On January 1 1995, Austria and Sweden joined the European Union (EU). This book examines why these two countries joined at such a moment and studies their accession against the structural background of globalization.

In this cutting-edge analysis, Andreas Bieler argues that conventional neo-functionalist and intergovernmentalist theories fail to explain such structural change as they take existing power structures as given. Therefore, he develops a neo-Gramscian perspective as an alternative approach to European integration.