A Certain Idea of Europe / Craig Parsons.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Parsons, Craig, 1970- author.

Series:

Cornell Studies in Political Economy Series

Cornell Studies in Political Economy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

France--Politics and government--1945-.

France.

Europe--Foreign relations--France.

Europe.

France--Foreign relations--Europe.

European Union--History.

European Union.

Political Science & Political History.

Local Subjects:

Europe.

Political Science & Political History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 251 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

The quasi-federal European Union stands out as the major exception in the thinly institutionalized world of international politics. Something has led Europeans-and only Europeans-beyond the nation-state to a fundamentally new political architecture. Craig Parsons argues in A Certain Idea of Europe that this "something" was a particular set of ideas generated in Western Europe after the Second World War. In Parsons's view, today's European Union reflects the ideological (and perhaps visionary) project of an elite minority. His book traces the progressive victory of this project in France, where the battle over European institutions erupted most divisively. Drawing on archival research and extensive interviews with French policymakers, the author carefully traces a fifty-year conflict between radically different European plans. Only through aggressive leadership did the advocates of a supranational "community" Europe succeed at building the EU and binding their opponents within it. Parsons puts the causal impact of ideas, and their binding effects through institutions, at the center of his book. In so doing he presents a strong logic of "social construction"-a sharp departure from other accounts of EU history that downplay the role of ideas and ideology.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

INTRODUCTION: The Institutional Construction of Interests

PART I: Choosing the Community Model

ONE. The Parting of the Ways

TWO. The Battle Widens

THREE. The Choice for the Community

FOUR. Accepting the Community Model

PART II: From Community to Union

FIVE. Making the Community Monetary

SIX. Relaunching the Community

SEVEN. Entering Euroland

CONCLUSION: Ideas into Interests

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 20. Sep 2019)

ISBN:

1-5017-3208-0

OCLC:

1080551687