This article analyzes the social potential of regional integration processes by using the example of European integration. Recent case law from the European Court of Justice has led some observers to argue that judicial decisions increasingly provide European politics with a “Polanyian”...

At first glance, the social purpose and the democratic potential of the EU have made progress in the last 15 years. However, this impression is misleading. We argue instead that the social and democratic potentials of the EU are crucially shaped by the heterogeneity of European varieties of...