The rise and fall of EU studies in the USA

Abstract

This article employs original data to assess the development of EU studies as practiced by political scientists in the United States. Several challenges to the conventional wisdom result. EU studies has not been a boom field in the United States: it is in decline both with respect to developments in Europe and in absolute terms. Fewer US scholars self-identify as EU experts now than a decade ago, and leading US journals of international relations devoted less space to integration topics in the first decade of the 21st century than they did during the 1970s. It is true that EU studies has become more professionalized over the past 30 years, developing its own journals and conferences – as is also true of most other academic subfields. But whether counting scholars or scholarship, the revival of EU studies that took place during the 1990s and early 2000s was not nearly as significant as usually depicted. In addition, that revival is now well past its peak.