European integration is at a turning point with implications for all member states and their citizens. The book examines the process of European integration and highlights issues of institutional dynamics and prospects for democracy.

Introduces and applies a social constructivist perspective to the study of European integration. This book reviews the debates and contribution of constructivist approaches to international relations. It also explores the insights that might be afforded to European studies.

This book is the first to systematically introduce and apply a social constructivist perspective to the study of European integration. Social constructivism is carefully located in terms of its philosophical and methodological origins. The wider debates and contribution of constructivist approaches to international relations are reviewed, and the insights that might then be afforded to European studies fully explored. Highlights include: new theoretical contributions to the debate by Ernst B. Haas, Andrew Moravcsik and Steve Smith; research on key aspects of European integration and EU...

Although great efforts have been made to understand citizenship, it has remained a contested concept, largely because of the problem of the changing relationship between citizens and their community of membership or belonging. The European Union poses the most recent and dramatic change to this definition of citizenship. Arguing that citizenship must be explored from a perspective that takes this continual change into account, Antje Wiener develops the concept of citizenship practicethe process of policymaking and/or political participation which contributes to creating the terms of...

As social practices now frequently extend beyond national boundaries, experiences and expectations about fair and legitimate politics have become increasingly fragmented. Our ability to understand and interpret others and to tolerate difference, rather than overcome diversity, is therefore at risk. This book focuses on the contested meanings of norms in a world of increasing international encounters. The author argues that cultural practices are less visible than organisational practices, but are constitutive for politics and need to be understood and empirically 'accounted' for. Comparing...

Debate about the theory underpinning the nature, workings, and development of the European (EU) has in many ways been hampered in recent years by an intellectual divergence in the two main ways that the EU is conceptualized. On the one hand is a political science and comparative government oriented strand that sees the EU as a political system in its own right. On the other is the international relations tradition which conceptualizes it as another international organization. Alongside this, the EU itself has developed a significant constitutional dimension. Indeed, the debate surrounding the...

As social practices now frequently extend beyond national boundaries, experiences and expectations about fair and legitimate politics have become increasingly fragmented. Our ability to understand and interpret others and to tolerate difference, rather than overcome diversity, is therefore at risk. This book focuses on the contested meanings of norms in a world of increasing international encounters. The author argues that cultural practices are less visible than organisational practices, but are constitutive for politics and need to be understood and empirically 'accounted' for. Comparing...

Examines the involvement of local actors in conflicts over global norms at the intersection between International Relations and International Law.