Fifthly Years of European Integration

An interpretative framework

抄録

For a long time, European integration has only occasionally and intermittently affected domestic politics, and only in a few countries. The near future is likely to see the growing impact of this process on forms of political representation and patterns of competition, and on national political alignments, institutional developments and state structures. Whether integration progresses or instead is stopped or delayed, the debate over these issues and the tensions within each country associated with the differing attitudes of individuals, groups and territories are likely to produce significant political change. This paper provides an interpretative framework for the 50 years of integration seeing this development in the light of the historical formation of European nation states. The recent lowering of cross state functional boundaries and the territorial de-differentiation associated with this generates a decoupling of the formerly territorially overlapping principles of identity, solidarity and legitimised decision rules within the nation state. The paper highlights the potential tensions implicit in this new configuration.