A New Approach to the Study of Regional Integration: Practice Theory and its Application in European Integration Studies

Regional integration is considered one of the most important international phenomena in the world, which has always had special theoretical literature in international relations and regional studies. Theories such as federalism, functionalism, neo-functionalism, communication theory, etc. are among the most important theories that specifically seek to explain how regional integration occurs in a specific region. "Practice turn" or "practice theory" is considered one of the latest theoretical achievements in international relations, which many researchers have tried to apply in regional integration studies. According to the main principles of this theoretical approach, international phenomena are analyzed in terms of international "actions". The specific and pluralistic ontology, epistemology, and methodology of this theoretical approach have made many researchers of European studies use it to analyze and investigate the integration in Europe. For this purpose, in the present article, we intend to describe this theoretical approach and apply it to European integration studies and its development. Therefore, the main question of this article is, how has practice theory influenced the development of integration studies in Europe? The findings of this paper show that studies based on practice theory have challenged the more traditional understanding and previous theoretical literature on the dynamics of European integration. In fact, practice theory has forced the new generation of European studies researchers to reconsider the main assumptions of the European Union and go beyond the ontology and methods related to the existing theories in international relations.