アンツェ・ヴィーナー, トマス・ディーズ『欧州統合理論』

抄録

Compared to the vast quantity of literature on European integration, books on the theory of integration are surprisingly few. In this regard, European Integration Theory edited by Wiener and Diez is certainly a welcome contribution. While it provides a concise overview of the field of European integration, it also takes stock of the achievements of the theories as well as highlighting their problems. The volume therefore is not only useful as an essential textbook for postgraduate students who are interested in the various conceptual and theoretical frameworks for EU studies, but also provides academics with a survey of the scholarly development in a field which is expanding at breathtaking speed and invites debates on ways of assessing what stage of development the theories of European integration have reached and in what direction they should move forward.
One of the main contributions of this volume is that it illustrates how the various theories of European integration have incorporated and digested the relatively new theories of International Relations (those led, for example, by social constructivism or discursive approaches) and how these new integration theories have made unique contributions to the study. It should be emphasised that, in the Japanese scholarly context, this new marriage of European integration theories and IR theories has largely been neglected, making a (sometimes overly) descriptive approach the mainstream one in European studies. However, a quick scan of the representative journals of European integration published in Europe, immediately reveals that the current focus of interest is not so much making empirical updates, but rather ways to better conceptualise the policies and institutional developments of the EU. This should by no means be taken as a claim that Japanese academics should themselves follow this scholarly trend in Europe. However, as the book by Wiener and Diez strongly suggests, an increased interest in theories and concepts has undoubtedly helped to stimulate the scholarly enthusiasm to understand, explain, analyse and make normative interventions to the policies and politics of the EU. In this regard, the volume could well be seen as a timely alarm call for those engaged in EU studies in Japan, urging us to stop and consider how we can make the most of the theories and concepts of European integration.