Title: History and Theory of European Integration
1History and Theory of European Integration
2Lecture 4
- The Intergovernmentalist challenge to the core
propositions of neofunctionalism - Critiques and contemplations of neofunctionalism
-
3Readings for the lecture
- Hoffman S. Obstinate or Obsolete? The Fate of the
Nation State and the Case of Western Europe
(1966). The European Union. Readings on the
Theory and Practice of European Integration,
Nelsen B.F. and Alexander C G. Stubb (eds.),
Palgrave, 1998 - Lindberg L.N. Political Integration Definitions
and Hypotheses (1963). The European Union.
Readings on the Theory and Practice of European
Integration, Nelsen B.F. and Alexander C G.
Stubb (eds.), Palgrave, 1998 - Rosamond Ben. (2000) Theories of European
Integration. The European Union Series. Palgrave
Chapter 4
4Competing or complementary approaches?
- Socio political and academic contexts
- Scientific progress
- Ontological and epistemological foundations
- Methodology
- Scope
- Purpose
- Perspective
5Functions of the Theory
- Explaining (why) and understanding (how)
- focus on reasons and causes
- Describing and analyzing
- focus on the definitions and concepts / create
the vocabulary - Criticizing and developing norms and principles
6Area
- Polity Political community and its institutions
- Examples, analyzing and explaining the community
institutional structure trying to find
constitutional alternatives - Policy analyzing critically and reflecting on
actual measures, policy styles - Politics processes of policy making
7Neofunctionlism as the theory of integration
-
- Obstinate or Obsolete?
- The Fate of the Nation State and the Case of
Western Europe - (Stanley Hoffmann, 1966)
8Foundations of the theoretical debate between
functionalism and intergovernmentalism
- States are the basic units in the world politics
- Emphasis on the importance of the national
interests - Intergovernmentalist approach integration is a
series of bargains between sovereign states
pursuing their national interest
9 Why has the new Jerusalem been postponed
Intergovernmental paradigm
- Enduring qualities of nationalism and statehood
advanced arguments about state-centrism in the
process of integration
10Factors of unification movement failure Argument
- Diversity of any international system determined
by the natural plurality of domestic imperatives - diversity of domestic determinants
- geo historical situations
- external aims among its units
- Fragmentation reproduces diversity
- Centrifugal tendencies versus convergency of
interests
11Counterargument
- Why must it be a diversity of nations,
- not a diversity of regions federations, or
federating blocks? - Answer?
- Legitimacy of the self determination principle.
-
- Newness of many of the nation states and the
nationalist upsurge accompanying the process.
12But
- Does the self determination principle by itself
guarantee the nation state survival? - Does it assure that the nation state must
everywhere remain the basic form of social
organization?
13Further arguments
- Two unique features of the present first truly
global international system - Axis of the local regional global
- attraction of the regional forces is offset by
the pull of the other forces both local and
global. - The demise of the old methods of agglomeration in
the new set of conditions governing and
restricting the use of force - the use of force along traditional lines for
conquest and expansion becomes too dangerous in
the nuclear age - atrophy of war removes the most pressing
incentive to unite - the only method left for unification is the
national self abdication.
14Factors of unification versus factors of nation
state prevailance
- Experiment failure
- analysis of the functional method
- limitations continued
- The Logic of Diversity versus the Logic of
Integration
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17- Two integration achievements proving the logic of
diversity wrong? - European Common Foreign and Security Policy
- Economic and Monetary union
- Justice and Home Affairs
18Crucial factors of the community method
successanalysis of the functional method
limitations continued
- Agreement on the Goals of Integration
- Agreement on the Method of Integration
- Agreement on the Outcomes of Integration
19the Goals of Integration
20the Method of integration
21Gamble on the results of integration
- Net benefits would bring progress towards
community measured by - Transfer of more power to the new common agency
- Prevalence of solutions upgrading the common
interest - Increasing the flow of communication
- Increasing compatibility of views on external
issues
22Summing up Hoffmanns generalizations
- The state is still the major political actor
- The success of federalism would be a tribute to
the durability of the nation state its failure
so far testifies to the irrelevance of the model - Europe can not be what some nations have been a
people that create its state, there is as of now
no European people and no general will of a
European people - Functionalism can integrate economics, but is too
unstable for the task of political integration
23Summing up Hoffmanns generalizations
- A full political merger vindicates the federal
model, as the new unit will be a state forging
people by consent through abdication of the
previous separate states - There is no middle ground between cooperation of
existing nations and the breaking in of a new one
- In the present situation the nation state is a
new wine in an old bottle. There are many ways
of going beyond the nation state and some modify
the substance without altering the form or
creating new forms
24Lessons Limits of the functional method
(intergovernmental view!)
