This definitive Handbook addresses the current lack of research into European policymaking and development using an interpretive perspective. Questioning areas that mainstream approaches tend to neglect, contributors target the ways in which ideas, arguments and discourses shape policies in the institutional context of the EU.

The Handbook of European Policies provides an in-depth and comprehensive introduction for all significant policy areas in the EU, highlighting the theories of post-positivism and interpretivism. With rich explanations of different methodological and conceptual approaches to post-positivist research, key chapters consider the essential exchange between EU integration studies and EU policy studies, examining how both can benefit from this new and exciting approach. Offering theoretically grounded answers, this Handbook creates a dialogue between critical policy studies and European integration theory.

Academics and practitioners concerned with the functioning of EU policies will benefit from the eminent contributors’ insights into issues high on the institutional agenda of the EU and its member states. In addition, the Handbook is suitable for both undergraduate and graduate courses concerned with European integration and EU policies.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

‘Until recently European Studies was the taken for granted domain of mainstream political science. Its vocabulary has been that of states, rational actors, institutions, power, principal-agent relationships, and rational games. By introducing an interpretive approach to European Studies this excellent volume significantly broadens the intellectual horizon of the field. The contributors ask important new research questions and introduce new analytical tools (such as frame and discourse analysis) that will set the field’s agenda for years to come.’

– Hendrik Wagenaar, University of Sheffield, UK

‘A welcome addition to the established range of collections on European integration, this Handbook on interpretive EU policy studies sets out to carve out a new niche in the field of European integration studies. As the 20 contributions by leading authors in the field demonstrate most impressively, this is just the tip of the iceberg of much research that is still to come. It will be interesting to watch how interfaces between the root disciplines of interpretivist methodology in international relations theory and European integration theories form, based on this important publication. Definitively worthwhile reading for all interested in approaches to policymaking in the EU, especially in times of crisis.’

– Antje Wiener, University of Hamburg, Germany and University of Cambridge, UK

‘Handbooks introducing EU policies are widely published in various languages but this one offers in-depth explanations grounded in the theoretical approach of post-positivism and interpretivism, which might no longer be unique, but remains an original perspective. . . I believe that this Handbook will have a long lasting impact on public policy analysis, encouraging it to develop or challenge its theoretical approach.'

– European Review of International Studies (ERIS)