The European Union's market integration project has dramatically altered
economic activity around Europe. This book presents extensive evidence on how trade has
increased, jobs have been created, and European business has been reorganized. However,
changes in the economy have been accompanied by dramatic changes in how people from
different societies interact. In this book Neil Fligstein argues provocatively that these
changes have produced a truly transnational-European-society.
The book explores the nature of that society and its relationship to the creation of a
European identity, popular culture, and politics. Much of the current political conflict
around Europe can be attributed to who is and who is not involved in European society.
Business owners, managers, professionals, white-collar workers, the educated, and the
young have all benefited from European economic integration, specifically by interacting
more and more with their counterparts in other societies. They tend to think of themselves
as Europeans. Older, poorer, less-educated, and blue-collar citizens have benefited less.
They view the EU as intrusive on national sovereignty, or they fear its pro-business
orientation will overwhelm the national welfare states. They have maintained national
identities. There is a third group of mainly-middle class citizens who see the EU in
mostly positive terms and sometimes-but not always-think of themselves as Europeans. It is
this swing group that is most critical for the future of the European project. If they
favor more European cooperation, politicians will oblige. But, if they prefer that
policies remain wedded to the nation, European cooperation will stall. Written in
anaccessible style this is a major new interpretation of the drive to European integration
and essential reading for all those with an interest in the topic.
Neil Fligstein is the Class of 1939 Chancellor's Professor in the
Department of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of
five books and over 50 papers. He has made scholarly contributions to the fields of
organizational and economic sociology, political sociology, and the study of the European
Union. His most recent books include The Architecture of Markets (Princeton University
Press, 2001) and The Institutionalization of Europe (with Alec Stone Sweet and Wayne
Sandholtz, Oxford University Press, 2001.
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 The Dynamics of European Society 1
2 Constructing Markets and Politics: The Formation of the European Union, 1958-2004 33
3 The Economic Transformation of Europe 62
4 The Creation of Markets: The Cases of the Defense, Telecommunications, and Football
Industries 89
5 Who Are the Europeans? 123
6 What is European Society? 165
7 The Structure of European Politics 208
8 Conclusions 242
References 254
Index 267
296 pages , Paperback