THE EUROPEANISATION OF SWEDISH DEVELOPMENT POLICY AND BREXIT: THE CASE OF SWEDEN Measuring the impact of the European Union’s relationship with Sweden using Brexit as the before-and-after catalyst for changes in Europeanisation

Abstract

The Europeanisation of Swedish development policy looks into the impact the European Union (EU) has had on influencing Sweden’s development policy. This study will explain if Brexit has had an impact on Sweden’s development policy due to the change in the trend of global development, and understanding if as a result Sweden’s level of Europeanisation changed. The main research question for this study is; Has the British Referendum in 2016 impacted the EU’s Europeanisation efforts on Swedish Development Policy? Due to the absence of research in the Europeanisation of development policy, Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) approaches will indicate whether the EU had an impact and how the EU uses PCD tools to formulate and implement its development policy. Coherence as a method of development cooperation is embedded within the foundation of the EU’s Maastricht Treaty, and is a recurring theme throughout the 2000s before-and-after Brexit. Using PCD as an analytical tool to determine the aggregate level of Europeanisation of Swedish development policy will be applied when analysing the PCD materials. The materials will be categorised into three main phases that will determine the level of Europeanisation per phase, then illustrated onto a one-dimensional typology diagram. The three phases of PCD materials will look before-and-after Brexit to determine the level of Europeanisation. Phase 1 pre-Brexit reviews materials between 2000-2008, Phase 2 pre-Brexit reviews materials between 2009-2016, and Phase 3 post-Brexit reviews materials between 2016-2019. The results of the study reveals there was no change in the level of Europeanisation of development policy because the EU development model is heavily influenced by the Swedish development policy.