- Sidelining the centrality of the state actors and
persistence of supranationalist sentiments - Denying prevalence of traditional
intergovernmental bargaining methods - Underestimation of the conflicts over values
decisions deadlocks - Ignoring intervening variables in the spill over
process - Overestimation of the role of the institutional
machinery - Its authority is limited, conditional,
dependable, reversible - Its stake controlled by the states
- Denying the low high politics problem
- Failure to acknowledge the importance of external
factors and global environment - concentration on the spill over as a dynamic
internal to the community
25Marxists contemplation of neofunctionalism
- Ernst Mandel (1967) International Capitalism and
Supra-nationality, in R. Miliband and J.
Saville (eds), The Socialist register 1967
(London Merlin) - Supranationalism a powerful economic and
political ideology as well as an institutional
configuration designed to meet the needs of
capitalism. - EC the product and the vehicle of capital
concentration.
26Stuart Holland
- Stuart Holland (1980) UnCommon Market Capital,
Class and Power in the European community
(London Macmillan) - EC The growth of capital interpenetration
would represent material infrastructure for the
emergence of supranational state power organs in
the Common Market and reorganization of state
power at the supranational level - Centrality of class polarization
- Relating the role of the elites of a given class
structure - Alliance of sections of state and key strata of
capital
27Peter Cocks
- Peter Cocks (1980) Towards a Marxist Theory of
European Integration, International Organization
34 (1) - Integration considered in the course of
capitalist development as a process of state
building where the growth of political
institutions represents an attempt to impose
capitalist state functions commensurate with the
level of development of capitalist relations of
production. - Integration facilitates the growth of the
productive forces.
28Neo functionalists reflections on the first act
of integration studies
- Madison colloquium (1969)
- L.N. Lindberg and S.A. Scheingold (eds), (1971)
Regional Integration Theory and Research
(Cambridge, MA Harvard University press)
29Objectives
- Development of a more sophisticated theory and
methodology - Acceleration of comparative regional integration
analysis
30Haass contemplation of neofunctionalist
pretheory as obsolescent
- Limited capacity for the theory transferability
as its analysis is deeply rooted in the social
change and decision making processes in the
pluralistic industrialized societies - Limitations for generalization on transregional
basis because of the - radically distinct dependent variables
- speculative character of the terminal conditions
of the end state of the integration process,
hence - Attempt to theorize on common terminal condition
would be scientifically mistaken - Attempt to develop a Multiple dependent variables
model
31The challenge of conceptualizing the EC as a
complex political system in the global world
order
- Persisting challenge of definition
- Donald Puchala (1972) Of Blind Men, Elephants
and International Integration, Journal of Common
Market Studies 10. - different schools of researchers have exalted
different parts of the integration elephant.
They have claimed either that their parts were in
fact the whole beasts, or that their parts were
the most important ones, the others being of
marginal interest. - No model describes the integration phenomenon
with complete accuracy because all models present
images of what integration should be or could be
rather than here and now.
32Concordance system Explaining Community as a
Network
- A complex entity where nation states remain the
primary actors, bur where arenas of political
action are operated at several levels and levels
of influence vary from one issue area to another - A forum for positive sum interaction
- Distinctive attitudinal environment of prevailing
pragmatism - Bargaining aimed at construction of convergent
goals - Actors attention to international
interdependence - Mutual sensitivity and responsiveness
33- Lindberg, L.N. and Scheingold, S.A. (1970)
Europes Would be Polity - Patterns of Change in the European Community
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice Hall).
