Framing European (dis)integration – a dialectical approach

Abstract

Given the EU’s poly-crisis, there are questions about the future of its institutional construction or even the whole integration project (Riddervold, Trondal and Newsome, 2021). Simultaneously, contemporary EU studies are centred around institutional approaches and governmental politics (Zielonka, 2014; Vollard, 2018). Therefore, there is a risk that attempts to theorise and understand disintegration will be limited. The same concerns favouring internal factors of (dis)integration over external ones, instead of approaching them within a single framework (Hofmann, 1966). Our speaker, Aleksandra Spalinska, argues that to respond to these challenges, we can employ a dialectical approach that frames processes impacting the EU from the outside and logics of ordering that go transversally through its politico-economic architecture. That concerns also the interplay of integrating and disintegrating mechanisms. Additionally, given the value of the external outlook, the analysis will be contextualised within the civilisational perspective and, specifically, the longue durée framework.