Towards a Practice Turn in EU Studies: The Everyday of European Integration

Abstract

This article explores how practice theory can be recruited for the study of European integration. New generations of EU researchers are fascinated by the prospect of leaving the armchair and studying the people and artefacts that make the EU on an everyday level. This article surveys key practice-oriented, anthropological and micro-sociological studies of the EU and European integration and shows how their findings challenge more traditional understandings of the dynamics of European integration. Moving beyond a stock-taking, the article distinguishes between 'ordering' and 'disordering' practices and explores the potential of a practice turn in EU studies for both theory (overcoming dualism, replacing substantialism with processualism and rethinking power) and methods (including unstructured interviews, fieldwork and participant observation). A practice turn will force us to rethink core assumptions about the EU and allow us to grasp otherwise uncharted performances and social activities that are crucial for European integration.

Hegemonic-order theory: A field-theoretic account

“…These experiencenear approaches (Jackson and Nexon, 2013: 556-558) focus on either specific hegemonic relations -among, say, professionals and diplomats -or the micro-level translation of regional and global power relations among states into specific organizational and local settings (see Adler-Nissen, 2016;Bueger, 2015;Neumann, 2002Neumann, , 2012Pouliot 2010Pouliot , 2011Pouliot , 2016.…”

Differentiated (Dis)integration in Practice: The Diplomacy of Brexit and the Low Politics of High Politics

“…The practice approach that we develop both complements and challenges existing approaches to differentiated (dis)integration. Our argument is that by engaging with practitioners who both make up and embody European institutions on the ground, we can shed new light on differentiated disintegration by following how it is performed and managed (Adler‐Nissen, ). As we will illustrate below, differentiation in security and defence diplomacy plays out through everyday negotiation of its meaning.…”

How does knowledge circulate in a regulatory network? Observing a European Platform of Regulatory Authorities meeting

“…By drawing lessons from these three strands of research, mainly to observe individual interactions during a meeting of EPRA, this paper therefore seeks to improve the understanding of how an information‐based regulatory network operates in its “micro‐dynamics.” It contributes in its own way to the “practice turn” in the study of European integration that is advocated by Adler‐Nissen (). Although she is reluctant to focus on causal mechanisms because of her non‐positivist ontologically relational approach of integration, Adler‐Nissen correctly claims that “existing approaches within EU studies, be they rationalist or constructivist in orientation, often ignore routines and habits that are integral to making the EU what it is” (2016, p. 87) and that “a practice turn in EU studies will allow us to grasp unchartered experiences and practices that are crucial for the performance of European integration” (2016, p. 88).…”

“…Although ordinary aspects in network operation matter, they “are difficult to grasp because they often belong to the world of the unsaid and taken‐for‐granted” (Adler‐Nissen , p. 92). Hence, the properties of regulatory networks are often assumed without any empirical scrutiny of their “micro” foundations, thus leaving open questions.…”