The received narrative of European integration is well-rehearsed. Europe deepened her political and legal union in the aftermath of the Second World War, it is said, in response to the excesses of the state system of the early twentieth century; as a post-war attempt—through economic union—to rebuild and pacify the war-ravaged continent. Indeed, this account of European integration as a sui generis regional endeavour—focused on the local historical imperatives of peace and economic (re)development—is useful for understanding the inception and early vitality of the European project. It casts little light, however, on the recent course of European integration. Why do European societies, almost a century later, continue to enhance their association, despite having achieved unprecedented peace and economic development over many decades?
In this paper I will take constitutional theories of globalisation as a starting point for answering this question. Moving beyond the common account that sees European integration encapsulated in local historical processes, I will seek to explain the European constitutional enterprise as a response to ongoing global, rather than uniquely European, demands for law beyond the state. I will develop this argument in three steps. First, I will trace an overview of the theoretical assumptions that have typically accompanied state-centric forms of political and legal constitutionalism (Part I). I will then discuss how global developments are increasingly bringing those assumptions into question and driving demand for constitutional integration beyond the state (Part II). With these theoretical coordinates in place, Part III of the paper will contemplate some of the principal ways in which the European model seeks to ameliorate the corrosion of state constitutional orders by reconstituting constitutional precepts beyond the state.