Acceso usuarios
Rebecca L. Zahn
There is an ever-growing body of literature in law and political science on the illusive concept of Europeanization. A lot of the discussion in the literature attempts to define Europeanization and, on the basis of such a definition, to elaborate on the content of the concept. Donatella della Porta and Manuela Caiani, who both work in political science departments, contribute to this discussion by combining insights from the existing body of literature with new empirical findings in order to demonstrate the relevance of the European Union to social movements. The authors situate the discussion surrounding the involvement of social movements in the process of Europeanization within the aftermath of the failed referenda on the European Constitution in France and the Netherlands in 2005 in order to illustrate the contribution of social movements to the debates on European integration. The authors refer to the literature in the area of social movement studies. 1 However, they also go beyond the field and combine insights from the literature on Europeanization with empirical research in order to address the involvement of social movements in the process of Europeanization. An example of such involvement is the European-wide campaign against the so-called �Bolkestein� Directive in which social movements actively participated. Social movements, in this context, are defined as �dense informal networks of collective actors involved in conflictual relations with clearly identified opponents, who share a distinct collective identity, using mainly protests as their modus operandi�. 2 The introductory chapter of the book neatly summarizes and clarifies the broader academic debate on the nature of Europeanization. By looking at works by inter alia Risse, Green Cowles and Caporaso, 3 Borzel and Risse, 4 and Radaelli, 5 the authors conclude that �Europeanization involves a complex process of transcending internal boundaries, as well as constructing new boundaries against the �
