European Integration Theory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antje Wiener ◽  
Tanja A. Börzel ◽  
Thomas Risse
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Regional Integration ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Integration Theory ◽  
The Third ◽  
Liberal Intergovernmentalism ◽  
Emerging Issues

European Integration Theory provides an overview of the major approaches to European integration, from federalism and neofunctionalism to liberal intergovernmentalism, social constructivism, normative theory, and critical political economy. Each chapter represents a contribution to the ‘mosaic of integration theory’. The contributors reflect on the development, achievements, and problems of their respective approach. In the fully revised and updated third edition, the contributors examine current crises with regard to the economy, migration, and security. Two concluding chapters assess, comparatively, the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, and look at the emerging issues. The third edition includes new contributions on the topics of regional integration, discourse analysis, federalism, and critical political economy.

European Integration Theory

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Integration Theory ◽  
The European Union ◽  
European Governance ◽  
Liberal Intergovernmentalism ◽  
Emerging Issues

European Integration Theory provides an overview of all the major approaches to European integration, from federalism and neofunctionalism to liberal intergovernmentalism, social constructivism, normative theory, and critical political economy. The three sections of the text examine the topics of ‘Explaining European Integration’, ‘Analysing European Governance’, and ‘Constructing the European Union’. Within these sections, each chapter reflects on the development, achievements and problems of a number of approaches, and discusses historical and current issues of European integration. The concluding chapter then comparatively assesses the strengths and weaknesses of each approach and looks at the emerging issues. This edition includes two new chapters on European integration theory and critical theory.

scholarly journals 1. Introducing the Mosaic of Integration Theory

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Diez ◽  
Antje Wiener
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Critical Dimension ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Integration Theory ◽  
Policy Network ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Liberal Intergovernmentalism ◽  
System Part ◽  
General Organization

This edition explores integration theory, its various approaches, and how they have developed. It consists of three parts. Part One includes approaches that explain European integration. Part Two deals with approaches that try to understand and analyse the European Union as a type of political system. Part Three focuses on more recent approaches that add a critical dimension to studying the EU. The approaches covered in this edition include federalism, neofunctionalism, liberal intergovernmentalism, the policy network approach, social constructivism, normative theory, and critical political economy approaches. This introduction makes the case for the relevance of theory when studying European integration. It also discusses the phases of theorizing European integration, along with the comparative framework that provided the guide for the chapters. It also provides an overview of the pattern of each chapter and the volume's general organization.

scholarly journals 13. Taking Stock of Integration Theory

2018 ◽  
pp. 256-272
Author(s):  
Antje Wiener
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Regional Integration ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Integration Theory ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Future ◽  
Treaty Of Rome ◽  
Normative Dimension ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Security Crises

This chapter takes stock of the third edition of European Integration Theory in three steps. First, it offers a comparative perspective on the distinct contributions to the mosaic of integration presented by each chapter. The assessment is framed by three sea-faring metaphors of European integration, and details the insights derived by each of the book’s contributions from addressing the kind of polity, politics, and policy based on the three types of crises (i.e. economic, refugee, and security). Second, the chapter addresses the absence of security crises in the book’s contributions. To reverse that absence, it distinguishes the impact of integration along a horizontal regional comparative dimension and a vertical normative dimension. The former builds on insights from regional integration, the latter connects normative crises in EU sub-units with global conflicts. And third, the chapter addresses the question of how integration theory fares sixty years on from the Treaty of Rome, and points out potential issues and themes for the future of European integration theory.

Changing the Rules of the Game to Build the European Economy

2019 ◽  
pp. 41-91
Author(s):  
Jason Beckfield
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
The Third ◽  
European Social Fund ◽  
Social Fund ◽  
Rules Of The Game

This chapter describes the development of the European political economy since the 1957 Rome treaty. It uses econometric and historical case evidence to build the argument that European integration has advanced both from the top down and from the bottom up. The first part presents several measures of European integration to address the question of how we know integration when we see it. The second part describes two mechanisms of integration: redistribution from the top down via the European Social Fund, and integration from the bottom up through the formation of the Euro-Regions. The third part describes the development of a convergent European economy, where macroeconomic differences have been reduced through European integration, especially before the 1980s, and especially if economies are weighted by their populations.

11. Normative Theory and the EU: Between Contract and Community

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bellamy ◽  
Claudia Attucci
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Integration Theory ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
The Eu

This chapter examines the input of normative theory to European integration theory. It first provides a historical background on social contract theory in Europe, followed by an analysis of John Rawls’s work as a way to explore the contribution of contractarian thinking to the normative dilemmas confronting the European Union. In particular, it considers Rawls’s two principles of justice. It also discusses three approaches that emphasize the centrality of democracy and have informed normative assessments of the democratic credentials of the EU, focusing on the writings of Jurgen Habermas, the national limits to the EU, and the normative position that makes sense of the EU’s character as ‘betwixt and between’ the nation state and a supranational institution. The chapter concludes with an assessment of how enlargement illustrates both the appeal of the normative approach and the difficulties it faces.

