Re-Examining European Integration Historically : From a Multi-Angle Analysis of Primary Materials to a Systemic Synthesis

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This project is designed to reconsider the nature of the European Union by investigating its origins and transformations historically. This we consider an important topic, in that the EU extends its membership (with renewed weight in world politics), obtains a constitutional status, and takes a different perspective and stance from the one of the US in the run up to the Iraq war.We tackled the task of historically -thus realistically -considering the weight and scope of the EU, against the dominant view that the EU is replacing the traditional nation-states, and that its development can be traced only through the steps of institutional building.With this project we analyses the primary historical materials, elevating the entity to a serious subject of historiography. The first thing we did was to survey the recently active historical studies of European integration, from which we tried to understand the entire post-war political structure as the complex 'EU-NATO-CE (Council of Europe) Regime'. Then we assembled the items of historical importance, with annotated explanations stressing the birth and transformation of the complex Regime. In this way we attempt to completely rewrite the history of European integration as part of the larger international histories of security, economy and norms.