Trust in the European Union in Challenging Times: Interdisciplinary European Studies.

• Author: Preljevic, Ha Mza
• Position: Book review

Trust in the European Union in Challenging Times: Interdisciplinary European Studies

Edited by A. Bakardjieva Engelbrekt, N. Bremberg, A. Michalski, and L. Oxelheim

Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, 248 pages, $114.26, ISBN: 9783319738567

Trust in the European Union in Challenging Times offers an interdisciplinary approach to trust in the European Union (EU) derived from political science, law and economics. It addresses a timely trust-related issue: the authors state that the book is published at a time when the EU is "facing many serious crises" (p. 2). Some of the most significant events in the EU since the fall of the Berlin Wall--Brexit, the refugee and migrant crises, terrorism, debt crises, unemployment, tumultuous elections, the rise of rightists--stress the unity of the EU. Some of these crises are not just political but constitutional. Not only does this edited volume provide an analytic account of trust in the EU, it also considers the consequences for the EU--both at the national and the Union level--when trust is lacking. The book is a great one-stop-shop book for students of EU studies, political science and international relations. It is also useful for policy makers eager to understand the consequences of the current unforeseen problematic situation--the European trust crisis. The main contribution of this book is to show the importance of trust and the consequences of its absence at the EU level as well as its role in tackling the challenges and problems the Union is facing.

This edited volume includes ten scholarly works that examine the 'principle of trust' from different points of view--political institutions, enlargement, migration, income inequality, monetary policy convergence, the Eurozone debt crises, legal convergence in criminal and civil law, digitalization and so on. Such an interdisciplinary approach can help readers gain a comprehensive insight into the trust crises in the EU. It also helps readers realize that the 'trust crises' in the EU are not only the result of the uncontrolled flow of refugees and migrants--as is often presented by the media--but rather of a number of intertwined issues. The advantage of this volume is its compelling, in-depth, critical analysis of the trust-related issues from the cross-EU-country perspective. Trust in the European Union in Challenging Times is theory-driven and rich in details; the most systematic analysis to date on trust in the EU.

Trust among EU member...