Theorizing European Integration

by Dimitris N. Chryssochoou

Overview

Fully revised and updated throughout, Theorizing European Integration 2nd edition provides a comprehensive introduction to the theoretical study of European integration. Combining perspectives from international relations, comparative politics and social and political theory, Dimitris N. Chryssochoou offers a complete overview of the many competing approaches that have sought to capture and explain the evolving political nature of the European Union (EU) and its qualitative transition from a union of states to a polity in its own right.

Contemporary issues, themes and theories addressed include:

• the different uses and current state of EU theorizing
• statecentric accounts of integration and their critics
• new normative challenges to the study of the EU
• the political dynamics of European treaty reform
• new forms of democracy, citizenship and governance
• the limits and possibilities of EU constitutionalism
• interdisciplinary understandings of EU polityhood
• the introduction of a theory of organized synarchy
• the transformations of state sovereignty in late modern Europe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415437516
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/03/2008
Edition description:	REV
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.88(w) x 9.69(h) x (d)

About the Author

Dimitris N. Chryssochoou is Associate Professor of International Organization at the University of Crete. He has held visiting posts at the LSE, Cambridge, Columbia, Athens and Panteion Universities, as well as at the Hellenic Centre for European Studies and the Centre for European Constitutional Law in Athens.

Table of Contents

1. The State of a Discipline 2. On Formative Theorizing 3. The Confederal Phase 4. Discourses on Polityhood 5. The Consociational Analogy 6. Theorizing Treaty Reform 7. The Normative Turn 8. Organized Synarchy. Postscript. Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

This second edition of Theorizing European Integration is much more than an updating of the original. It also develops the author’s own special insights into the character of the European Union in particular with regard to the concept of synarchy… The book is a major addition to understanding the regional integration of states.’ - Paul Taylor, Professor Emeritus of International Relations, London School of Economics, UK

‘Chryssochoou approaches theorising as an indispensable tool for understanding the integration of Europe and in this second edition continues his search for reliable theory to help our understanding of the EU and the challenges to its development as a polity… It remains an intellectual tour de force, an exceptionally good guide to theories of integration.’ - Geoffrey Edwards, Jean Monnet Professor of Political Science, University of Cambridge, UK

‘Chryssochoou’s book is a sophisticated analysis of the development of integration theory, but his is also an impassionate defence of a particular conception of European integration, which blends together in an original way republican and post-statist categories of politics.’ - Dario Castiglione, Reader in Political Theory, University of Exeter, UK

‘Chryssochoou offers an excellent one stop shop of the different theoretical approaches to understanding the EU, indicating the appropriate topics and levels of analysis to which they might be best applied.’ - Richard Bellamy, Professor of Political Science, University College London, UK

From the Publisher