Europeanization

As a strategy of self-representation and a device of power, Europeanization is fundamentally reorganizing territoriality and peoplehood, the two principles of group identification that have shaped modern European order. It is the result of a new level and intensity of integration that has been a reaction to the destruction of this century's first and second world wars and the collapse of the cold-war division of Europe into an East and West. Driven above all by the organizational and administrative power of the European Union (EU), Europeanization is still distinct from the EU. Neither Europeanization nor the EU will replace the nation-state, which, for now, remains a superior form for organizing democratic participation and territoriality. Nonetheless, they will likely force states to yield some questions of sovereignty-above all, military, political, and economic-to the EU or other transnational bodies. Nations are now being brought into new relations with each other. creating new alliances and enmities, and are even recreating themselves. The authors explore five domains of practice where the process of Europeanization might be fruitfully studied: language: money, tourism, sex, and sport. They suggest dealing with the EU as a continental political unit of a novel order and with Europeanization pragmatically as both a vision and a process.