Konkurrerande "frames"
Förhandlingarna om EU
NegotiationFramingRhetorical analysisEUThe Services DirectivePolitical and administrative sciencesStatsvetenskapFörvaltningskunskapLaw and Political Science
This paper concerns the question of how one can frame a political message. I investigate how a political frame is bound both to the line of argumentation connected with a certain discourse and to the audience closely related to that discourse.I have chosen to study a single case where the policy process was characterized by a framing contest. The case shows how negotiating the new Services Directive is affected by framing efforts made by the parties negotiating.My conclusions are that the question of a Services Directive lent itself to a definition in terms of "either/or"-arguments. Thus the Directive could be considered either a threat or a possibility. It was the very nature of the matter - the development of the internal market on services - that made possible a debate along the lines of a "left/right"-struggle and where a frame that drew from the European Social Model offered the better explanation thereby succeding in defining the new Directive as a threat. Faced with the choice of either letting go of the thought of a new directive or conceding to the winning frame the European Commission chose the latter.