Reconnecting European law to European societies

Abstract

This is a collection of two pieces concerned with the question of the relationship between European law and social reality but within a specific context in which, on the one hand, it is assumed that EU law has produced a form of disconnect with the reality of European societies while, on the other hand, today’s European societies are seen as sites for irreconcilable divisions and production of distorted representations of reality. The first piece is about the method of EU legal studies and EU law in the current context of polarization of European societies. The second piece is an illustration of the ‘disconnect’ and ‘distortion’ in the area of security. It analyses shifts in Member States and the EU’s conceptions of security, making the case that legal scholars should pay greater attention to these.