Decolonizing Knowledge Production: A Critical Look at Knowledge Production in the Europeanization Narrative in European Integration


Victor Jimenez Rivera, Tallinn University

The European integration process has been based on a hegemonic narrative developed around an unequal understanding of European norms and values. This has resulted in the unequal development of the European institutional project and its orientation toward benefitting the interests of its Western European core, channeled through the EU and its institutions, and of peripheral societies’ political and economic elites. This paper explores the use of Europeanization, as a hegemonic narrative, to legitimize neocolonial relations between the EUs core and its periphery, with the Western Balkan candidate states as a case study. This case has been selected due to the salience in their societies and political processes of twin deeply interconnected processes (European integration and state capture). The study aims to contribute to the study of these normatively contradictory processes within the framework of wicked problems, laying the foundation for a future governance approach aimed at overcoming the entrenched colonial relations scrutinized here. Applying the ontological framework of relational sociology, the paper reflects on the unequal nature of power relations in European integration through the role of knowledge production. Understanding the hegemonic and neocolonial nature of the Europeanization narrative, the paper aims to problematize it and decolonize knowledge production on Western Balkan societies. This perspective is tied with a discourse-historical approach to situate the relations under analysis in their colonial context, one of enduring exploitation and essentializing of peripheral societies by their neighboring hegemon. The paper argues that in promoting the hegemonic narrative of Europeanization, core and local elites can deepen and entrench the subordination and alienation of non-elite actors in peripheral societies. The paper starts with an exploration of the role of othering and hegemonic narratives in International Relations, particularly as it relates to the underlying power relations they often serve to legitimize. Hegemonic narratives will be shown to construe the status quo in a relationship as corresponding to materially dominant actors’ understanding of their relations with underprivileged, particularly subaltern, actors as inherently natural, desirable, and mutually beneficial. The development of these narratives to legitimize the status quo and monopolize knowledge creation in its favor is further explored as knowledge production on Western Balkan societies and their integration with European institutions is shown to be discursively embraced as a mutually beneficial process, framing dominant actors as models to be followed. This, the paper argues, serves the twin purpose of enabling Western European elites to negate the impact of colonialism on their states’ own economic growth, as well as presenting neoliberal norms as a taken-for-granted development model to be fostered, thus deepening the inequalities in the relationship.

This paper will be presented at the following session: