Sociological Approaches in EU Studies

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyse sociological approaches focusing on the European integration process. The objective is to situate these approaches in relation to the epistemological backgrounds of other conceptual frameworks, and to point out their strengths and limitations. This is done in three steps. The first part of the article looks at the emergence and the definition of sociological approaches to European integration and the second will look more closely at the different research clusters, which identify with a sociological tradition. Finally, the article will look at the limits of sociological approaches and suggest some avenues for further research.

Keywords:

• European integration theory
• sociology

Notes

The author would like to thank Frédéric Mérand, Olivier Rozenberg, Anand Menon, the anonymous reviewer, and in particular Berthold Rittberger for their extremely perceptive comments on earlier versions of this article.

See Favell (2007).

Translation by Frédéric Mérand (2008). Mérand convincingly links this central Bourdieuian idea to the debate on ‘methodological nationalism’ developed by Jan-Aart Scholte (2000) and Beck and Grande (2007).

This refers to the old distinction between micro- and macro-studies, a question declared to be without solution by Singer (1961), since then questioned by sociologists of international relations (Rosenau 2003).

Based on the EUROPUB project http://europub.wzb.eu (accessed 7/12/2008).