Infrastructural Europaeanism, or the project of building Europe on infrastructures : an introduction

This introduction provides a conceptual exploration of infrastructural Europeanism from an institutional point of view. It sketches a brief overview of the term ‘infrastructure’ and discusses the historiography on the important role infrastructures have played in globalization and the formation of the modern nation-state. In addition, the idea of infrastructural Europeanism draws on the governance turn in European integration studies, which has shifted scholarly attention from treaties and treaty-making to the study of day-to-day policies. On the basis of three dimensions of analysis (implicit/explicit Europeanism, sites of negotiation, and spatial reach) the introduction proposes 1921, 1947 and 1992 as markers of distinct phases in infrastructural Europeanism since 1815.