Looking ‘Up,’ ‘Down,’ and ‘Sideways’ – Understanding EU Institutions in Context (original) (raw)
Related papers
The College of Europe and the European University Institute are sister institutions; we work in postgraduate and post-doctorate education, with a specific mandate 'to foster the advancement of learning in fields which are of particular interest for the development of Europe, especially its culture, history, law, economics and institutions' and to 'develop interdisciplinary research programmes on the major issues confronting contemporary European society, including matters relating to the construction of Europe' (Convention establishing the EUI). We are engaged in educating the next generation of scholars and practitioners and in our research programmes we bring together scholars from all over Europe and the world in our unique international and cross-disciplinary environments. From this perspective, we aim to initiate and stimulate a debate among institutions of higher education over the current challenges facing the study of Europe, ranging from its place within university curricula to the funding drivers for research, from the risks and benefits of cross-disciplinarity to the historical turn in EU studies. By 'European' and 'EU studies' we intend to include not only 'European studies' in
Crossing pillars, crossing disciplines? Comparing institutional logics and evolutions within the EU
2009
This paper confronts established integration scholarship with evidence from CFSP, the EU’s attempt to work together in foreign and security policy. Why does integration theory refrain from analyzing the evolution in this sector? While CFSP experiences a growing popularity amongst researchers from IR and security studies, it seems to be neglected from classical integration theory. Two reasons for this are more closely scrutinized: Either these theoretical attempts are unable or unwilling to cope with CFSP, or CFSP is not integration and thus does not fall into their realm. Whereas I find evidence for ‘intergovernmental integration’ in CFSP, the problem seems to lie within integration theories. The classical dichotomies between supranational/intergovernmental approaches and between ‘high’ and ‘low’ politics can be advanced for this lacunae, as well as the overall diminishing interest of current theoretical approaches to deal with the EU integration process (instead of dealing with pol...
The Active Paradigm of the Study of the EU's Place in the World: An Introduction
Dimitry Kochenov and Fabian Amtenbrink (eds.), The European Union’s Shaping of the International Legal Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 1–19.
This is an introduction of an edited volume compiled to test the feasibility of an active paradigm of the study of EU's engagements with the international legal order. The work aims at analysing how the EU shapes its environment and creates rules and practices for the world, reshaping – or at least attempting to reshape – international law. The book does more than simply visiting a range of essential fields of EU’s engagement. It offers an ethical perspective on the Union’s actions, shedding light on some underlying motivations, which are at times more complex than what the official documents would suggest. This collection advocates what we refer to as an ‘active paradigm’ of the study of the EU in the international legal context, approaching the Union as an active co-creator of the international legal order.