Reviewing Europe. On the socio-history of the first European studies journals in Germany, France and the United Kingdom

This article investigates the genesis of the first journals of European studies in France, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the United Kingdom, from 1950 to 1993. The aim is to test the comparative hypothesis that the knowledge produced about European integration was more permeated by political discourses in the United Kingdom than on the continent. In the long term, this would have contributed to the increased politicization of the discourse about the European Communities in the UK. I show here that the three journals studied were constructed as hybrid places between science, practice and politics. In this respect, the hypothesis of a British specificity is only partially confirmed. More than a clear-cut opposition between science, practice and politics, it is therefore the various modalities of their articulation that this study invites us to examine.