ABSTRACT
The European Union (EU) affects domestic politics, policies and administrative structures. Even ten years ago, this statement might have generated controversy in some quarters. But today, it is almost axiomatic that the EU ‘matters’, sometimes hugely, in the daily political life of its citizens. This shift in perceptions about the EU’s importance has helped to open up a new and important research frontier in social sciences. The ‘Europeanization turn’ is exciting because it provides a fresh perspective on some very old debates within European studies. Traditionally, the EU has been researched and taught using the theoretical models and organizing principles of International Relations. It was, as Stephen George explains, entirely logical to have proceeded in this way because ‘what was taking place … was an experiment in putting inter-state relations on a new footing’ (1996: 11). The primary aim of the work was to understand the development of institutions and policies at the European level. The steadily growing size and importance of the EU policy competences in fields ranging from trade and finance, through to energy and the environment, has now prompted scholars to investigate the rebound effect of European integration (that is the process through which decision-making powers are pooled in the EU) on the Member States. In particular, there is a growing awareness that European integration is not simply something which occurs at the European level, ‘above the heads’ of states, but has developed to the extent where it now impacts on the basic building blocks of the EU; that is the very states that initially created it. In other words, the EU has, it is widely claimed, begun to ‘Europeanize’ national cultures, legislatures and policy systems.
