Paper Titles & Abstracts

In the past two decades or so scholars on both sides of the Atlantic have witnessed a proliferation of studies comparing the European Union and the United States. Stimulated by the post-Maastricht readings of the EU as a federal polity, these EU-US comparisons have now covered a wide range of topics and questions. Yet by and large this literature still proceeds 'unaware' of itself and of its own distinctive nature as a research agenda. This has so far prevented mutual communication (save for some ritual citations), cumulation and, more importantly, a serious methodological reflection on this comparative enterprise. This paper aims to end this anomaly by presenting a comprehensive analysis and assessment of the EU-US literature. The paper is divided in three parts: the first is a reflection on the methodological basis of EU-US comparisons. After breaking down the traditional N=1 problem into its epistemological and practical aspects, I frame the emergence and growth of the EU-US literature in the context of the EU's 'emancipation' from the latter side of the N=1 problem. Building on this reflection, in the second part I present an original and comprehensive database of 102 published EU-US comparative analyses, and propose a tripartite classification based on the 'theoretical intensity' of the comparisons, i.e. descriptive, conceptual and explanatory work. In the third and final section I reflect on future scenarios: after showing the existence of a recent trend towards the 'normalisation' of the EU-US literature as a branch of comparative federalism I propose an alternative road for the development of EU-US studies, in which the theoretical interest for multi-level systems is coupled with an explicitly 'empirical mission' based on the interest in the study of these two specific polities. This 'dual mission', I conclude, should be the core trait of the future EU-US research programme.