Suchergebnisse

With globalization and Europeanization, profound changes have taken place in the composition and structure of elites. Once solidly tied to the nation state, elites have, following processes of differentiation and specialization, become more transnational than ever before. Their development has been conditioned by the evolving relationship between international, transnational, and national powers. In the European context, key institutional players today include the European Commission, the European Ombudsman and the European Court of Justice as aspiring representatives of the general European interest and the Council of Ministers and member states as representing national interests in the EU. Their relationship and changing interfaces are crucial when assessing the development of non-elected political elites as well as more generally the rise of an institutionalized and integrated Europe. ; peerReviewed

This special issue of International Political Sociology consists of a symposium of papers that demonstrate the possibilities applying the political sociology of Pierre Bourdieu to international studies, both theoretically and empirically. The papers are all derived from a panel entitled "A Different Reading of the International" organized at the 2010 ISA Annual Conference in New Orleans. Correspondingly, the main claim of this special issue is that the sociology of Bourdieu provides a different look at the international, one that is highly productive for further transforming international studies. Our interest in developing this specific symposium has moreover been spurred by the general momentum which Bourdieusian sociology currently is experiencing with respect to both international and European studies (for references, please see the individual chapters). In this growing literature, one can now distinguish between a grouping of more sociologically informed studies and an emergent body of political science research which draws on Bourdieusian concepts. This symposium has a more sociological orientation than is usual in international studies, which is still very much dominated by political science reasoning. It also insists on the need to conduct empirical research using a specific set of thinking tools derived from Pierre Bourdieu's sociology as a means for providing a new reading of the international. Our goal is, however, not to provide a history of Bourdieusian ideas or to celebrate Pierre Bourdieu as yet another rising star in the pantheon of fashionable French thinkers for the IR market. We also resist treating Bourdieu as a philosopher cutoff from his empirical research on "examples" that seem irrelevant for IR specialists, or presenting a ready-made and condensed version of Bourdieu for an IR audience in search of minor adjustments in the division of labor between soft constructivism and mainstream realism. Adapted from the source document.

La recherche sociologique sur l'Union européenne offer une alternative indispensable aux habituelles approches de l'UE dominées par l'économie, le droit, les relations internationales et les sciences politiques. Toutefois, jusqu'à présent, cette alternative sociologique a surtout consisté en l'adaptation de la terminologie sociologique telle que « construction sociale » ou « identité » et en l'introduction de nouveaux objets de recherche, telles que les conventions sociales réglementant la sécurité nationale ou les constructions discursives de l'Europe. Mais la sociologie fournit également les munitions intellectuelles pour une réévaluation bien plus fondamentale de certaines des presuppositions ontologiques et épistémologiques de la recherche sur l'UE, ainsi que pour une reconstruction de l'objet d'étude. Dans cet article, nous allons développer ce cadre d'analyse sociologique alternatif en explorant des notions clés telles que la rationalité et la réflexivité. À notre avis, ce sont là les outils indispensables pour expliquer ce qui reste l'une des plus grandes énigmes pour les études européennes, à savoir : comment l'Europe s'est-elle formée par l'interaction des institutions européennes et des acteurs dans le jeu de Bruxelles et à travers les frontières nationales. Ces présuppositions ontologiques et épistémologiques empêchent un grand nombre de recherches fondées sur les mêmes présupposés et les dualismes qu'ils produisent (individu-institution, socialisation-calcul stratégique, supranational-national...) de développer une description plus complexe et plus « consistante » de l'intégration européenne.

"Law and the Formation of Modern Europe explores processes of legal construction in both the national and supranational domains, and it provides an overview of the modern European legal order. In its supranational focus, it examines the sociological pressures which have given rise to European public law, the national origins of key transnational legal institutions and the elite motivations driving the formation of European law. In its national focus, it addresses legal questions and problems which have assumed importance in parallel fashion in different national societies, and which have shaped European law more indirectly. Examples of this are the post-1914 transformation of classical private law, the rise of corporatism, the legal response to the post-1945 legacy of authoritarianism, the emergence of human rights law and the growth of judicial review. This two-level sociological approach to European law results in unique insights into the dynamics of national and supranational legal formation"--