ABSTRACT
The fusion thesis adopts a particular view of how and why states want to participate in European integration. According to the fusion thesis, national government's perceptions of European integration in general, and European Union (EU) membership in particular, remain largely rational and state-centric in orientation. The European Union therefore represents ever closer fusion, best explained as the 'dynamic product of the rational strategies of European welfare states faced with growing interdependencies and spill-over, furthered by the institutional logics of EU bodies'. The general publics of the member states tend to be less fused into the EU process and retain essentially state-centric perceptions. Complementing the focus on performance criteria and a supranational 'third way', the fusion perspective assumes that national EU policy-makers regard the Union as a compound polity. Spillover dynamics associated with compound fusion in particular have implications for this study of Sweden. In practice, such a fusion perspective assumes that national and EU competencies are mixed.
