ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the following subjects: the European Union (EU) as a unique construction, a summary of the policies with which the EU is concerned, policymaking processes, and the policymaking cycle. It includes an exploration of the five scenarios offered in the European Commission's post-Brexit White Paper on the Future of Europe of EU 27. The EU has often been compared to the US on the basis of several factors—its population size, market size, postindustrial economies, political culture, and increasingly for its governance structure and territorial organization. The subject of "policymaking" is characterized by the content of policies, the processes which a governing body employs in the act of making policies, and the various phases of the "policy cycle" which comprise the birth, life, evolution, death of public policies. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
