The main purpose of this book is twofold. First, it takes stock of integration theories and of more recent approaches to European integration. A wide range of theoretical perspectives were... Show moreThe main purpose of this book is twofold. First, it takes stock of integration theories and of more recent approaches to European integration. A wide range of theoretical perspectives were scrutinized to achieve this goal. The chapters in this book seek to define the “crisis” (or a sister concept) from different conceptual angles, discuss the added-value of at least one theory or concept in the analysis of European integration, and apply these concepts to the crisis the EU has faced in the last decade. Second, while individual chapters discuss a wide range of crises or different phases of the same crisis, the underlying purpose of the book is to understand whether the past decade is an exception for the EU, and in what ways the successive waves of crises point to a more profound crisis of the integration process. The main contribution of the volume, besides its attempt to revisit the theorization of European integration, lies in its questioning of the changing dynamics of the integration process and, in this way, in its attempt to grasp the nexus between “crisis” and the EU’s integration process. The main point here was to understand whether the different crises since 2009 have triggered a more profound crisis in the process of European political integration, or if inherent problems related to the functioning of the EU have driven these various crises by aggravating their impact on the integration process. Show less
In ECE countries, democratisation and Europeanisation seemed to exist in a mutually reinforcing relationship and both concepts provided the main analytical lenses for studying these states. In the... Show moreIn ECE countries, democratisation and Europeanisation seemed to exist in a mutually reinforcing relationship and both concepts provided the main analytical lenses for studying these states. In the light of recent illiberal and anti-EU politics, two different concepts have started to receive increasing scholarly attention, namely the concepts of de-Europeanisation and autocratisation. Their exact meaning, however, remains unclear and the causal link between these specific processes and the rule of law has largely remained understudied. Against this backdrop, this chapter first summarises the state-of-the-art research on autocratisation and de-Europeanisation, and then examines the interaction and causal link between these two phenomena in times of declining democracies in Europe and rule of law problems. Show less
