Historiography of the European Parliament: Changing perceptions of the institution from the 1950s to today

Studija 13-11-2018

This study charts the course and contours of academic interest in, and writing about, the European Parliament (EP) since its origins in the early 1950s. What began as a trickle of scholarly works on the EP turned into a flood in the early 1990s, after the EP acquired greater legislative power and became more like a ‘real’ (if not a ‘normal’) parliament. The study does not claim to mention every significant work on the EP, and may well mention some works that other scholars might not consider to be particularly significant. It aims to present a ‘historiography’ of the EP, without limiting itself to the study of historical writing. Accordingly, it ranges over a wide swath of scholarship, including history but also, primarily, political science.