Mi az Európai Unió?
What Is The European Union?

Summary/Abstract: This interpretive essay relies on insights from three critical literatures – world-systems analysis, postcolonial studies and, to the extent of an extended simile, the economic sociology of flexible global production – to propose a geopolitical understanding of what the European Union (EU) is. We begin by interrogating the tendency within much of the current research and commentary on the EU to treat it as a state of sorts. We then outline some mechanisms – pertaining to its internal and external linkage structures – that have enabled the EU to perform successfully in a geopolitical context where most of the main actors are states. Finally, drawing on critical insights from the sociology of subcontracted production and distributed organization, we suggest ways in which the EU, in its current form, might be thought of beyond the constraints of the current theoretical language of statehood.

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