Date: 2020
Type: Article
Theory of European integration as a challenge to IR theories
Global affairs, 2019, Vol. 5, No. 4-5, pp. 477-484
TIILIKAINEN, Teija Helena, Theory of European integration as a challenge to IR theories, Global affairs, 2019, Vol. 5, No. 4-5, pp. 477-484
- https://hdl.handle.net/1814/70399
Retrieved from Cadmus, EUI Research Repository
As the EU is now increasingly studied as a normal political system, moving the scholarly focus away from the member states, EU studies have started to distance itself from IR studies. Their common past has in any case produced a good number of encounters beneficial for both parties. This article points out two fields of study where the borderlines between EU studies, and that on IR, have been low enough to allow fruitful interaction. Social constructivism, in particular, provided the theoretical framework for both of these scholarly encounters, with ideational structures and identity-formation becoming an important focus for general IR studies. When the static concept of the state as the centerpiece for IR was replaced by an approach stressing the man-made character of all political constructions, a natural common ground was established also for the study of EU. Liberal institutionalism in IR studies has formed a bridge between IR and EU studies, with the latter also influencing the former. The study of the EU's international actorness that flourished around the turn of the millennium highlighted important synergies with similar approaches in IR. These brought to the fore states’ international identities as a contingent rather than static or fixed quality.
Additional information:
First published online: 26 February 2020
Cadmus permanent link: https://hdl.handle.net/1814/70399
Full-text via DOI: 10.1080/23340460.2020.1722957
ISSN: 2334-0460; 2334-0479
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
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