The Europe of elites. A study into the Europeanness of Europe’s political and economic elites

Contents:

1. Introduction: European Integration as an Elite Project - Heinrich Best, György Lengyel and Luca Verzichelli
2. Europe à la Carte? European Citizenship and its Dimensions from the Perspective of National Elites - Maurizio Cotta and Federico Russo
3. Ready to Run Europe? Perspectives of a Supranational Career Among EU National Elites - Nicolas Hubé and Luca Verzichelli
4. National Elites' Preferences on the Europeanization of Policy Making - José Real-Dato, Borbála Göncz and György Lengyel
5. The Other Side of European Identity: Elite Perceptions of Threats to a Cohesive Europe - Irmina Matonyte and Vaidas Morkevicius
6. Elites' Views on European Institutions: National Experiences Sifted Through Ideological Orientations - Daniel Gaxie and Nicolas Hubé
7. Patterns of Regional Diversity in Political Elites' Attitudes - Mladen Lazic, Miguel Jerez-Mir, Vladimir Vuletic and Rafael Vázquez-García
8. The Elites-Masses Gap in European Integration - Wolfgang C. Müller, Marcelo Jenny and Alejandro Ecker
9. Party Elites and the Domestic Discourse on the EU - Nicolo Conti
10. Elite Foundations of European Integration: A Causal Analysis - Heinrich Best
11. Elites of Europe and the Europe of Elites: A Conclusion - Heinrich Best
12. Appendix - Surveying Elites: Information on the Study Design and Field Report of the IntUne Elite Survey - György Lengyel and Stefan Jahr
It has been widely acknowledged that the process of European integration and unification was started and is still pursued as an elite project, designed to put an end to debilitating conflicts and rivalries by consolidating a common power base and by pooling Europe's economic resources.

Nevertheless elites have remained the known unknowns of the European integration process. The present volume is designed to change this. Based on surveys of political and economic elites in 18 European countries, it is a comprehensive study of the visions, fears, cognitions and values of members of national parliaments and top business leaders underlying their attitudes towards European integration. It also investigates political and economic elites' embeddedness in transnational networks and their ability to communicate in multicultural settings.

The book strongly supports the view of an elitist character of the process of European integration on the one hand, while challenging the idea that European national elites have merged or are even merging into a coherent Eurelite on the other. As the 11 chapters of this book show the process of European integration is much more colourful and even contradictory than concepts of a straight forward normative and structural integration suggest. In particular this process is deeply rooted in, and conditional on, the social and political settings in national contexts.

The empirical basis for this book is provided by the data of the international IntUne project, which has for the first time created a comprehensive database combining coordinated surveys of Europe-related attitudes at the elite and general population level.

Readership: Scholars and students of political science, EU studies, European integration, comparative politics, political behaviour, and political sociology.