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Sociology and the European Union

par Bonnamy, Céleste ;Canihac, Hugo
Editeur scientifique Faure, Samuel B.H.;Lequesne, Christian
Référence Elgar Companion to the European Union, Edward Elgar Publishing, London, Ed. 1
Publication Publié, 2023-04

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Résumé :

In the 1950s and 1960s, the first scholars who studied the post-war institutions that woulddevelop into the EU were influenced by the dominant social science paradigm of their timesand sociologists such as Talcott Parsons. They were interested in European integration, thecomplex process whereby supranational political institutions would generate strong cross-border economic cooperation, thus leading to social interactions between people in themember states and creating new allegiances towards a new political centre and a sense ofshared identity beyond the nation-state. Sociologists then disappeared from the field until the1990s for reasons that we will examine. The core of the chapter then focuses on the “return”of a research agenda inspired by major sociological traditions. “Bringing sociology back in”first meant focusing on the social bases of political integration at a time on the one hand andthe effects (or lack thereof) of EU rules. This agenda has developed as many observed the endof the permissive consensus underpinning the European project, what Neil Fligstein labelledthe “Euroclash”. Beyond extending the realm of EU studies beyond the study of EUinstitutions and laws, sociologists brought a number of theoretical perspectives and tools ofempirical analysis. There are thus sociologies of the EU and the chapter will provideexamples of this diversity.