Social constructivism has come of age in contemporary international relations (IR) theory. Indeed, more and more submissions to presses and journals in both Europe and America characterize themselves as constructivist or situate their arguments vis-à-vis those of constructivists. In substantive...

Within the growing literature on the Europeanisation of national foreign policies of European Union (EU) member states, the case of Portugal has been almost absent. Yet despite its small size and intermediate level of development, Portugal has had relatively extensive international relations...

While role behaviour and conflict dimensions in the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union have been fairly well documented, studies on the internal functioning of the College of the European Commission have been almost lacking. Thus, highly inconsistent images exist; ranging...

The aim of this essay is to contribute to an improved comprehension of the university’s dynamics of change, as part of a larger transformation of the relationships between society’s key institutions. A distinction is made between seeing the University as an institution and as an instrument,...

Principal theories about European democracy agree that there is no European demos (unfortunately or inevitably, depending on whether one is a federalist or intergovernmentalist). In my opinion, the no demos theory, in all its various manifestations, has, at least tacitly, an excessively...

Through this paper we review theoretical approaches and research conducted to date on the concept of "European identity", focusing on the role of otherness in shaping it. European project, conceived originally as an institutionalization of cooperation between European states, has become today an...

The category of the denizen is becoming increasingly important in the identity politics of the EU. EU law and policy over a number of years has encouraged the development of a new hybrid status of the permanent resident who possesses many legal and social rights but lacks full political...

In the European integration process, the European Union continues to struggle for an identity that can generate widespread support amongst its peoples. In this context it has been suggested by some that the European Union should embrace the Christian values that underpin its national traditions...