Description

The unification of Europe is significant as a source of institutional innovation that may yield some answers to the crisis of the nation-state. This is because, around the process of formation of the European Union, new forms of governance, and new institutions of government, are being
created at the European, national, regional, and local levels. Together, they are inducing a new form of state that I propose to call the network state. However, the actual content of this unification, and the actors involved in it, are still unclear, and will be so for some time. It is precisely this ambiguity that makes unification possible, while characterising its process as a debate rather than a blueprint.