EU Sub-national authorities as international actors: Two Nordic cases in the context of the Baltic Sea Region

Abstract

This thesis assesses the extent to which sub-national authorities from two regions within two unitary states in Europe have become autonomous international actors and attempts to determine whether the European foreign policy arena has been transformed as a result. The empirical examples, which the thesis subjects to analysis, consist of the international activities of the sub-national authorities of the Stockholm Region and the Oresund Region within the context of the Baltic Sea Region.
Theoretically, it identifies the challenges from above and below to the authority of the state, and examines rational and reflectivist conceptions of sovereignty, authority and territoriality in order to characterise and delimit the possibilities for action of subnational authorities of unitary states at the international level. The thesis then undertakes a critical evaluation of the role attributed to sub-national authorities within theories of international relations and foreign policy, and assesses the explanatory power of state centric, supra-national, multi-level, and neo-institutional conceptions of the European system of governance in accounting for the international activities of sub-national authorities. It also discusses the characteristics of the European foreign policy arena and criteria for actorness within this arena.
Following these conceptual considerations, a comprehensive multi-level framework is proposed which accommodates the international activities of actors at different levels of governance. This framework is subsequently applied in an empirical study of the international activities of the sub-national authorities of the two Nordic regions of Stockholm and the Oresund within the context of the Baltic Sea Region.
Based on the empirical analysis, the thesis concludes that the international activities of sub-national authorities in the Stockholm Region and Oresund Region have increased in scope and significance, and that the degree of autonomy, which sub-national authorities
have acquired is significant, but depends on the policy area.