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Intro -- BRIEF CONTENTS -- FULL CONTENTS -- ILLUSTRATIONS AND FEATURES -- FIGURES -- TABLES -- MAPS -- ILLUSTRATIONS -- DEBATES -- UNDERSTANDING INTEGRATION -- FOCUS -- PROFILES -- TIMELINES -- SNAPSHOTS -- ABOUT THE AUTHOR -- KEY STATISTICS -- PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION -- CHANGES TO THE THIRD EDITION -- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND PHOTO CREDITS -- Publisher's acknowledgements -- TOUR OF THE BOOK -- At the start of each chapter -- Within chapters -- At the end of each chapter -- ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS -- EU MEMBER STATES -- INTRODUCTION -- PART 1 HISTORY AND IDEAS -- 1 UNDERSTANDING INTEGRATION -- Preview -- Key points -- States and nations -- International organizations -- From federalism to functionalism -- Neofunctionalism and integrative potential -- The spotlight moves to governments -- Discussion questions -- Key terms -- Concepts -- Further reading -- Profile -- 2 WHAT IS THE EUROPEAN UNION? -- Preview -- Key points -- Where to start? -- The EU as a federal system -- The EU as a confederal system -- Discussion questions -- Key terms -- Concepts -- Further reading -- Profile -- 3 WHO ARE THE EUROPEANS? -- Preview -- Key points -- Where is Europe? -- What is a European? -- The idea of European citizenship -- Identifying with Europe -- Europe's changing demography -- Discussion questions -- Key terms -- Concepts -- Further reading -- Profile -- 4 FIRST STEPS (1944-58) -- Preview -- Key points -- Europe before the Second World War -- The troubled state of post-war Europe -- Rebuilding economies (1944-51) -- Addressing external threats (1946-49) -- The Council of Europe (1946-50) -- The European Coal and Steel Community (1950-52) -- Internal and external shocks (1950-56) -- The European Economic Community (1955-58) -- Discussion questions -- Key terms -- Concepts -- Further reading -- Profile -- 5 BUILDING THE COMMUNITY (1958-95) -- Preview.

The EU poses quite profound questions for scholars and students of the social and political sciences. Its appeal will reside not only in its comprehensive and authoritative coverage of the field, but also in the quality of its contributors, and the diversity of the theoretical and methodological approach included

Intro -- Preface -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- List of Figures -- List of Graphs -- List of Tables -- List of Appendixes -- Chapter 1 Introducing Discourse Analysis in EU Politics -- What Is Discourse Analysis? -- Discourse Analysis in the Study of the EU -- Scope of Research -- Approaches and Research Themes -- What Can't Discourse Analysis Be Used for? -- The Aim of the Book and Its Approach to Discourse Analysis -- Structure of the Book -- References -- Chapter 2 Discourse Analysis as a Research Strategy -- Agency-Structure as a Continiuum -- Discursive Conflict-Consensus as a Continiuum -- Causality and Types of Explanations -- Discourse Analysis and Time -- Multi-theoretical Analysis and Counterfactual Reasoning -- Ideas, Discourse and Institutions: A General Analytical Framework -- References -- Chapter 3 Discourse Analysis, Data and Research Techniques -- What to Read? -- Documents -- Interviews and 'Naturally Occurring Talk' -- Survey Questionnaires -- Non-linguistic Data -- How to Read? -- Content Analysis and Computer-Assisted Text Analysis -- Problem Perception Analysis -- References -- Chapter 4 Discourse and EU Policy-Making -- Reforms and Actors in the CAP -- A Mechannism of Resistance: Discursive Path-Dependency -- Two Conditions for Transformation: One Necessary and One Conducive -- First Mechanism of Transformation: Discursive Ambiguity -- Second Mechanism of Transformation: Translation -- Third Mechanism of Transformation: Discursive Entrepreneurship -- Fourth Mechannism of Transformation: Expertise -- Expertise in EU Policy-Making -- References -- Chapter 5 Discourse and the Strategic Usage of Europe -- 'Europe' as a Strategic Discursive Resource -- Three Conditions Conducive for the Strategic Usage of Discourse -- How Can It Be Determined Whether Decision-Makers Invoke Discourse Strategically?.

AbstractIn the multilevel system of the European Union (EU), national governments have been empowered at the expense of parliaments. We study the executive power shift in EU politics in the formation of national preferences. This article shows that governments are more likely to integrate parliaments and external actors, such as other governments and EU institutions, when they advocate extreme bargaining positions in EU negotiations. We theoretically develop this argument and provide an empirical study of Eurozone politics, covering the preference formation of 27 EU member states. The analysis shows that the executives are overall the dominating power: most of the time, governments form national preferences on their own. When governments integrate additional actors, they mostly rely on external actors and do so to avoid blame and to shift responsibility. These findings question whether the integration of national parliaments in EU politics indeed addresses democratic accountability concerns.

The EU poses quite profound questions for scholars and students of the social and political sciences. Its appeal will reside not only in its comprehensive and authoritative coverage of the field, but also in the quality of its contributors, and the diversity of the theoretical and methodological approach included.

