grein sem birt er í tengslum við ráðstefnuna. Ég finn nú þegar að það er töluverður áhugi á efninu en hér eru samankomnir margir helstu fræðimenn á sviði hnattvæðingar- og alþjóðastjórnmála. Greinin er hér, en úttdráturinn fylgir að neðan:

The Nordic countries have continued to be amongst those who have shown the greatest wariness of the European integration process, but at the same time all of them have shown a keen interest in an ongoing close relationship with Europe, albeit in varying forms. This paper studies why Iceland has chosen not to be part of the EU institutions, and looks at the different paths of the Nordics in the European project. Iceland is the only one of the Nordic five that has never applied for EU membership. Iceland's entrance into the European Economic Area (EEA) in 1994, however, resulted in its becoming an associated member of the EU.

Despite the fact that Iceland is officially outside the European Union, it nonetheless continues, through the EEA, and later also the Schengen agreement, to participate actively in the European project. In fact, it can be argued that in some aspects Iceland is more deeply involved in the European integration process than some of its official members.

The question then remains: why does Iceland accept real transfer of decision-making to Brussels through the EEA but not full membership of the EU? In this paper a post-structuralist examination of the construction and constellation of Icelandic nationality and importance of sovereignty is used to tackle the above question.

Lesa áfram hér.