The Department of Political Science & Centre for European Studies (EU Centre of Excellence) are pleased to present a lecture on the “European economic recovery between growth critique and growth imperative” with Professor Daniel Mügge, University of Amsterdam.

This paper considers the ambiguities over the definition, theorization, measurement and desirability of growth in the EU. It explores the rise and fall of the European Commission’s ‘Beyond GDP’ initiative, which created room for thinking differently about the status of growth in contemporary European policy. It shows how a particular perspective on growth – year-on-year change in GDP – is hardwired into contemporary EU policies and how this particular perspective on growth may thwart other policy goals. Because dominant understandings of growth are highly contestable, current policy discourse and practice stand on insecure intellectual foundations.