Embedded law: political sociology of the European Community of law: elements of a renewed research agenda

Rather than considering legal and judicial arenas as the mere surface of the heavy social processes that shape European integration, this article contends that they are actually one the essential spaces where the government of Europe is being produced. To account for this paramount role played by law in EU polity, two rather unexplored research paths are undertaken. First of all, a socio-historical perspective focuses on the critical junctures in which case-law and judicial governance have been formalized as the locus of European integration and as the most legitimate model for EU government. Second, a more sociological look is taken at the functioning of the “European legal field”. It shows the intense circulation of Euro-lawyers in-between the various (national or supranational) academic, bureaucratic, political and economic poles that make up Europe. Thereby located at the crossroads of European elites and sectors, the European legal field occupies a critical position in a EU polity deprived of a State organizing in a perennial way the mediation between social interests.