Sovereignty reloaded? a constructivist perspective on European research

Abstract

This paper addresses three issues. Beginning with the sovereignty puzzle that emerges from multilevel governance analyses (in terms of the endurance of sovereignty within structures of overlapping authorities), it suggests supplementing the static view of multilevel governance with the dynamic perspective of Europeanization literature as an important step forward for the next generation of EU studies. In addition, it calls for a 'constructivist turn' in order to elaborate the dynamics identified by Europeanization approaches. It is argued that this provides the key to the sovereignty puzzle by analysing the link between interaction and identity. Finally, the constructivist perspective of the mutual constitution of structure and agency is advocated as a fruitful lane for the third wave of EU research as a way to overcome its struggles with unidirectional, causality notions of bottom-up and top-down relationships within multilevel governance structures.