In the context of globalization and of the aftermath of the economic crisis, the pillars on which the EU stands no longer satisfy the demands and necessities of the European citizens (Van Ham, 2005; Habermas, 2012). The euro crisis has generated, on one hand, a gap between the “center” and the...

This paper addresses the puzzle of why Portugal has consistently supported the EU’s fifth enlargement. We argue that standard explanations, based on welfare maximisation, geopolitics, or rhetorical action, cannot persuasively account for this policy choice. Instead, we advance an alternative...

What characterizes the EU today is that it is not only a multi-level governance system, but also a multi-context system. The making of Europe does not just take place on different levels within the European political framework, executed by different groups of actors or institutions. Rather, it...

The effect of European integration on its member states constitutes the new research agenda within the study of European integration. Marked by the “the institutionalist turn” of Anglo-Saxon political sciences, the most dominant theories on europeanisation focus on structural arrangements....

Economic integration theory goes through two development stages each of which addresses the relevant for its time political and economic context The first stage is regarded as classic theory or static analysis and includes the traditional theories of economic integration that explain the...

The salience of European issues to the general public is a major determinant of the domestic legitimacy demands that governments face when they devise their European policies. The higher the salience of these issues, the more restrictive will be the legitimacy demands that governments have to...

Legal and political science cannot merge, but they should, at the very least, listen to each other. This working paper is a further step in an ongoing interdisciplinary cooperation which seeks to make sense out of Louis Henkin’s famous admonition. This co-operation had begun with a research...