ABSTRACT
This chapter examines sociological and other approaches to understanding the novelty of Europe’s spatiality, and explores the idea that a focus on transformed political spaces must be central to any understanding of contemporary Europe. It is argued that the only approaches which adequately address Europe’s novel spatiality are those generated by social theory (or which are heavily infl uenced by social theory). Social theory accounts of Europeanization are more satisfactory than sociological studies of the European Union (EU) in this regard, and are also more amenable to combining an interest in space with a cosmopolitan perspective.
