ABSTRACT
This introductory chapter offers a conceptualising frame for the analysis of informality in European integration. It discusses various concepts by which scholars from history and political science have attempted to grasp informal processes and dimensions in European integration. The chapter then develops its own definition of informality in the European context, amongst others by delimiting informal from formal processes, and by identifying criteria which are characteristic for informal processes. The concept of informality presented here incorporates existing concepts but goes beyond, not least in that it calls for an interdisciplinary and methodologically diverse approach to the study of informality in European integration. Following the conceptualising part, the chapter discusses one of the main challenges scholars face when studying informal processes and dimensions, namely the acquisition and analysis of a sufficient source basis. The chapter then provides an overview of the volume’s content and structure, in which nine case studies – divided in three thematic parts – are framed by three conceptualising chapters and one concluding chapter.
