Although the European Community does not possess many of the usual att
ributes of a nation state, it is none. the less expected to provide a
framework within which Europe's economic and social problems might be
governed. This paper examines the methods with which the Community has
sought to establish the possibility of European government. The focus
of the paper is on the single market programme and the associated pro
ject of 'harmonization'. It is argued that the harmonization project c
an be seen both as a way of realizing a novel organization of European
space, and as a process directed at establishing this space as a gove
rnable entity. The paper examines the specific character of this spati
al order, and its articulation with neo-liberal and neo-social democra
tic conceptions of European government.