The renewed focus on disintegration is needed not only to bring in realism in relation to the union's frailty but also to furnish a necessary corrective to the dominant narrative. The question I want to bring in is whether such an undertaking might benefit from highlighting a third analytical category - accommodation of difference/diversity. Many analystys, notably Joseph Weiler with his notion of constitutional tolerance, understand the union as an organization that was intended to and has played a central role in accommodating forms of difference and diversity in the member states between which otherwise serious conflicts would ensue. I pitch accommodation somewhere between integration and disintegration and likely see it as a key mediating factor.
My intention is to query the status of accommodation in relation to the mainstream integrationist account, focussing on what accommodation is, how it is embedded in the EU's systemic traits, and how it figures in its political and policy processes.
