European integration : Sociological process or political project?

Within debate about prospects for future European unification, ‘integration’ is a fashionable and often confusing word. Depending on context, it may refer to long‐term socio‐economic processes ('convergence'), to processes of political construction, to symbolic processes ('European identity'), or to the quite separate issue of prudential co‐operation between states—or to some uncertain mixture of all four. Yet the concept of integration has a reputable sociological pedigree and remains useful for thinking about the issues raised by Europeanization. Thus, a fresh look at Durkheim's thinking on the possibility of solidarity within complex societies is of direct relevance to the contemporary European case. Of particular importance is the Durkheimian distinction between three complementary dimensions of integration—shared practices, social intercourse (or ‘moral density') and common ‘consciousness'—, and the suggestion that, in the absence of ‘mechanical solidarity’ based on similarity, the latter is both deeply problematic and derivative rather than generative. They shed light on the ambivalence of the process / project of Europeanization and open up a space for specific discussion of collective prudence—originally the essence of Europeanization and which, while in principle separable from it, has tended in practice to become tangled with the integration issue. As the borders of Europe become potentially less stable, disentanglement is of vital importance.