덴마크와 스웨덴의 외레순 지역을 중심으로 고찰한 유럽의 월경적 협력 연구

Abstract

Borders have been regarded as a fixed, concrete concept of demarcating nation-states since the Westphalia Treaty of 1648. The notion of sovereign nation-states, however, has and is being challenged as a remarkable upsurge of trans-bordering goods, capital, services, information and people has created spaces of flows. In Europe, the development of integration process has re-configured the state borders in a more flexible yet, totally salient way by transforming borders from barriers to bridges connecting European regions. Europe of today is a geo-political laboratory through the diversified spatial transformation. Traditional theories have put nation-states on the stage as an irreplaceable political actor in facilitating incentives for integration, mediating mutual interests induced from the process and at the same time playing a role as a supranational lawmaker in European integration. That is, both of two main strands of European integration theory - from Haas and Lindbergs neo-functionalistic approach to Hoffmanns Intergovernmentalism, the subject of the action behind EU integration process is nation-states while sub-state/non-state actors have been marginal to academic or policy concerns. Meanwhile, the transnational dynamism not only appeared at supra-national or inter-national level but also emerged at infra-national level in the form of cross-border cooperation from the 1950s onwards. Encompassing the southern part of Sweden and eastern parts of Denmark, the Oresund cross-border region is one of the most dynamic and the best epitomized case displaying de facto integration process in Europe. By employing both of the top-down and bottom-up ways of integration in the region, the Oresund case shows that traditional state-centric integration theories have a pitfall leading to a lopsided understanding of European integration. This essay attempts to deliver some of the key dimensions of change in the context of European integration by depicting a series of development process of Oresund Region. The Oresund case signifies that states are not the solely prominent actor in European integration whilst depicting not only top-down but bottom-up integration is contributing to integration process in the form of public-private partnership.