Methodological Europeanism at the Cradle: Eur-lex, theAcquisand the Making of Europe’s Cognitive Equipment

Abstract

This article tracks the origins of one of Europe's most ubiquitous instrument: the acquis. Thereby, it aims at initiating a new research program on the genealogy of Europe's cognitive and technique equipment. Instead of considering the acquis as a self-explanatory and transparent notion, the article unearths its rich political meaning, pointing at its instrumental role in shaping a law-centered, and supranational definition of Europe. Digging deep into individual and institutional genealogies, the article follows the methodological entrepreneurs who crafted new knowledge instruments for calculating Europe's State of affairs (the Celex database) and analyzes the process through which they have progressively acquired a monopoly in the calculation of 'the State of the Union,' thereby encapsulating within the very rules of the European game itself a form of 'methodological Europeanism'.Even more so than in art, architecture, and engineering, science offers the most extreme cases of complete artificiality and complete objectivity moving in parallel. (Latour 2005, 89)

Towards an Analytical Framework to Study Annulments in the EU

“…Yet while a great share of this literature is interested in understanding court agency and the power of the CJEU to influence the course of integration, the full scope of the Court's agency and power relative to other actors and forces in EU policy making is yet to be determined. Among other things, this is due to the prevalence of different theoretical perspectives on the Court and the methodological difficulty inherent in researching court agency when decisions are taken behind closed doors (Vauchez 2015).…”

The European Social Survey and European research policy: Homological structures and conjunctural alliances

“…That notwithstanding, various kinds of social science knowledge have contributed to European integration: economic theory has informed the construction of the single market and EMU, legal scholars have been decisive in the construction of the acquis communautaire, and political science has informed EU foreign policy, to mention but a few notable examples (Adler-Nissen and Kropp 2015;Manners 2015;Matthijs and McNamara 2015;Vauchez 2015). However, questions like 'who produces knowledge about Europe and how'?…”