Conceptualizing the European Union Conceptualizing the institutional structure of the European Union. The problem: Traditional conceptualizations of the EU failed to capture the essence of the process of decision-making IR conceptualizations meet Public Policy literature: - transnational politics thesis in IR; - policy networks and interlocking politics theses in Comparative Politics; and - Historical Institutionalism. Constructivist turn in the EU analysis: IR theories of communicative action and principled beliefs.

European Union’s decision-making: the contemporary debate I IR work on transnational relations Definitions. - Transnational relations: transboundary relations that include at least one non-governmental actor Keohane and Nye: 1971, 1977); - Transgovernmental relations: cross-border relations between subsets of national governments in the absence of centralized decisions by state executives. 4 distinct features of the contemporary work on transnational relations. - Moving away from the ‘either-or’ analysis; - The distinction of the state as structure and governments as actors; - Studies of international institutions; - Studies on principled issue-networks and on ‘epistemic communities.

European Union’s decision-making: the contemporary debate II Comparative Politics theses - the ‘fusion hypothesis’ - The ‘multi-level governance’ analysis - Network analysis; to solve collective actions problems - Historical institutionalism. Interlocking Politics: intermediating structures, linking the politics (the decision-making process) and policies (the substantive responsibilities) of initially autonomous organizations.

Constructivist turn in the EU studies The constructivist conceptualization of the international institutions: sites and promoters of international socialization. The role of ideas as explanatory variables: instrumental versus argumentative/communicative and normative rationality. International socialization and the domestic factors.