Energy policy has been considered as a "special case of Europeanization," due to its tardy and patchy development as a domain of EU activity as well as its important but highly contested external dimension. Divergent energy pathways across Member States and the sensitivity of this policy domain have militated against a unified European Energy Policy. And yet, since the mid-2000s cooperation in this policy area has picked up speed, leading to the adoption of the Energy Union, presented by the European Commission as the most ambitious energy initiative since the European Coal and Steel Community. This dynamism has attracted growing scholarly attention, seeking to determine whether, why and how European Energy Policy has consolidated against all odds during a particularly critical moment for European integration. The underlying question that emerges in this context is whether the Energy Union represents a step forward towards a more homogenous and joined-up energy policy or, rather a strategy to manage heterogeneity through greater flexibility and differentiated integration. Given the multilevel and multisectoral character­ istics of energy policy, answering these questions requires a three-fold analysis of (1) the degree of centralization of European Energy Policy (vertical integration), (2) the coher­ ence between energy sub-sectors (cross-sectoral integration), and (3) the territorial ex­ tension of the energy acquis beyond the EU Member States (horizontal integration). Tak­ en together, the Energy Union has catalyzed integration on the three dimensions. First, EU institutions are formally involved in almost every aspect of energy policy, including sensitive areas such as ensuring energy supplies. Second, the Energy Union, with its new governance regulation, brings under one policy framework energy sub-sectors that had developed in silos. And finally, energy policy is the only sector that has generated a multi­ lateral process dedicated to the integration of non-members into the EU energy market. However, this ...

Summary presented at the start of the article: " 'Development cooperation' is one of the traditional policy domains of the European Union (EU). Over the years it advanced from an instrument used in colonial times to one of modern partnership, although European self-interest remains a driving force. Jointly, the EU and its member states are the largest development donor in the world and also provide sizable market access and investment to developing countries. Their overall performance record has been assessed fairly positively by internal and external parties, although many possible improvements have been identified. The various enlargements of the EU traceably supported a widening of the geographic and substantive scope of EU development policies and practice. In addition, EU development cooperation was reinforced by the fact that it gradually received a firmer basis in the constituent EU treaties. The 'European Consensus on Development' document, as revised in 2017, laid out the main direction of and emphases in EU development cooperation until the year 2030. The European Consensus prescribed a rights-based approach, and squarely placed the United Nations "Agenda 2030" and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) contained in it, as the main framework and objectives for EU development cooperation. A wide range of actors is involved in EU development cooperation, in part because this is an area of shared competence among the EU member states that pursue their own national policies as well as those specified by the EU. Thus, EU actors such as the European Commission, Council, and Parliament feature in this policy field along with EU member states and individual or collective developing country actors. The most prominent example of this is the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, which consists of 79 countries. Civil society organizations, including non-governmental development organizations, both from the North and the South, also seek to influence or otherwise engage with the policies and ...

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of Photos -- List of Figures -- List of Maps -- List of Tables -- List of Boxes -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- A Note on Terminology -- Acronyms and Abbreviations -- EU Member States -- Introduction -- Part I: History -- 1 What Is the European Union? -- Chapter Overview -- The Role of the State -- How Did the EU Evolve? -- What Has the EU Become? -- Questions to Consider -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Further Reading -- 2 Origins: The Road to Paris and Rome -- Chapter Overview -- The Taming of Europe -- Economic Reconstruction and the Marshall Plan -- Security and the Cold War -- Opening Moves: Coal and Steel (1950-1953) -- From Paris to Rome (1955-1958) -- Questions to Consider -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Further Reading -- 3 Stagnation and Renewal: The Single European Act and Maastricht -- Chapter Overview -- Integration Takes Root (1958-1968) -- The Role of the US -- Enlargement: Looking North and South (1960-1986) -- Toward Economic and Monetary Union (1969-1993) -- Completing the Single Market: The Single European Act (1983-1993) -- From Community to Union (1970-1993) -- Questions to Consider -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Further Reading -- 4 Unity and Upheaval: The Eurozone, the Treaty of Lisbon, and Crises in the EU -- Chapter Overview -- The Euro Arrives (1995-2002) -- Changes to the Treaties: Amsterdam and Nice (1997-2001) -- More Enlargement: Looking East (1994-2013) -- A Constitution by Another Name: The Treaty of Lisbon (2001-2008) -- The Financial and Debt Crisis (2008-2015) -- The Migration Crisis (2015-2018) -- Another Blow to the EU: Brexit (2016-2020) -- Questions to Consider -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Further Reading -- Part II: Institutions -- 5 The European Commission -- Chapter Overview -- Evolution -- Structure -- How the Commission Works.

In this article, we analyze how European Union Politics has evolved over the last 25 years. Our analysis demonstrates that the goals the editorial team has pursued over this quarter century have only partly been reached. While the journal has helped to consolidate EU studies as a field of research in its own rights, several problems of representation persist in the journal and the social sciences in general. We identify besides the well-known gender gap that especially authors from the (European) South and East continue to be underrepresented in submitted and published articles. While less represented and successful at the submission stage, our results show that female scholars are more likely than male author teams to publish high-impact articles. Our findings indicate that studies of political behavior, broadly conceived, and articles using quantitative methods are well-represented. The article concludes with some remarks on how the journal might help to further professionalize the study of the EU in the coming years.

AbstractIn this article, I distinguish between four foundational narratives about the EU and outline how they continue to shape EU politics of the present day. The foundational narratives are (1) the EU as a peace project, (2) the notion that the EU is forged in crisis, (3) the sense that deeper economic interdependence fosters political change and (4) the idea that law can replace power politics in the EU. In order for the European project to address current challenges, such as climate change, economic instability, political polarization or the rule of law crisis, I argue that Europeans need to confront their past. History is not only the recollection of events; it represents the connections that the public and elites wish to make. So, in order to develop policy solutions to cross‐border issues, European contemporaries need to critically revisit past connections and to uncover blind spots. If Europeans revisit the EU's foundational narratives, they might also figure out what should change in the EU today.