Henry Farrell

Zoned (On the European Union)

European integration is boring, even when it is exciting. Over the past eighteen months, crisis has piled upon crisis in the European Union’s single-currency area, the so-called eurozone. The European project of creating an ever closer union among its member states may be about to crash, crippling America’s economy as well as Europe’s. The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein has argued that Europe’s decisions over the coming weeks will probably determine President Obama’s re-election chances. Even so, it is hard to read about EU politics without wanting to fall asleep.

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Other Writing:

Academic Article

Ontology, Methodology and Causation in the American School of International Political Economy – with Martha Finnemore

February 7, 2009 eds. (2010) International Political Economy and the Transatlantic Divide. Review of International Political Economy. Republished in Catherine Weaver and Nicola Phillips with Martha Finnemore
This paper explores disjunctures between ontology and methodology in the American school to better understand both the limits of this approach and ways we can counter its blind spots. Tierney and Maliniak’s TRIP data point to a strong elective affinity between, on the one hand, rationalist/liberal 10 ontological assumptions and quantitative methodologies, and on the other, constructivist ...
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Academic Article

Introduction: Contested Competences in the European Union

March 15, 2007 West European Politics 30 with Adrienne Hèritier
In this article, we set out an approach to European Union politics that seeks to explain its development using theories of institutional change. In contrast to dominant theories which assume that the Treaties, the governing texts of the European Union, faithfully ensure that the desires of member states are respected, we argue that these theories ...
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