Conflicts over the shape of the European Union are usually modelled as conflicts of interests. This article argues that the development of a polity depends not only on interests but also on normative ideas about a legitimate political order (`polity-ideas'). These polity-ideas are extremely stable over time and resistant to change because they are linked to the identity and basic normative orientations of the actors involved. The article has four parts: (1) a theoretical argument how to link ideas and polity development in the EU, (2) a methodological discussion containing four ideal-typical polity-ideas about the EU, (3) a comparative analysis of the development of these ideas in France, Germany and the United Kingdom from 1950 to 1995, and (4) a summary of the empirical findings and a discussion of areas of research for which the theoretical approach and the empirical results presented here might be useful.
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