@article{2026:mazzotti:an_archaeo,
title = {An Archaeology of EU Legal Discourse: The Legal Imagination Between Continuity and Discontinuity},
year = {2026},
note = {This Article uses 70 Years of EU Law – A Union for Its Citizens to
illustrate how different positionalities in the present lead to
divergent (re-)constructions of the past of European Union (EU) law.
This, in turn, configures different imaginations of EU law’s future.
In order to show this, the paper puts the Legal Service’s book in
conversation with the academic literature. It shows a disconnect
between the book’s imagination of the future of EU law and the
corresponding scholarly debates: while the former is focused on
procedural reforms, the latter predominantly problematise matters of
substance. The paper relates this mismatch to the respective,
divergent postures towards EU law’s past. In order to do so, it
proposes an analytical framework which, building on Gerschenkron,
understands ‘continuity’ and ‘discontinuity’ as possible
modalities of (constructive) diachronic ‘change’. The paper
subsequently deploys Foucault’s ‘archaeological’ analytical
framework to further flesh out the conceptual contours of
‘continuity’ and ‘discontinuity’. In this framework,
‘continuity’ describes change which takes place in harmony with
‘foundations’ assumed to remain stable. ‘Discontinuity’, on
its part, denotes change which introduces new ‘foundations’
altogether. Against this background, the Legal Service’s book
interprets the history of EU law as one of continuity with European
integration’s mythical origins. On the other hand, the scholarly
literature is much readier to understand EU law’s path as
discontinuous with the vision of the ‘founders’. The paper
understands such different attitudes towards EU law’s past as
(co-)responsible for configuring those different imaginations of its
future. In turn, both such postures can be traced back to different
claims to present-day authority. The paper thus calls for reflection
on how EU law’s temporality is constructed to legitimise different
legal-political projects.},
journal = {Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht / Heidelberg Journal of International Law},
pages = {85--132},
author = {Mazzotti, Paolo},
volume = {86},
number = {1}
}