Comparative Regionalism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fredrik Söderbaum
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Regional Integration ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Integration Theory ◽  
General Belief ◽  
General Decline ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Policy Fields ◽  
Comparative Regionalism

Comparative regionalism refers to the study of (“world”) regions and regionalism in comparative perspective. The field emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, and the keyword was “regional integration,” which reflected the dominance of European integration theory and practice. Although the early debate—later referred to as “old regionalism”—took comparison seriously, a general belief emerged that regionalism in the rest of the world deviated from the European integration experience. After a general decline of regionalism in the 1970s and 1980s, the phenomenon reemerged after the end of the Cold War. The explosion of literature on regionalism in the 1990s and early 2000s—often referred to as “new regionalism”—emphasized that regionalism was a global and multidimensional phenomenon, involving both state and nonstate actors across a growing number of policy fields and in a variety of forms and institutional designs. The research field remained fragmented in the 1990s and early 2000s, characterized by rivalries and a lack of dialogue between theoretical and methodological standpoints as well as regional and thematic specializations. Since the latter half of the 2000s, the intellectual landscape changed again and comparative regionalism has consolidated as a research field, with greater acceptance of contrasting theoretical and methodological perspectives and with more advanced comparisons across both regions and policy fields. The result has been that the research field is no longer structured in a hub-and-spoke fashion around Europe versus the rest. By implication, the concept of regional integration has been subsumed under a broader and more general conceptual umbrella, and it has become established to refer to the research field as comparative regionalism.

5. Intergovernmentalism

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Cini
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Integration Theory ◽  
Classical Approach ◽  
Integration Process ◽  
The Core ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Liberal Intergovernmentalism ◽  
Stanley Hoffmann

This chapter examines intergovernmentalist integration theory, with particular emphasis on the classical and liberal variants of intergovernmentalism. It begins with an overview of the basic premises and assumptions of intergovernmentalism, focusing on its realist underpinnings and the state-centrism that forms the core of the approach. It then considers the specific characteristics of the classical approach associated with the work of Stanley Hoffmann, along with some of the ways in which intergovernmentalist thinking has contributed to different conceptualizations of European integration. Also discussed are confederalism, the domestic politics approach, institutional analyses that emphasize the ‘locked-in’ nature of nation states within the integration process, and new intergovernmentalism. The chapter concludes with an introduction to liberal intergovernmentalism theory, as developed by Andrew Moravcsik, and some of the criticisms levelled against it.

4. Liberal Intergovernmentalism

2018 ◽  
pp. 64-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Moravcsik ◽  
Frank Schimmelfennig
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Regional Integration ◽  
Migration Policy ◽  
Empirical Power ◽  
Liberal Intergovernmentalism ◽  
The Status ◽  
State Behaviour

This chapter focuses on liberal intergovernmentalism (LI), which has acquired the status of a ‘baseline theory’ in the study of regional integration: an essential first-cut explanation against which other theories are often compared. The chapter argues that LI has achieved this dominant status due to its theoretical soundness, empirical power, and utility as a foundation for synthesis with other explanations. After providing an overview of LI’s main assumptions and propositions, the chapter illustrates LI’s scope and empirical power with two recent cases: migration policy and the euro. It closes by considering common criticisms levelled against LI, as well as the scope conditions under which it is most likely to explain state behaviour. This chapter concludes by emphasizing LI’s openness to dialogue and synthesis with other theories and reiterating its status as a baseline theory of European integration.

The current economic and debt crisis in eurozone and crisis of grand theories of European integration

Human Affairs ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dušan Leška
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Euro Area ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Debt Crisis ◽  
Economic Recession ◽  
Banking Union ◽  
Common Currency ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Liberal Intergovernmentalism ◽  
The Common

AbstractThe economic and debt crisis threaten many eurozone countries and the very existence of the common currency, the euro. The crisis has meant that some special mechanisms have had to be created (EFSF, ESM) and the introduction of special procedures in heavily indebted countries. The deepening of the crisis and the economic recession in the euro area have resulted in the growth of nationalism and anti-European sentiments in EU member states. Resolving the crisis, however, requires further convergence of the eurozone countries, the formation of a fiscal union and a banking union. At the same time, the crisis has shown that the grand theories of European integration, neo-functionalism and liberal intergovernmentalism, have failed to provide answers to the questions raised by the crisis, and this has led to the growing importance of social constructivism.

9. Discursive Approaches

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ole Wæver
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Policy Options ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
European Union Enlargement ◽  
The Third ◽  
Theory Of Discourse

This chapter examines discourse analysis as an approach to the study of European integration. It first provides an overview of the basic idea(s) underlying discourse analysis before tracing its philosophical roots. It then considers when and how discourse analysis entered political science, international relations, and European integration studies. It also explores three examples of bodies of work that have each operationalized discourse analysis in a particular way in order to make it speak to European integration: the first covers governance and political struggle; the second approach posits the configuration of concepts of nation, state, and Europe as the basis for building theory of discourse as layered structures able to explain foreign policy options for a given state; and the third focuses on the project of European integration as a productive paradox. The chapter concludes by discussing the application of discourse analysis to the nature of the European Union enlargement process.

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