European Integration, Processes of Change and the National Experience

Abstract

Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology addresses contemporary themes in the fi eld of Political Sociology. Over recent years, attention has turned increasingly to processes of Europeanization and globalization and the social and political spaces that are opened by them. These processes comprise both institutional-constitutional change and new dynamics of social transnationalism. Europeanization and globalization are also about changing power relations as they affect people's lives, social networks and forms of mobility.The Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology series addresses linkages between regulation, institution building and the full range of societal repercussions at local, regional, national, European and global level, and will sharpen understanding of changing patterns of attitudes and behaviours of individuals and groups, the political use of new rights and opportunities by citizens, new confl ict lines and coalitions, societal interactions and networking, and shifting loyalties and solidarity within and across the European space. We welcome proposals from across the spectrum of Political Sociology including on dimensions of citizenship; political attitudes and values; political communication and public spheres; states, communities, governance structure and political institutions; forms of political participation; populism and the radical right; and democracy and democratization.

State-building and the European Union: Markets, War, and Europe's Uneven Political Development

“…One body of literature that has come close to viewing European integration through a state-building perspective is that which has applied the theoretical lens of federalism to the EU, but these scholars tend to steer away from the concept of state-building (Fabbrini, 2010;Fossum & Jachtenfuchs, 2017;Nicolaidis and Howse, 2002;Sbragia, 1992;Scharpf, 1988). Only a small handful of scholars have explicitly compared the development of the EU to historical processes of state formation or statebuilding, without assuming that the EU will or should evolve into a state (Bartolini, 2005;Börner & Eigmüller, 2015;Deutsch et al, 1957;Mérand, 2008). There also have been efforts to consider the EU in terms of other historical forms of governance, drawing out the differences with and similarities to past political orders such as empires (Beck & Grande, 2007;Caporaso, 1996;Marks, 1997Marks, , 2012Zielonka, 2006).…”