The European Union and its Order The Legal Theory of European Integration

Born of a series of research seminars, supported by the ESRC and the European Law Journal, this book tackles the most pressing issue raised by intensified European integration: the demise of sovereign states and the design of theoretical frameworks within which issues of post-national democracy and legal legitimacy might be considered. Decoupling law from state, the various contributions raise fundamental questions about the political legitimacy and constitutionality of the European Union's normative order, and begin to develop new structures for the meaningful evaluation of post-statal organization. Still firmly rooted in a liberalized market, but now also concerned with far broader political and social issues, the EU has challenged the traditionally strict demarcation between law, political science and economics. By bringing together all three disciplines to study the legal theory implications of the EU, this book offers its readers a novel methodology: analyzing the constitutionalization of the European legal order with an eye to real-world political and economic concerns.

Zenon Bankowski is Professor of Legal Theory at the Centre for Law and Society, School of Law, Edinburgh University. He studied at Dundee and Glasgow Universities and taught at Cardiff University before he came to Edinburgh. He has edited Informatics and the Foundations of Legal Reasoning (with I. White, U. Hahn. 1995) and Law and Power (with K. Tuori and J. Uusitalo, Deborah Charles, 1997) and is the co-author of Beyond Fear: Vision, Hope and Generosity, St. Andrew's Press 1998 (with A. Morton, G. Blount, S. Barron, J. Hughes).

Andrew Scott is Jean Monnet Senior Lecturer in the Economics of the European Union at the Europa Institute, University of Edinburgh. He has published widely in the area of European integration, and particularly on the topics of monetary union, regional policy and the EU governance issue. He was formerly Editor of the Journal of Common Market Studies.