Introduction

This chapter develops the book’s research question, situates it within the previous literature and outlines the conceptual and methodological approach of the study. The process of European integration has led to the emergence of a new group of EU elites and professionals working in the European institutions in Brussels. Their diverse backgrounds raise the question to what extent they merge into a new kind of “European” social group and whether national and regional differences continue to matter between them. To tackle this question, this study draws on the concept of “symbolic boundaries” developed in the field of cultural sociology to capture processes of categorization and group-making. This chapter further justifies the focus of this case study on the officials of the EU Commission– the most “European” of the European institutions– and describes its methodological approach, which is based on 44 in-depth interviews with Commission officials from ten different member states. The chapter concludes with a short overview of the individual chapters of the book.