This is the sixth volume in the biennial series State of the European Union, which was launched in 1991 and is produced under the auspices of the European Union Studies Association (EUSA). It takes the dynamic interaction between law, politics, and society as a starting point to think critically about recent developments and future innovations in European integration and EU studies. The book provides an overview of recent key events in the EU, while illuminating how these institutional (formal legal) developments impact on ordinary individuals and EU politics. For example, it examines the Euro ... More

This is the sixth volume in the biennial series State of the European Union, which was launched in 1991 and is produced under the auspices of the European Union Studies Association (EUSA). It takes the dynamic interaction between law, politics, and society as a starting point to think critically about recent developments and future innovations in European integration and EU studies. The book provides an overview of recent key events in the EU, while illuminating how these institutional (formal legal) developments impact on ordinary individuals and EU politics. For example, it examines the European Convention with the possibility of an EU constitution, and asks what impact the creation of judicially enforceable rights may have on Europeans and European integration, and how the opportunity for new rights claims alters the balance of power between individuals and EU organizations (such as the European Court of Justice vis‐á‐vis national governments in EU policy expansion). The book also seeks to provide a unique and interdisciplinary approach to studying the EU by bringing together legal scholars and political scientists. Chapter contributors offer readers sophisticated theoretical and empirical accounts of new developments. Issues such as enlargement, immigration reform, and monetary union require a precise understanding of an increasingly complex set of formal legal rules (the domain of legal scholars), and, equally important, of the effects on ordinary citizens and political participation (the power struggles that concern political scientists). The volume seeks to integrate these two approaches and bridge the divide between them. It is arranged in eight parts: I, EU Law and Politics: The State of the Discipline (3 chapters concerned with broad changes, both theoretical and substantive, in the area of EU politics and law); II, Structures of Governance (3 chapters providing in‐depth analyses of new structures of governance and modes of decision making in the EU); III, EU Citizen Rights and Civil Society (2 chapters) and IV, EU Law in Action (3 chapters), which engage the many processes and recent developments characterizing the interactions between law, politics, and society in the EU; V, Innovation and Expansion (3 chapters analysing the salient policy innovations and expansion since 2000, from monetary to immigration policy); VI, Researching and Teaching the EU (2 chapters discussing cutting‐edge techniques, methodology, and resources for research and teaching in the area of EU studies); VII, References; and VIII, List of Contributors.