THEORIZING THE EUROPEAN UNION: International Organization, Domestic Polity, or Experiment in New Governance?

▪ Abstract The study of the European Union (EU) has been transformed during the past decade, and three distinct theoretical approaches have emerged. The first approach, which seeks to explain the process of European integration, has largely abandoned the long-standing neofunctionalist-intergovernmentalist debate in favor of a rationalist-constructivist debate reflecting broader developments in international relations theory. A second approach, however, has rejected the application of international relations theory in favor of comparative politics approaches which analyze the EU using off-the-shelf models of legislative, executive, and judicial politics in domestic politics. A third and final approach sees the EU as an emerging system of multi-level governance in which national governments are losing influence in favor of supranational and subnational actors, raising important normative questions about the future of democracy within the EU.