Our new volume ‘The EU under Strain? Current Crises Shaping European Union Politics‘ has just been published with De Gruyter. It is the inaugural volume of our new book series ‘Europe under Strain‘, which I co-edit with the wonderful Daniel Schade (Leiden University). Daniel is also the co-editor of the volume, and we co-authored the introductory chapter, which is freely accessible here. In this introduction, we provide a conceptual framework for the analysis of European crisis governance by cataloguing and categorizing a variety of different crises, and of European responses to such instances of strain.
And that’s what the volume is all about:
When EU member states signed the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007, they did not anticipate the manifold crises in store for them over the following years. Instead of the intended consolidation of a Union which had just gone through its most profound modernisation and biggest round of enlargements, the EU has since then had to weather a wide range of political, economic, social, legal, health and even military crises with major repercussions within and beyond its own territory.
Indeed, this time of polycrisis has induced change on many levels: Across the continent and its many fora of European supra-, trans- and international collaboration, established institutions, rule systems and normative frameworks have been put into question and power balances have been shifting. Against this background, actors from social, political, economic and cultural life have sought new ways to overcome the manifold pressing problems of their time, be it through intensified collaboration or attempts to increasingly resolve issues at the national level.
This volume offers a compilation of case studies on EU crisis responses, covering the most impactful of the various crises the EU has had to face in recent years. It provides theoretical and conceptual guidelines for the study of political actors’ responses to crisis at all levels of the EU multilevel governance system and beyond.
P.S.: Working yourself on some book project (monograph or edited volume) studying an instance of Europe under strain? We’d be keen to hear your ideas, and to discuss if your project might be one of the next contributions to our book series! Do not hesitate to contact us (mechthild.roos [at] uni-a.de and d.d.schade [at] hum.leidenuniv.nl)!