ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the pathway of the European order from the Enlightenment over 19th and 20th century nationalist power politics to the multilateral, integrated European Union. It shows the rise and decline of balance of power and the transformation of the nation-state through European integration. International Relations theory has been lacking an appropriate concept to categorise the EU between a political entity at a level between the nation-state and the international system as a whole. But it finds its place in international society with modifications of its constitutive institutions through the moral belief in multilateralism. Rather than explaining EU integration through neo-functionalist spillovers and intergovernmental liberal bargaining, the focus is on critical junctures and political decisions on a historical pathway.
