Margins in European integration

Book abstract:

Managing potentially ungovernable margins is an imperative for any political and governmental order. 'Margins in European integration' explores that important insight in the context of Europe at the present moment. As integration attempts to adjust to an ever greater kaleidoscope of economic interests and political positions, margins and marginality become visible, perpetual features of the 'integrated' Europe, and permanent elements in the dynamics shaping it.

The papers in this volume started life in a discussion held in April 1997 at a seminar under the title 'Ungovernable Margins: Governance and Integration on the Edges of Europe'. This book considers types of marginality affecting contemporary Europe: from new patterns of investment and new strategic formations as the architecture of Central Europe is recast; to new forms of organisation appearing on Europe's eastern and southern margins; to political instability on Europe's Mediterranean boundary; to Euroscepticism in Britain and the Czech Republic. It also reflects on the forces which create margins and shape core-periphery relations; on the politics of being 'on the margin'; and on what all that means for accounts of integration as a progressive process orchestrated from the centre.

The book is split into three parts: Part I; What makes the margins marginal? Part II; Managing economic forces at the margins. Part III; The political possibilities of marginality.

Noel Parker is Senior Lecturer in European Politics in the Department of Language, Law and International Studies at the University of Surrey, Guildford. Bill Armstrong is a freelance writer and one-time Research Scholar in the Department of Language, Law and International Studies at the University of Surrey, Guildford.