ABSTRACT
The central thesis advanced in this chapter is that the overwhelming literature on the study of European integration still leaves much to be desired from a metatheoretical perspective. That is to say, from the standpoint of theorizing about a fast-growing corpus of regional integration theory by employing the language of normative discourse. Indeed, a considerable part of the theoretical acquis is informed by the explanations as well as the analytical and methodological insights offered by various statecentric and Eurocentric approaches to the structural arrangements, behavioural characteristics and operational dynamics of politics, policy and governance in the EU. What follows, by putting forward the foundations of a metatheoretical research agenda, claims that the time has come for a certain type of metaanalysis to be applied to the theoretical study of the European polity.1
