The elephant in the room: mapping the latent communication pattern in European Union studies

Abstract

European Union (EU) studies is known as a fragmented and interdisciplinary field. Drawing on bibliometric methods, this article presents a novel approach to examining the alleged lines of fragmentation in EU studies. It maps the network structure arising from the citation practices in journals concerned with EU studies by analysing 2,561 documents, containing 66,162 references, published in four authoritative EU journals in the period 2003–2010. The article finds: (1) a complex network of EU and non-EU sources clustering around different bordering disciplines, particularly Political Science, Comparative Politics, International Relations and Public Administration; (2) that the two core journals – Journal of European Public Policy and Journal of Common Market Studies – play an integrating function by holding the various subfields of EU studies together; and (3) a transatlantic divide in communication practices of EU scholars.

Keywords:

• Bibliometrics
• citation analysis
• disciplinary debates
• disciplinary divides
• EU studies
• network analysis

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are grateful to the two JEPP reviewers, Lau Øfjord Blaxekjær, Jens Blom-Hansen, Maria Ruxandra Lupu Dinesen, Birthe Hansen, Adrienne Héritier, Henrik Larsen, Dorte Sindbjerg Martinsen, Gry Salling Midttun, Peter Nedergaard, Ben Rosamond, Marlene Wind and Anders Wivel for having provided valuable feedback. The usual disclaimer applies.

Notes

See http://wok.mimas.ac.uk/andhttp://apps.webofknowledge.com/WOS_GeneralSearch_input.do?product=WOS&search_mode=GeneralSearch&SID=N1Bei4ieGmpIBDeo1nH&preferencesSaved=&highlighted_tab=WOS

Citation data from books were not available in the Web of Knowledge when we conducted the analysis. However, a reviewer kindly noted that Thomson Reuters launched a book of citation information in October 2011. See http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/10/idUS27574+10-Oct-2011+HUG20111010.

The trend is also present if we only look at 2010, and not the aggregated data from 2003–2010.

We are grateful to research assistant Casper Waldemar Hald from the Center for European Politics at Department of Political Science at University of Copenhagen for having assisted us with coding data according to three categories: qualitative; quantitative; and formal modelling. Data were coded for 1,528 articles, as we left out book reviews and notes from the editors, etc.