Differentiated Integration in Europe

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The project seeks to describe and explain differentiated integration (DI) in the European Union. For more than a decade, DI has been debated as a Ukely development of the EU in the face of the progressive deepening and widening and as a way out of integration impasses. This debate, however, contrasts with a lack of .empirical research and theoretical appreciation of the phenomenon. We therefore propose to build the first comprehensive dataset of differentiated integration in Europe. For the entire period from 1958 to 2009, and for all EU member states plus the quasi-member states of the European Economic Area plus Switzerland, we will scrutinize the primary and the relevant secondary law of the EU for rules with territorially differentiated validity. This dataset allows for a systematic descriptive analysis of trends as well as country- or policy-specific patterns of differentiated integration. In addition, we wiU conduct macro-quantitative analyses in order to explain the trends and patterns of differentiated integration. For this purpose, we first develop and then test conjectures drawing on rational-intergovernmentalist, constructivlst, and institutionalist approaches to the theory of European integration.