Co-producing European Integration: Research, Policy, and Welfare Activation

Abstract

In addition to law, markets, and political institutions, European integration has also brought about a body of research, primarily in the social sciences, law, and humanities aiming for deeper understanding of the origins, characteristics, meanings, and implications of this historical process. European studies have debated issues of ‘Europeanness’ long before the founding of the European Communities in the 1950s. However, the study of the EU (or the EC before 1993) is increasingly dominating academic debates on Europe and its integration. Hence, departing from the basic assumption that scientific knowledge always circulates beyond the confines of the communities of specialists involved in its production, this chapter is interested in the role of European integration research within the political process of European integration. So far, European integration research itself has remained rather silent in this regard. Paying particular attention to the relationship between European integration research and EU politics, this discussion suggests that the conceptual language of co-production provides the most comprehensive perspective on the mutual entanglements of the science and the politics of European integration.