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Political elites and a polity in the making: the case of the EU
Politische Eliten und die Entstehung eines neuen Staatsgebildes: das Beispiel der Europäischen Union
[journal article]
Abstract "Over the past years, elite theory, with its explorations of the relationship between elite configurations and regime vicissitudes, has made a significant come-back in the world of political science. There is no doubt that the work of John Higley, which has shown that regime types and regime stabili... view more
"Over the past years, elite theory, with its explorations of the relationship between elite configurations and regime vicissitudes, has made a significant come-back in the world of political science. There is no doubt that the work of John Higley, which has shown that regime types and regime stability may be meaningfully connected to the unity and disunity of elites, and to elite unity being based either on consensus or on ideological conformity, has made a major contribution to this resurgence of interest. Elite theory, however, has paid less attention to the relationship between the political elites and the transformations of the political community. This paper is devoted to an exploration of some aspects of this relationship through an analysis of the process of European integration. This process offers a quasi-experimental environment that can enable a better understanding of the interactions between the construction of a new supranational polity and the complex European system of national and supranational elites. By analyzing the institutional transformation brought about by the Lisbon treaty, the attitudes of national elites toward the European form of government, and the impact of the recent crisis on the European institutions, the article tries to establish the role of elites in the development of a supranational polity, and to ascertain what influence institutional transformations have had on the formation of a genuinely European elite." (author's abstract)... view less
Keywords
EU; institutional factors; foreign policy; integration; German Democratic Republic (GDR); Federal Republic of Germany; comparative political science; crisis; elite research; financial crisis; security policy; European integration; political elite; transformation; regime; attitude; international comparison; governance; elite; theory; European Policy
Classification
General History
Political Process, Elections, Political Sociology, Political Culture
European Politics
Method
empirical; quantitative empirical; historical
Document language
English
Publication Year
2012
Page/Pages
p. 167-192
Journal
Historical Social Research, 37 (2012) 1
Issue topic
Elite foundations of social theory and politics / Elitetheoretische Grundlagen sozialwissenschaftlicher Theoriebildung und politischer Analyse
DOI
https://doi.org/10.12759/hsr.37.2012.1.167-192
ISSN
0172-6404
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed