Europe's political, social, and economic (dis-)integration: revisiting the Elephant in times of crises

Abstract

Since the outbreak of the European debt crisis, the EU has faced some of its greatest challenges to date. Discussions about the downsizing of the Eurozone, the UK exit referendum or the increasing success of EU-sceptic parties contradict the vision of an “ever-closer union.” As disintegration becomes increasingly conceivable, so does our need for a conceptual understanding of the compound processes of European integration. In the present paper, European integration is understood as a bidirectional and multidimensional process. It is assumed that processes of integration and disintegration can occur simultaneously, and that their results can be measured with the help of the same indicators. Moreover, European integration is not limited to political integration: processes of integration and disintegration also proceed in the economic and social dimension. We exemplarily point out the complex relations between dynamics of integration and disintegration in its political, economic and social dimensions, and we specially focus on the causal relations between indicators of social and political integration.