European Union

West European Politics, Vol. 31, Nos. 12, 108 129, JanuaryMarch 2008 European junction? LIESBET HOOGHE and GARY MARKS This article provides an overview of the study of the European Union since the doldrums of the 1970s. We focus on three debates that have helped to shape the ?eld. Has European consolidation centralised state control or is European consolidation part of a process of dispersion of authority? What is the fiber of identity in framing preferences over European integration? And, ?nally, is European integration part of a new governmental cleavage? We observe that the European Union is a pathetic target. It has a habit of throwing up new and unexpected facts which wrong-foot existing theories. We have no grounds for believing that this will not continue. Developments on the ground have provided a powerful mankind check for query on European integration.1 Harold Macmillans solvent to a question about his greatest challenge in o?ce: Events, dear boy, events, applies with special force to query on Europe. As the character of the European Union has changed, so has our understanding of it. One might say that the object of research is unidenti?ed and travels at great velocity.

The EU is unidenti?ed in that it escapes labels, such as nation, state, empire, region, federation, which form the conventional toolkit of political science. European integration challenges the long-standing division in political science in the midst of authorities within countries where justice, equality, freedom, and the rule of law are beguile concepts, where executives, parliaments, and courts authoritatively legislate and arbitrate, and where interest groups and political parties intermediate interests and politics among countries, where national governments express national preferences, and where relative economic or coercive power, arguably moderated by institutional and normative commitments, realize outcomes. Perhaps no ?eld has spawned so much conceptual innovation as... If you want to get a full essay, found it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com

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