Towards a social history of European integration

This introduction to the special issue ‘Towards a Social History ofEuropean integration’ takes as its starting point that Europeancitizens have from the early days of European integration engagedwith ‘Europe’ as an emerging political and social entity, be thisindirectly, as in the case of German coal miners marching to Bonn,or directly, as exemplified by farmers taking to the streets ofBrussels. Moreover, European policies have shaped lived experi-ences and natural environments. Such episodes do not structureEuropean integration textbooks, however; nor do they feature pro-minently in overviews of European contemporary history. The spe-cial issue focuses on manifestations of engagement, support andcontention from European citizens, social groups and their repre-sentatives, both within European institutions and outside. Thisintroduction presents a research agenda for a social history ofEuropean integration. The authors use the term ‘social history’ todescribe an approach that centres social actors and their livedexperiences with the European Community (EC). First, the articleprovides an overview of the role which social actors and non-institutional perspectives have played in the historiography ofEuropean integration. Second, it discusses relevant trends in writ-ings on contemporary European history, which – when applied tothe history of the EC/European Union – allows for moving awayfrom formal institutions of power and expanding the range ofpolitical spaces, actors and practices that constitute the ‘political’.The authors propose that following social actors as they movedacross different political arenas illuminates how they experiencedEuropean integration and perceived of the (legitimacy of the)‘European project’.