The Europe of Elites
Heinrich Best
Politics & Social Sciences
The Europe of Elites
Free
Description
Contents
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It has been widely acknowledged that the process of European integration and unification was started and is still pursued as an elite project, designed to put an end to debilitating conflicts and rivalries by consolidating a common power base and by pooling Europe’s economic resources. Nevertheless elites have remained the known unknowns of the European integration process. The present volume is designed to change this. Based on surveys of political and economic elites in 18 European countries, it is a comprehensive study of the visions, fears, cognitions, and values of members of national parliaments and top business leaders underlying their attitudes towards European integration. It also investigates political and economic elites’ embeddedness in transnational networks and their ability to communicate in multicultural settings. Our book strongly supports the view of an elitist character of the process of European integration on the one hand, while challenging the idea that European national elites have merged or are even merging into a coherent Eurelite on the other. As the 11 chapters of this book show, the process of European integration is much more colourful and even contradictory than concepts of a straightforward normative and structural integration suggest. In particular this process is deeply rooted in and conditional on the social and political settings in national contexts. The empirical basis for this book is provided by the data of the international IntUne project, which has for the first time created a comprehensive database combining coordinated surveys of Europe-related attitudes at the elite and general population level.

Language
English
ISBN
Unknown
Cover
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Abbreviations
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction: European integration as an elite project
2. Europe à la carte? European citizenship and its dimensions from the perspective of national elites
3. Ready to run Europe? Perspectives of a supranational career among EU national elites
4. National elites’ preferences on the Europeanization of policy making
5. The other side of European identity: elite perceptions of threats to a cohesive europe
6. Elites’ views on European institutions: national experiences sifted through ideological orientations
7. Patterns of regional diversity in political elites’ attitudes
8. The elites–masses gap in European integration
9. Party elites and the domestic discourse on the EU
10. Elite foundations of European integration: a causal analysis
11. Elites of Europe and the Europe of elites: a conclusion
12. Appendix. Surveying elites: information on the study design and field report of the IntUne elite survey
References
Index
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
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