Domestic Responses to European Money: A Theoretical Perspective

Abstract

Chapter 3 draws on the perspective towards the local level developed in chapter 2 and discusses how local responses to EU policies tools can be grasped conceptually. By building particularly on the political-science Europeanisation literature and on sociological field approaches, a specific bottom-up perspective will be presented which puts analytical emphasis on the local contextual conditions. The main argument is that local contexts shape the way how actors respond to the ESF as a financial opportunity, and how this shapes local labour market policies. The Europeanisation literature and the field approach provide the background for the development of conditional hypotheses to be tested empirically in later chapters.