Research Methods in European Union Studies

Research on the European Union over the past few years has been strongly implicated in the crises that currently grip Europe with a failure to ask the pertinent questions as well as a perceived weakness in the methods and evidence used by researchers providing the basis for these allegations. This volume moves the study of EU research strategies beyond the dichotomies of the past towards a new agenda for research on Europe through a rich diversity of problem-solving based research.

This new agenda acknowledges the weaknesses of the past and moves beyond them towards greater openness and awareness of the importance of research strategies, designs and methods. The 20 chapters in this collection range from micro-level analyses of identities, single policy studies and European discourse, through meso-level analysis of agenda setting, bargaining, implementation and Europeanisation, to macro-level analyses of the EU as a global actor, European integration and globalisation as well as hard and soft governance, elections and party groups, attitude formation, and new-regionalism. As such, it provides a comprehensive and accessible guide to conducting research on the European Union today.

Kennet Lynggaard is Associate Professor in European Union studies at the Department of Society and Globalisation, Roskilde University, Denmark. His research interests are focussed on EU governance, research design in EU studies, Europeanisation, European integration and globalisation and symbols and myths in European integration.

Ian Manners is Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. His research interests lie at the intersections of the critical social theory and the study of the European Union in global politics including the European Union's normative power in global politics, symbols and myths in European integration, glocal environmental governance and global public governance.

Karl Lofgren is Associate Professor in the School of Government at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His research interests evolves around electronic Government with a special emphasis on the policy aspects, surveillance and data protection policy, new media and democracy, governance and policy implementation and new forms of local democracy. He is the author, co-author or editor of five books and has published among others in International Journal of Public Administration, Parliamentary Affairs, Local Government Studies, Planning Theory and Public Policy and Administration.