CALL FOR PAPERS
The European Law Group will host its fifth annual conference for early-career scholars on 17–18 September 2026 on ‘European Society—Facets and Fault Lines’ at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg. The conference aims to bring together researchers from various disciplines interested in European law and politics to explore the evolving and contested concept of ‘European society’. We invite abstract submissions for presentations, with the possibility of publication, until 31 March 2026.
Conference Theme
The notion of an ‘ever closer union among the peoples of Europe’ has guided the European integration project since 1957. Since the early days of European integration, an important stream of scholarship has sought to frame the project’s nature and aspirations with an overarching, collective singular: ‘European federation’, ‘European state’, ‘European nation’, or ‘European people’. More recently, the notion of ‘European society’ has been advanced. Through this lens, EU law, and in particular Article 2 TEU, are conceived as setting out the common constitutional basis of a European society. This view implies a profound shift in how we should understand and approach European law and integration: controversies like those over the rule of law, distributive choices, migration or security are perceived as conflicts within a single society. Within such a frame, the financial crisis becomes a conflict about solidarity in European society, democratic regression a challenge for constitutional principles of European society, or the Russian aggression an attack on European values.
Yet, the notion of ‘European society’ is as elusive as it is controversial: does European society exist beyond legal texts? How can we assess or prove its existence? And if it exists, what are its characteristics? Is it a stable entity or a fluid process? Finally, what does the concept of European society imply for European law and integration? The emergence of such a collective is marked by uncertainty, heterogeneity, and internal disagreement, pointing to both the promise and fragility of this project. Debates on identity, legitimacy, diversity, solidarity, and agency show just how varied and sometimes divided the EU’s social landscape is. This complexity, in turn, poses salient conceptual, normative, and empirical questions for European law and governance.
Against this backdrop, the planned conference seeks to examine ‘European society’ in its facets and fault lines:
- What points to the emergence of a European society?
- Who is part of this society—and who is left out?
- How does, and how should, European law respond to and shape social realities?
We particularly welcome contributions that critically engage with ‘European society’ not only as a legal construct, but as a lived social formation, spanning various disciplines of EU law and related fields – public, private, economic, social, cultural, and constitutional law – alongside interdisciplinary approaches drawing from political science, sociology, philosophy, and beyond. The conference also encourages a diversity of methodological approaches, ranging from legal-doctrinal, socio-legal, empirical, interdisciplinary, normative and theoretical approaches to critical legal studies, including feminist, postcolonial, and political economy perspectives.
Topics may include, but are not limited to:
- Identity, belonging, citizenship, and migration;
- Rule of law, democracy, and constitutional values, including in the EU’s external relations;
- Social rights, welfare, market integration, and inequality;
- Transnational solidarity, labour mobility, and integration across borders;
- Digitalisation and the transformation of social relations;
- Interactions between EU law, the ECHR system, and Member States’ legal orders;
- The societal impact and legitimacy of European governance mechanisms.