Michael Wilkinson’s Authoritarian Liberalism is an important, and, in many respects, praiseworthy contribution to the debates on the present state of the European Union (EU) and its highly problematical future. Its recourse to political economy in the re-construction of the integration project contrasts innovatively and instructively with the usual, if subtle, stories told about the history of Europe’s “integration through law” and its promotion of an “ever closer union among the peoples of Europe”. The spectre of “authoritarian liberalism” is a counter-narrative which exhibits the socio-economic dimensions and forces us to consider the political quality of European rule, in which Europe’s “material constitution” is a key concept of these analyses. “Authoritarian liberalism” is more than just a catchy characterisation of Europe’s constitutional constellation. The resort to this notion ties in with a conceptual history that definitely deserves to be remembered and continued.
