This book adopts a historical perspective to explore the tensions between the idea of a European democracy through a European market, and the observations that there are signs of increasing social disintegration, political extremism and populism in the wake of economic integration.

Hagen Schulz-Forberg is Assistant Professor in International History, University of Aarhus, Denmark. Bo Stråth holds a Chair in Nordic, European and World History at the Renvall Institute, University of Helsinki, Finland. He recently co-edited A European Memory? Contested Histories and Politics of Remembrance and European Solidarities: Tensions and Contentions of a Concept.

Part 1: A Historical Outline: Confronting Teleological Understandings of European Integration 1. The Mythical Foundation and the Turbulent Founding Years 2. The Market and the Social 3. The Constitution and the 'Democratic Deficit' Part 2: The European Public Sphere in History, Theory and Practice 4. The European Public Sphere in Historical Perspective 5. The European Public Sphere in Theory 6. The European Public Sphere in Practice Part 3: European Values and the European Union 7. European Values and History 8. The Value Production at the Political Centre 9. The Academic Value Production Part 4: The Contours of a Historical Theory of the EU 10. The Historical Analogies 11. Towards a Realistic Historical Perspective on the European Integration 12. The Future