The Process of Europeanization

This paper’s central thesis is that one of the main ways to make sense of Europeanization is to realize that the more people get to know each other and find themselves in situations where cooperation between them produces individual and collective benefits, the less likely they are to be hostile to each other. Moreover, as European political cooperation increases, it presents firms as well as ordinary people with the opportunity to expand interactions with each other. This affects how citizens and firms think of who they are and what their interests are. While one of the strengths of the EU is its extensiveness, particularly in the economy, it is also socially very thin. It is this lack of awareness and contact between most people and the high level of interdependency of European economies and political life that form the crux of the situation in Europe today.