| Publication |
Autumn 2004.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article deals with the European ‘legitimacy crisis’ from a neglected perspective, looking at ‘Europe’ not primarily as a set of formal (or formalisable) institutions, but rather as an emergent, policy-driven institutional construct. In this perspective, European integration may be very much seen as the outcome of the policies that are enacted in the European supra-national arena as well as of the way such policies are continuously reinterpreted, renegotiated and re-enacted in the different arenas of its multi-level polity. What is at stake in adopting a policy approach to the European legitimacy issue is, hence, a critical appraisal of development of processes of ‘institutionalisation of Europe’ that range far beyond issues of constitutional design. A crucial consequence is the need to ‘spatialise’ discourse on European reforms. The conclusion is a plea for an integration model for Europe not only constitutionally respectful of diversity, but constitutively enhancing diversity, and for an approach to policy reforms acting upon a ‘political geography of differences’.
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