New challenges to the study of European integration: Implications for theory-building

The progressive fusion of federal principles, confederal structures and consociational processes in the EU of the 1990s has set in train a sense of renewed theoretical excitement among its students. This article aims to assess the dialectics of theory-building in the larger polity, and reveal alternative ways of reconceptualizing its current political properties and functions. Focusing on the dynamic interplay between autonomous self-rule and collective governance, it advances the theory of confederal consociation, arguing that it is possible to strike a balance between the concurrent demands for territorial segmental autonomy and 'ever closer union' insofar as the constituent parts are bound together in a sensibly arranged 'Union' that is closer to a Gesellschaft rather than to a Gemeinschaft-type of transnational political organization.