“The Europeans” book started from the desire to understand how change can be implemented quickly and radically within a society. So, starting from the European project – a project we all witness and experience in our daily lives – the book seeks to uncover the mechanisms that enabled such rapid and profound transformation in Europe. It explores how Europe transitioned from the nationalist and warlike continent of the past to the united and peaceful entity we see today.
For this reason, the book begins with the concept of Europeanization, explaining it through the lens of social reality. First, we explore the question: What is social reality? And by using the answers to this question, we then define Europeanization. To do so, the book examines how social reality manifests in human behavior. In other words, social reality is an imagined narrative we build and share through communication. And it becomes real only when the behavior of those who created and disseminated the story aligns with that narrative.
In the first section, the book explores several prominent social theories to arrive at a definition of reality. However, the work does not strictly adhere to a single approach, given the challenge of keeping separated the institutionalist and constructivist perspectives.
After covering the theoretical background, the paper focuses on the Romanian case, investigating the mechanisms that facilitated and accelerated the establishment of this new social reality. This leads to an examination of the Europeanization of the Competition Council of Romania, including measuring its Europeanization and understanding its role in the settlement and change of the daily lives of the Romanians.
The book was initially published with Amazon in 2022, and it can be found here.
2 years later it was introduced on the Romanian book market and published with Letras. The 2024 version can be found here.
