Europeanisation and Its Discontents

Abstract

Europeanisation is now a very prolific area of scholarly research in the social sciences, encompassing among other aspects examination of change in the polities, public policies and animating politics of states arising from engagement with the meta-organisation of the European Union. However, we argue that mainstream social science portrayals of categories of territory, identity and power remain comparatively neglected in existing analyses and the interrelations between these categories is undertheorised, preventing clarification of Europeanisation's underlying processes. We contend that a promising starting-point for resolving these discontents can be found in recent debates in geography focusing upon space and scale.