Abstract
The project of European integration has been marked by many shifts in its more than five decade history. This history can of course be viewed as having a much longer span since the foundation of the EU. The general dominant tendency both in academic discussion and in popular opinion has been to see in that project a progressive movement towards unity and alongside this an emphasis on continuity over discontinuity. The EU has certainly become embedded in its member states, which have been irreversibly transformed as a result of European integration, and the various enlargements of the EU can be seen as a continuation of a project of systemic integration that began in the post-Second World War period. The crisis that escalated in 2012, with the prospect of Greeceās exit from the EU at least as a possible development, suggests a shift of a different nature and the possibility of a rupture that calls into question a narrative of continuity and one of progressive integration based upon the institutionalization of solidarity.
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Ā© 2013 Gerard Delanty
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Delanty, G. (2013). Age of Austerity: Contradictions of Capitalism and Democracy. In: Formations of European Modernity. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137287922_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137287922_14
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-28791-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-28792-2
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