Studies of European Integration at IMEMO

The paper is devoted to the formation and development of the European integration studies at the Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The chronological framework of the article covers the period from 1957 to 2019. Also in addition to IMEMO, the role of other national research centers in the study of integration processes is considered, and the contribution of the Soviet / Russian researchers is noted. The author uses the problem-chronological method and generational methods of research. The key markers that define generational differences are the focus, area and research paradigm. In total, the author identifies five generations of the European integration research at IMEMO. The first one, which dated from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, focused on the motives, causes, ways of integration, recognition of the objectivity of integration processes in Europe, the role of the Director of the Institute academician A.A. Arzumanyan and the outstanding scientist academician E.S. Varga in the “legitimation” of the study of European integration in Soviet science. The second one, dating from the 1960s to the first half of the 1980s, distinguished itself by the dominance of the economic component, the intensification of the study of political issues, the comparison of capitalist and socialist integration. Rejection of negative ideologized assessments of integration in Western Europe became one of the characteristics of the generation of 1985-1991s. Thanks to the fourth generation of the 1990s, progress was made in active introduction of Western theories and methods into Russian research, comparison of European integration and disintegration in the post-Soviet space and in the former Eastern bloc. From the 2000s the IMEMO researchers have concentrated on comparison of European and Eurasian integration projects, study of integration in the context of new political spaces as a factor in the formation of a new model and system of international interaction. At the same time, the identified generations do not fully replace each other but rather coexist on the basis of complementarity and interpenetration. The author comes to the conclusion that IMEMO has developed its own scientific approach to integration studies. Its main features are complex, systematic and balanced. The article contains two tables and an Appendix with a list of the most significant IMEMO works on European integration.