The European Union’s Institutions

Abstract

Until the early 1990s the literature on the EU’s institutions, like the literature on the European integration process more generally, was somewhat sparse. Not only was it sparse but much of it was also narrowly focused, not least in that it was mainly of an essentially descriptive and non-theoretical nature. Since the early 1990s, however, published work on the institutions has mushroomed, both in its empirical range and in that it has become increasingly conceptually and theoretically based. In this chapter we review these developments in the study of EU institutions. In so doing, we seek to highlight the main features of the different approaches that have been used, show what sort of knowledge has been attained, and identify key areas where understanding is still lacking and where further research and analysis is necessary. Given space constraints, we do not attempt to provide a complete literature review, but rather a broad overview of trends in research and the associated writing.