Based on fresh archival research and interviews this book offers a new look at the history of this distinct era of European integration. Chapters from leading scholars include subjects ranging from European law to EC expansion, and from the European Currency System to the application of Greece to join the Community. Overall, the book provides a fresh interpretation of the period - as one not simply of crisis and stagnation.

The years 1973-1983 in the history of the European integration process are flanked by two periods of great expansion in the membership of the European Community and in its policies. By contrast, these 'middle' years have been described as a period characterised by economic crisis and stagnation. In this volume a group of international historians take a fresh look at this period of European integration. Based on fresh archival research and interviews the volume offers a new look on the history of this distinct epoque of European integration. Overall, the contributions take up a re-interpretation of the period as a period of crisis and stagnation and offer a discussion of the importance of the developments in the period for the resurgence of the integration process in the subsequent epoque of Commission president Jacques Delors.

In a time of disruption and rapid change, the European Union's institutions have endured. In The Institutions of the European Union, a team of expert contributors and editors explain everything you need to know about the functions, powers, and composition of these important organizations as they contend with the changing dynamics of European integration. It is the most comprehensive guide to understanding how the institutions of the EU provide political direction, govern policies, and integrate contrasting interests within the EU. New to this Edition: Fully updated to cover the institutional changes prompted by Brexit, Covid-19, and many other issues facing the EU. A new introductory chapter presents the idea of EU institutional politics and explores its different dimensions. Explores the urgent challenges of creating more diverse and inclusive EU institutions. New discussion questions help you reflect critically and engage with the content to take your learning further. Professor Uwe Puetter of Europa-Universität Flensburg, and Sabine Saurugger of Science Po Grenoble-UGA, join Dermot Hodson as editors. Book jacket.

A central question in political representation is whether government responds to the people. To understand that, we need to know what the government is doing, and what the people think of it. We seek to understand a key question necessary to answer those bigger questions: How does American public opinion move over time? We posit three patterns of change over time in public opinion, depending on the type of issue. Issues on which the two parties regularly disagree provide clear partisan cues to the public. For these party-cue issues we present a slight variation on the thermostatic theory from (Soroka and Wlezien (2010); Wlezien (1995)); our “implied thermostatic model.” A smaller number of issues divide the public along lines unrelated to partisanship, and so partisan control of government provides no relevant clue. Finally, we note a small but important class of issues which capture response to cultural shifts.

The European Parliament (EP) – a powerful actor in today's European Union – was not intended to be more than a consultative assembly at first. Yet this book shows that the EP was much more influential in shaping Community policy in the early years of the integration process than either the founding Treaties or most existing scholarship would allow. It studies the EP’s institutional evolution through the lens of Community social policy, a policy area with a particularly strong ideational dimension. By promoting a European social dimension, Members of the EP (MEPs) presented the Parliament as the true representative of European citizens by channelling their interests and needs. MEPs thus emphasised the EP’s role as a provider of democratic legitimacy for Community politics, whilst at the same time trying to convince European citizens that the Communities could have a real and positive impact on their everyday lives.

Volume II considers the history of the European Union from an inside-out perspective, focusing on the internal developments that shaped the European integration process. Taking an innovative, thematic approach, this volume will be of interest to students and researchers of European integration.

This volume argues that the crisis of the European Union is not merely a fiscal crisis but reveals and amplifies deeper flaws in the structure of the EU itself. It is a multidimensional crisis of the economic, legal and political cornerstones of European integration and marks the end of the technocratic mode of integration which has been dominant since the 1950s. The EU has a weak political and administrative centre, relies excessively on governance by law, is challenged by increasing heterogeneity and displays increasingly interlocked levels of government. During the crisis, it has become more and more asymmetrical and has intervened massively in domestic economic and legal systems. A team of economists, lawyers, philosophers and political scientists analyze these deeper dimensions of the European crisis from a broader theoretical perspective with a view towards contributing to a better understanding and shaping the trajectory of the EU.