The normalization of the European Union

This article reviews the development of European Union (EU) Studies from a comparative perspective to explain why and how scholarship on the EU has changed over time. In particular, this work strives to explain the shift away from a US-centered field of research focused on a few core theoretical concepts to an academic field toward an increasing level of scholarship by European academics on across an extremely broad variety of topics. The core explanation is that as the EU has evolved toward an increasingly ‘state like’ entity scholarship focused on the EU has evolved as well. The evolution has led the field of EU studies to resemble much more closely other state focused fields such as American or French politics, suggesting a normalization of the EU and EU studies.