Book Reviews Marks, Gary, Fritz W. Scharpf, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Wolfgang Streeck (eds). Governance in the European Union. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1996. Pp. x, 176. Index. $24.95. This book consists of a series of articles which examine various aspects of the process of European integration. A common theme is the criticism of a state-centred analysis of this process. A state-centred analysis tends to describe the European polity either as an intergovernmental forum, established to enhance the state's capacity to govern in an increasingly interdependent world; or it describes the process of integration as one driven by an inherent teleology predestined ultimately to lead to the emergence of a European federal state. The authors of this volume, on the other hand, take a 'multi-level politics' approach and focus on the interaction of subnational, national and supranational actors. Chapters include diverse topics, such as testing existing explanatory theories of European integration, explaining regional mobilization, or describing the changing forms of social movements in the European Union. The volume is replete with calls for new non-statist conceptual tools, a new vocabulary that goes beyond aggregating items of Euro-Speak or using the 'sui generis' label as an asylum ignorantiae. This book frames the task and provides interesting examples of what can be seen when you get rid of the statist blinders. It does not provide for solutions. Fittingly, the first and last chapters include a reference by Jacques Delors, describing the European polity as an 'unidentified political object'. The quest for a descriptively suitable, explanatorily useful and normatively appropriate conceptual framework for the European polity goes on. Mattias Kumm Harvard University
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