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Abstract:
Though sociological approaches to European Union (EU) studies are diverse, most share a distinctive conceptual and methodological core. Their novel project is to set aside most of the theoretical dichotomies that have organized earlier EU literature - like national/supranational, state/society, objective/subjective, ideational/material - and to attempt to pose open-ended questions about the spatial and interpretive 'fields of action' that actors in the European Union perceive around themselves. Behind this project looms the figure of Pierre Bourdieu, even if he is invoked to varying degrees by the members of this emerging school. The strength of Bourdieu-inspired approaches is that they cut through analytic dichotomies to offer nuanced, concrete accounts of practical action. Their weakness is that their rejection of old dichotomies leaves them unwilling to state how much they are distinctive from other approaches. This essay suggests that a re-engagement with old distinctions will allow these scholars to unpack, recombine and so strengthen their aspirations to a novel synthesis.
This article is part of a special issue 'Mainstreaming sociology in EU studies'.
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