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34 J. Common Mkt. Stud. 1 (1996)

handle is hein.journals/jcmks34 and id is 1 raw text is: Journal of Common Market Studies Vol. 34, No. 1 March 1996 Editor's Introduction MICHAEL SMITH Department of European Studies, Loughborough University, Loughborough LEll 3TU, England The study of the European Union (EU) in the late 1990s cannot simply be restricted to the analysis of the Union's institutions and their technical or administrative functioning. This, of course, is to state the obvious; indeed, it could be argued that the study of European integration from its beginnings has had a strong bias towards the political economy of international co-operation, and in addition an often overt normative dimension. As General de Gaulle and Margaret Thatcher demonstrated in their different ways, the European project touches some of the most jealously guarded assumptions and norms of domestic and international politics. So much can freely be admitted, and has formed the basis of many studies in a number of disciplinary contexts. The purpose of this special issue, though, is to take this insight a stage further and to ask a number of questions about the EU that arise inexorably from the demise of the Cold War order in Europe and the attempt to reinvent the EU for the new context. There are in effect two dimensions along which these questions can be asked: * First, there is the question of the 'EU order'. What kind of institution is the EU, and what kinds of assumptions does it express about such central issues as statehood or the foundations of policy-making? C Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1996, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1N, UK and 238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA