Building Europe on a weak field: Law, economics, and scholarly avatars in transnational politics

Abstract

The present article mobilizes the concepts of "weak field" and "avatar" to explain Europe's historically variable meanings, analyzing two successful reinventions (as a "community of law" and a "single market") and one failure ("social Europe"). Focusing on law and econ rly avatars. Depending on their strategic positioning, scholarly avatars facilitate symbolic exchange across political, technocratic, and scholarly boundaries and endow theoretical constructions with performative potential. © 2012 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.