Andrew Moravcsik’s faithful readers will find here the qualities that earned his work its reputation: a tight argumentation systematically structured, and polemic in the noblest sense of the word. They will also rekindle their acquaintance with several of the theses the author has set forth in his best known earlier publications: The European Union is not a federal State in the making, the status quo is sturdier and more rational than it may appear at first, and democratic deficit is a myth.

Moravcsik both condenses and extends these theses, after the schumpeterian method he favours: pick out a conviction achieving quasi-axiomatic status in the literature, and pull it apart calling on the authority of contemporary social sciences’ most robust resources.