ABSTRACT
To what extent is the discussion, concerning the European Union and its international role, a crucial part of the broader debate on new regionalism? The first bridge between European integration studies and comparative regionalist studies is the controversial international salience of the regional cooperation process occurring in Europe since 1945. Part II of this volume focused on this side of the question. This books takes explicit distance from two extreme theses: the EU as ‘the model for regional integration’ in the classical ‘Balassian’ understanding, which has been even more recently revived and is rejected by all the authors of this volume, in particularly clear terms by R. Higgott. Secondly, this volume rejects the opposite idea: according to several scholars, that all that we learned from comparative research is European exceptionalism, that is the impossibility of a unique experience to interact, in terms of mutual learning, by deepening similarities and differences, with other paths to regional cooperation. Methodologically this approach risks a shift from pluralist theories of regionalism (rationalism, institutionalism, constructivism) to a new kind of pre-Weberian emphasis on historical singularity of social phenomena. In our understanding the European continent common organizations (and not just the EU, but also the Council of Europe, the OCSE, Eurasia and so on) still provides the most complex, rich and elaborated workshop of regional cooperation/integration in the world, namely of sophisticated institutionalized integration. That’s why we absolutely need further comparative studies, including of the European case, using teleological and evolutionistic models. This is the right way for methodological innovation.
