Abstract

The European Union is a sui generis polity in which policy transfer shapes the relationship between supra-national institutions and domestic actors across different contexts. Scholars have defined this specific type of policy transfer as Europeanization. This chapter explores how this concept has been used to understand the effects of EU integration on the polity, policies and politics of EU member states, and how EU integration has extended to the field of foreign policy, then outside the EU, through enlargement and neighbourhood policies, to scrutinize the relations of the EU with the rest of the world. The chapter is organised as follows: the first section traces the origins of this concept, its definition and research designs. Empirical illustrations show that since the early 1990s, fast-forward integration has given rise to uneven forms of Europeanization within the EU and beyond. The chapter also examines how Europeanization has been challenged by resistance to integration and how recent crises have shaped not only EU integration, but also Europeanization processes.