Social Representations and Economic Integration in the Mediterranean Area

Do social representations affect the efficiency of economic policy? To deal with this problem I studied the limited results of European Policy toward the Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area. While the classical approach to economic integration explains this failure mainly as a consequence of the political and economical costs perceived by the partners, I paid attention to the role of two adversarial social representations: the clash of civilizations and the encounter of civilizations. Both of them underestimate and overestimate some characteristics of the Mediterranean Area, hindering the comprehension of regional reality, while the interaction between them nullify the possibility of benefit of the EU Mediterranean economic policy.