ABSTRACT
The paradigmatic shift from European government(s) to European governance has a venerable if neglected tradition in modern state theory: ‘Much would be gained if it was admitted that the problem of real unity within the plurality of acting human beings not only lies with the state but without exception includes all organisations’ (Heller 1934:229). Such an acknowledgement still seems to come more easily in a case such as the European Union because it is a transnational political system defying conventional statist classification.
