THE CRISIS OF EUROPEAN UNION STUDIES SEEN FROM THE US: EU Studies are ‘Widening’ and ‘Deepening’ even as EU Theories of Widening and Deepening are in crisis as a result of the EU’s crises

In the United States, as elsewhere, European Union studies is in crisis. But although some see the crisis as existential, as the end of US political scientists’ interest in the EU—whether because lost in the shift toward Asia or crowded out by on-going interest in Latin America—I would argue that it is just that the focus of scholarship has shifted. Instead of continuing to study the EU as a unique phenomenon, US political science scholars have increasingly ‘normalized’ EU studies. In other words, Europeanists in the US have become more and more truly comparativist in their approach, by considering how the EU compares to other regions of the world not only as a supranational governance body but also in terms of how its regulatory agencies operate, its public administrations work, its political economy functions, its policy sectors develop, and so on. But we need not limit this constat to US political science scholarship, since increasing numbers of European scholars of the EU have also contributed to the normalization of EU studies.