Understanding the Legitimacy of Regional Integration: A Comparative and Mixed-Method Perspective

Abstract

Shifts of political authority to regional integration projects such as the European Union (EU) are a key element of the globalization and denationalization trend in today’s world (for many, see Keohane and Milner 1996; Zürn 1998; Kahler and Lake 2009). The EU is, of course, the most prominent and advanced example of regional governance, but it is hardly the only case that deserves scholarly attention: The literature on the ‘new’ (wave of) regionalism documents that integration projects running the gamut of varieties — from free trade arrangements to more ambitious projects at least partially inspired by the EU — have become ubiquitous (van Langenhove 2011; de Lombarde and Söderbaum 2013). As a consequence, European and regional integration studies have come full circle: The genuinely comparative perspective assumed by the neo-functionalist pioneers of the 1950s and 1960s (Haas 1971; Schmitter 1970), abandoned by most Europeanists in the following decades, is increasingly rediscovered today (Börzel 2011, 2013; Börzel et al. 2012).