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The Idea of a European Superstate GLYN MORGAN, The Idea of a European Superstate: Public Justification and European Integration (Princeton, Princeton University Press 2005) XII + 204 p., ISBN 0692122466

The principal thesis which lies behind Glyn Morgan’s The Idea of a European Superstate: Public Justification and European Integration is that the most convincing justification for continuing, and indeed tighter, European integration lies in the need for greater security in relation to external threats. It is a judicious argument, nicely presented and in large part persuasive. It certainly resonates with the striking eruption of academic interest in the role and responsibility of the European Union as an international actor. What is fresh about Morgan’s study is the reorientation of this interest towards the effect of this evolving responsibility upon essentially internal arguments about political justification and accountability. The first chapter discusses classic debates regarding the possible ‘justification’ for European integration. Such debates, Morgan argues, tend to oscillate around questions of institutional format and process. They have, moreover, run their course. The argument is compelling, especially placed within the context of the demise of the Constitutional Treaty. The final rites of the Treaty have been said subsequent to the publication of The Idea of a European Superstate. But the prophetic imputation is acute. The second chapter elaborates discussion of the varieties of Euroscepticism which attach to the question of political justification, particularly those which inhere a nationalist strain. Morgan quite rightly castigates the essentially simplistic translation of cultural nationalism into visceral Euroscepticism. The idea that the European Union is a vital threat to national identity and autonomy is not only overblown, but critically distracting. Cultural differentiation matters. Visceral nationalism is as enervating as it is archaic. This argument is developed further in the third chapter of the book, which is specifically devoted to varieties of Euroscepticism. Here Morgan presents an insightful discussion of the familiar conservative and social democratic alternatives. Chapter four then investigates those intellectual arguments that tend to root arguments that are either Book Review