Philip Bajon

 

Biographical Note

Philip Bajon is graduated with MA in Medieval and Modern History, History of Arts and Philosophy from the University of Bonn and the University Paris-Sorbonne. He obtained his French-German PhD in Contemporary History with summa cum laude from the University Paris-Sorbonne and the University of Essen.

Philip published a research monograph, articles and chapters about post-WWII European integration history and in particular about the constitutional crisis of the European Communities of 1965-66, known as the ‘empty chair crisis’.

His academic interests fall within the fields of Modern European and Transnational History, in particular French-German History and the History of the European Union. They include supranational policy-making, institutional change, European society formation and new conceptual approaches to European integration history.

 

Research Project

This project’s central goal is to reconstruct the ‘discursive battle’ between more supranational and more intergovernmental conceptions of the present-day European Union. Focussing on the first twenty years after the so-called Luxembourg Compromise of 1966, it will explore when and how a more ‘European’ rhetoric saturated the discussion and bargaining over European legitimacy, eventually paving the way for concrete institutional change in the EU during the 1980s and 1990s. Drawing upon institutional theories as heuristic tools and utilising critical discourse analysis, the project will employ a qualitative source-based research methodology for investigating five case studies on the basis of a wide array of previously unexploited sources. With this design, the project focuses on key supranational and transnational dimensions of European integration history with great potential for strong impact on contemporary historical and political science research in particular.

 

Selected Publications

2012. Europapolitik „am Abgrund“. Die Krise des „leeren Stuhls“ 1965-66 (Studies on the History of European Integration, Vol. 15). Stuttgart: Steiner, 415 p.

2011. De Gaulle finds his ‘Master’. Gerhard Schröder’s ‘Fairly Audacious Politics’ in the European Crisis of 1965-66. In Journal of European Integration History 17 (2011) 2, 253-69.

2009. The European Commissioners and the Empty Chair Crisis 1965-66. In Journal of European Integration History 15 (2009) 2, 105-25.

2009. The Empty Chair Crisis 1965-66. Perspectives and Interests of the French Government. In The Road to a United Europe. Interpretations of the Process of European Integration, edited by Morten Rasmussen and Ann-Christina L. Knudsen. Brussels: Peter Lang, 197-214.

2008. Die Krise des leeren Stuhls 1965/66. Ursachen, Verlauf und Folgen. In Vom gemeinsamen Markt zur europäischen Unionsbildung. 50 Jahre Römische Verträge 1957-2007, edited by Michael Gehler. Vienna, Cologne and Weimar: Böhlau. 371-92.

2008. The European Commission and France in the Empty Chair Crisis of 1965/66. In Zeiten im Wandel: Deutschland im Europa des 20. Jh.. Kontinuität, Entwicklungen und Brüche / Changing Times: Germany in 20th-Century Europe. Continuity, Evolution and Breakdowns, edited by Jürgen Elvert and Sylvain Schirmann. Brussels: Peter Lang. 159-76.