A Sociology of European Integration?

The aim of this article is to study the heterogeneity of sociological approaches concentrating on the European integration process. The objective is to situate these sociological approaches in relation to the epistemological backgrounds of other conceptual frameworks. This is done in three steps. While a first part of the article concentrates on the definition of sociological approaches to European integration, a second part will look more closely at the central puzzles that are shared by the majority of researches working in the sociological tradition. A third and last part will then present more precisely critical approaches to European integration.