Routledge

Chapter Resources

Chapter 21: The Rise of a New Europe: The History of European Integration, 1945–2007

Debates

Where scholars disagree: realists, liberal inter-governmentalists, functionalists and federalists

Maps

EEC/EU enlargements

Discussion Questions

  1. How would you define ‘the idea of Europe’?
  2. What explains the success of the movement towards European integration in the 1950s?
  3. What was the role of the United States in the process of European integration?
  4. Why has economic integration been more successful than political integration?
  5. What explains Britain's inability to join the EEC in the 1960s?
  6. What were the major challenges facing European integration in the early 1990s?
  7. Why did the EU see three enlargements between 1995 and 2007?
  8. Compare the integration processes of Europe and Asia (especially ASEAN).
  9. How likely is it that the EU will develop a true common foreign and security policy?
  10. What accounts for the EU's limited impact on international relations?

Weblinks

http://vlib.iue.it/hist-eur-integration/Index.html
A gateway to internet resources on the history of Europe after the Second World War in numerous languages. The development of the European Community after 1950 receives particular attention. Not all information is available in English.

http://europa.eu/
Another multilingual site, this one is the gateway to the European Union. It is filled with official information and complex ‘euro-talk’, but provides relatively easy access to up-to-date facts about the EU.

http://ue.eu.int/
The official website of the Council of the European Union. Bland, but occasionally informative.

http://www.american.edu/aces/
The website of the American Consortium on European Union Studies, based in Washington. Offers a mass of links to research sites as well as a glimpse of how the EU is perceived across the Atlantic.