Crises and European Integration

This introductory chapter formulates the book’s motivating puzzle and research question: Why has there been such great variation in the outcomes of European integration crises? While conventional wisdom suggests that crises lead to “more” integration and eventually an ever-closer Union, the empirical record shows much greater variation. Moreover, European integration theories are unable to explain this variation. Against this background, this chapter introduces the book’s theoretical framework including three explanatory factors and the way they are expected to interact. The book also explicates its main contributions: (1) a systematic and comprehensive assessment of major crises over the entire European integration process; (2) the introduction and testing of a novel theoretical framework to explain variation in crisis outcomes; (3) the combination of within-case analysis and cross-case comparisons to demonstrate differences as well as similarities between the various crises and their outcomes.