Thomas Mehlhausen is a Research and Teaching Assistant in the Department of Political Theory at the University of Potsdam, Germany.

By examining the European Council's contentious approval of the Mediterranean and Central and Eastern European countries in the 1970s and 1990s, this book investigates why the European Union enlarges. Based on new and hitherto not analysed data, it introduces the concept of 'anomie' to the discourse and, in doing so, makes a timely contribution to the literature of constitutional politics and enlargement of the European Union.

1 Introduction Part I Theory Test: Eastern and Southern European Union Enlargements 2 Theoretical Perspectives on European Union Enlargement 3 European Union Eastern Enlargement 4 European Community Southern Enlargements Part II Theory Building: Anomie and Diffuse Decision Contexts 5 The European Union's Liberal Identity and its Constitutive Norms 6 German Unification, Maastricht and the Prospect of a Wider Europe 7 Solving the Double Enlargement Puzzle: Opportunities and Constraints in Diffuse Decision Contexts 8 Conclusions