Members aplenty, but no society yet

Despite this age of complexity, disciplinary cultures within academe continue to keep apart potentially complementary methods and approaches that together may advance the search for a more coherent view of knowledge. Yet serious attempts to confront traditional disciplinary cultures remain relatively rare. This series, "Governing Europe", makes an explicit attempt to put this right. The series supports an Open University course of the same name that is led by the politics department, but which brings together academics from other disciplines, such as economics, sociology, social policy and geography. It is regrettable that, as the series editor claims: "The Open University remains almost unique in its ability to foster and preserve such an approach."

In this series, disciplinary cultures are challenged by addressing the cross-cutting theme of governance in relation to the European Union, the European economy and European diversity. The books are not interdisciplinary in the sense that they bring together academics from different subjects to produce joint chapters. However, as individual volumes and particularly as a series, the assembled contributions present the reader with a greater diversity of approaches and perspectives than is usual in textbooks.

The OU has attracted contributions from leading scholars. Each of the texts is written in an accessible style, and the editors make a point of defining key terms and concepts at the outset; for example, Simon Bromley explains "governance", "state" and "legitimate power", and provides an overview in a summary box. The texts contain a number of other pedagogical features such as diagrams, graphs, maps, summary points and further reading sections. However, there is no evidence of ancillary materials that are increasingly attractive to students and other readers, such as an accompanying website or CD-Rom.

Governing the European Union is concerned primarily with "investigating the nature of the EU and its relations with its member states as a way of examining the significance of its history and the relevance of its policies for the governance of Europe". To characterise the governance of the EU, Bromley sets up the long-standing debate between intergovernmentalists and supranationalists over who runs the EU: states or EU institutions?

Contributions to this volume look at the EU's historical development; the nation-state and the EU; law, order and administration; European political traditions; EU policy-making; issues of democracy; EU finance; enlargement; and EU foreign and security policy. In the concluding chapter, Bromley considers the themes established at the outset in relation to the subject chapters, addressing the question "what is the EU?" He analyses the contributions of intergovernmental, supranational and regulatory conceptions of the EU, and discusses these in relation to the issue of political legitimacy, concluding: "If the EU is to advance significantly beyond its present position, it will have to find new ways of legitimating itself to the people and states of Europe."

Governing European Diversity considers "forces of convergence and divergence" in Europe and "considers the meaning of governance as applied to the study of European social and cultural diversity". Montserrat Guibernau's introductory chapter considers the roles of geographical boundaries, culture, religion and the enlightenment and industrial revolution in exploring the idea of "Europe".

Of particular topical interest is the idea of religion as an inclusion and exclusion mechanism in contemporary Europe. Although Guibernau rejects the argument that Turkey's application for EU membership has been delayed primarily on religious grounds, Joseph Llobera later argues that the non-Christian nature of Turkey has shaped European perceptions of its "European" credentials. In the present international climate, the EU's approach to Turkey is likely to come under greater scrutiny. To date, its approach has been identified as a factor stimulating further growth in Islamic fundamentalism in the country. The consequence may be, as Llobera argues, that "as the EU expands further east, to include even Turkey, its own identity will have to be redefined, becoming more inclusive".

This volume examines "areas that exemplify some of the tensions between unity and diversity, inclusion and exclusion, conflict and consensus and tradition and transformation in Europe's social and cultural life". There are chapters on the rise of regions and regionalism; migrants, refugees and citizenship within the EU; social movements in Europe; the transformation of family life and sexual politics; what unites Europeans; the media; and drugs and European governance. In the concluding chapter, the themes of the book are brought together in a discussion of the prospects for further integration and expansion. The authors conclude that Europe is not a society, or at least not yet.

Governing the European Economy is concerned with European economic governance, defined as "the process and practices that produce and maintain economic order". Within this, a distinction is made between the way that public organisations have sought to organise the European economy ( de jure integration) and the way in which the decisions of private actors have organised the economy in a particular way ( de facto integration). This leads to the identification and discussion of different mechanisms for producing economic order: public regulation, markets and networks.

In the introductory chapter, Grahame Thompson presents a clear explanation of basic economic models and then neatly moves on to a discussion of the contemporary political debate on European integration around competing models of capitalism. Here a distinction is made between "the German form of regulated, bureaucratically driven, 'organised' market capitalism versus the Anglo-American system of 'decentralised', competitively based, free and 'unorganised' market capitalism". The first of these sits most easily with the notion of a "regulatory order" of economic governance, and the second with a "market order". The third mode of governance discussed is that of "self-organising networks", which complements the other two forms.

The main chapters of the book, which reflect on this "conceptual apparatus", focus on the development of the European economy since 1945; corporate Europe; macroeconomic management; social Europe; technology and innovation; the environment; the EU economy; and the EU and international economic governance. The concluding chapter reflects on these explorations in relation to the three models of governance outlined and reviews the themes that have emerged.

Overall, this series demonstrates that it is possible to write accessible textbooks that have something new to say. Its readers will generally be those studying the subject of governing Europe for the first time, although the writing style will be attractive to a wider audience. The thematic approach of the texts distinguishes them from others on the market, which are generally organised around disciplinary approaches, and is one of the series' attractions. But it may limit the readership. It is hard to imagine the books being adopted as set texts for existing courses elsewhere, given the predominance of the disciplinary culture. Nevertheless, the accessibility and quality of the material should ensure that these books find a place on a range of introductory undergraduate courses dealing with Europe.

Ian Bache is lecturer in politics, University of Sheffield.