The European Union has approached two deeply related yet structurally distinct crises in a manner unexplained by extant theories of regional integration. On the one hand we see the 2007 crisis involving private finance with a response largely reflective of financial market re-regulation along with the institutionalization of new supranational processes. On the other hand we see the ensuing sovereign debt crisis and the austerity-laden response in compliance with existing institutional regulations. Experienced Utility Theory and the logic of path dependency allow us to examine the crises through a lens of how actors have framed the crises. We see that state interests are more nuanced than rationalists may lead us to believe. As evident in the European response, increased economic integration and forms of path dependency are likely to be present even when increasing economic returns are not; individual economic maximization is not a given vis-á-vis concepts of regional identity.
