Niilo Kauppi – författare

This book argues that European Union institutional mechanics and the EU as a political unit cannot be properly understood without taking into account the elites that make the policy decisions.

Spurred by globalisation, technological and economic development has provided the backbone for social and political transformations that have changed the social structures that unite and differentiate individuals and groups in Europe and their interface with extra-European actors. These developments are not only exemplified by the rise of the EU, but also by the rise of a set of transnational European power elites evolving in and around the European construction.

This book maps out these EU and international interdependencies and provides a comprehensive picture of the European transnational power elites. Moving away from the majority of literature on European integration dominated by economics, law, IR and political science, the volume is written from a sociological perspective that takes into account the individuals that make the policy decisions, the formal and informal groups in which s/he is included, as well as the social conventions that regulate political and administrative activities in the EU.

This book will be of much interest to students of EU studies, sociology, critical security studies, and IR in general.

This book argues that European Union institutional mechanics and the EU as a political unit cannot be properly understood without taking into account the elites that make the policy decisions.

Spurred by globalisation, technological and economic development has provided the backbone for social and political transformations that have changed the social structures that unite and differentiate individuals and groups in Europe and their interface with extra-European actors. These developments are not only exemplified by the rise of the EU, but also by the rise of a set of transnational European power elites evolving in and around the European construction.

This book maps out these EU and international interdependencies and provides a comprehensive picture of the European transnational power elites. Moving away from the majority of literature on European integration dominated by economics, law, IR and political science, the volume is written from a sociological perspective that takes into account the individuals that make the policy decisions, the formal and informal groups in which s/he is included, as well as the social conventions that regulate political and administrative activities in the EU.

This book will be of much interest to students of EU studies, sociology, critical security studies, and IR in general.

This book seeks to develop Rhetoric as a field of knowledge in an important new direction, European Union politics. The authors analyse what could be called a “European style of politics”: textual strategies and rhetorical styles evolving within and around the EU’s supranational and national institutions. By fusing rhetorical and sociological approaches, political thought and culture, the book contributes to the analysis of the ‘political’ as a way of thinking and judging the political aspect of any phenomena. 

This book argues that contemporary European politics creates new forms of

transnational power that challenge the traditional parameters of the nation-state.

Kauppi identifies and critically explores the evolving dynamics between national

and transnational spaces, groups and knowledge, and suggests that European public

policies and transnational institutions like the European Parliament create new spaces,

types of knowledge and novel political practices.

Toward a Reflexive Political Sociology of the European Union is structured around

three parts. The first focuses on evolving transnational fields. The second explores the

changing role of academics and universities. The third section engages with the works

of Pierre Bourdieu on politics and the media. The issues discussed throughout the

book revolve around the challenges to the nation-state and of knowledge production

that is tied to it.

This book will be an invaluable resource to academics and researchers interested in

European politics, European Union studies and political sociology.