New Challenges to the Study of European Integration: Implications for Theory‐Building

Dimitris N. Chryssochoou

Journal of Common Market Studies, 1997, vol. 35, issue 4, 521-542

Abstract: The progressive fusion of federal principles, confederal structures and consociational processes in the EU of the 1990s has set in train a sense of renewed theoretical excitement among its students. This article aims to assess the dialectics of theory‐building in the larger polity, and reveal alternative ways of reconceptualizing its current political properties and functions. Focusing on the dynamic interplay between autonomous self‐rule and collective governance, it advances the theory of confederal consociation, arguing that it is possible to strike a balance between the concurrent demands for territorial segmental autonomy and ‘ever closer union’ insofar as the constituent parts are bound together in a sensibly arranged ‘Union’ that is closer to a Gesellschaft rather than to a Gemeinschaft‐type of transnational political organization.

Date: 1997
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