This article presents a comparative analysis of the news coverage on the euro crisis in Flanders (Dutch-speaking Belgium) and the Netherlands. The aim of the research was to identify how newspapers in the Low Countries have portrayed the roots of the crisis, the main victims, and those held responsible to solve the crisis, and ways to do so. This study also analyzed the differences across geographical contexts and types of newspapers. Furthermore, it examined how the coverage changed as the crisis continued. Research findings include that Flemish newspapers more often reported about the causes of the crisis, whereas the Dutch newspapers published more articles discussing the responses to it. Furthermore, financial newspapers provided more news stories searching for a solution, while popular newspapers usually published short, factual descriptions.

While the Netherlands has been a globally leading country in the area of agrofood for the latter half of the 20th century, its chances to maintain that position will co-depend on its capacity to develop its primary sector into more sustainable directions. This is no trivial task. For a long time, strong institutional arrangements provided guidance to practices of governance, consumption, production and innovation in line with a productivist paradigm. Although these arrangements have been significantly destabilized, and novel ones are emerging, a mature institutional landscape, tailored to a more sustainable development, has not yet fleshed out.
This article asks the question how innovative practices deal with this ambiguous and dynamic institutional context. It does so through investigating how, over about a decade, two sets of practices to promote more sustainable development (in the fields of livestock systems and greenhouse horticulture), draw on (remains of) incumbent arrangements, and novel institutional elements to provide normative guidance and mobilize resources (money; knowledge; legitimacy). Theoretically, it thus contributes to (1) understanding the emergence of novel modes of governance in an institutional void, (2) taking into account and extending it to a dynamic context, the paradox of embedded agency.

In this article it will be argued that the contribution of political theory to European studies is rather one-sided and could be enriched by broadening the spectrum. To make this clear, the first part of this article will offer an overview of the contribution of political theory to European integration studies up to the present day. In the second part, avenues for further research will be presented with special attention to the importance of theories of justice for the EU. In close connection to this program, the value of ideal theory will be highlighted as a means to think about the further development of the EU and to critically assess the present functioning of the EU.