Review: Neil Fligstein. 2008. Euroclash: The EU, European Identity and the Future of Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Neil Fligstein. 2008. Euroclash: The EU, European Identity and the Future of Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Summary/Abstract: The literature accumulated on the European Union within the fields of economics, political science and international relations has concentrated on top-down processes of policy-making and on the institutional structure of the EU in order to discern the success of the project in integrating European states into a larger framework of interaction, cooperation and coordination. One of the main questions, in this regard, has been whether the EU constitutes a supranational body above nation-states, or an intergovernmental organization relating them. This question is also linked to discussions on the future of Europe, that is, whether the EU will survive through greater integration or whether it will wither away and become redundant in the face of the continuing strength of the nation-states. Taking this question at the centre of his analysis, Fligstein proposes a new methodological perspective for the analysis of the future of Europe. Thus, “Euroclash: The EU, European Identity and the Future of Europe” is, first and foremost, a sociological study of the European Union that presents a societal perspective for the study of an institutional structure, the EU, as it has been conceptualized and studied until now.

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