34Explaining Community as a Polity
- Objectives (how? Versus traditional
neofunctionalist why?) - Explain the change within the EC system / explain
the system transformation or equilibrium - Methodology (David Easton systems theory (1965) A
systems analysis of Political Life) - Transforming a static system model into a model
of system change - Regarding Community as a political system in the
making - Differentiating between Community and its
Environment
35Elements of the model
- Outcomes decisions enhancing or decreasing the
functional scope and institutional capacity of
the system a function of - Five clusters of variables
- External variables inputs
- demands
- systemic supports
- leadership resources, national and supranational
- Features of the system
- Functional scope
- Institutional capacities
- Supranational decisions / decision making
structures - Decision rules and norms
36Explaining the reasons for community developments
(Why and how?)
- Haas, E. B. (1976) Turbulent Fields and the
Study of Regional integration, International
organization 30 (2) - Community as a copying strategy in the
turbulent setting of great social complexity
(why?) - Community as a result of a series of
relationships between objectives, knowledge,
learning, strategies, bargaining styles and
institutions interacting in the face of radical
uncertainty (how?)
37From the notion of turbulence to the concept of
externalization
- External contexts as an integration process
determinant - Externalization a situation where regional
policy making is more and more constrained by the
extra and inter-regional calculations of the
actors. - .. The independent role of these conditions
should decline as integration proceeds until
joint negotiations vis-à-vis outsiders has become
such an integral part of the decisional process
that the international system accords the new
unit a full participant status.
38From the concept of externalization to the idea
of interdependence
- The concept of interdependence
- emergence of new actors
- diffuse and interconnected global order
characterized by multiple actors among which the
states are important but not alone - challenge to the realist emphasis on power, force
and national interest - interdependence condition in the global world
order which might produce regional integrative
response - condition under which governments and other
economic actors may have to contemplate some form
of collaboration without defining its outcome
39- The concept of interdependence a route out
of n1 conundrum?
40Neo-NeofunctionalismDéjà vu, all over again?
- Philippe C. Schmitter (2003) Neo-
Neofunctionalism in Antje Wiener and Thomas Diez
(eds), European Integration Theory.Oxford
university press. - The two dimensional matrix of contending theories
of regional integration - Ontological dimension
- assumption of reproductive or transformative
nature of the process - Epistemological dimension
- evidence based on dramatic political events or
upon prosaic socio-economic cultural exchanges - Neo functionalism transformative and rooted in
observation of gradual, normal, unobtrusive
exchanges across a wide range of actors
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42Multi-Level Governance (MLG)
- an arrangement for making binding decisions that
engages a multiplicity of politically independent
but otherwise interdependent actors private and
public at different level of territorial
aggregation in more or less continuous
negotiation/deliberation/implementation, and that
does not assign exclusive policy competence or
assert a stable hierarchy of political authority
to any of these levels.
43Poli-centric Governance (PCG)
- an arrangement for making binding decisions over
a multiplicity of actors that delegates authority
over functional tasks to a set of dispersed and
relatively autonomous agencies that are not
controlled by a single collective institution.
44More than thirty years laterCritical
afterthoughts
- A self-transforming neo-functionalist model
- The neo-functionalist model constitutes an open
system of explanation in the sense that
antecedent conditions are not perfect or even
exclusive predictors of subsequent one. Error
values some exogenous, others - random values
of endogenous variable are present throughout
the model although according to the hypothesis of
increasing mutual determination they should
decline with successful positive resolutions of
decisional crises. - The decision cycle notion and changing
member-states strategies - Initiating cycle
- Priming cycle
- Transformative cycle
45Transformative cycle
- Increase in the reform mongering role of the
regional institutions - Regional institutions attempts at
externalization - Domestic Status Effect
- Fragmentation of national actors and emergence of
a new superimposed wider identity - Formation of stable transnational coalitions
- Increased activism by Eurocrats / reaction on the
part of the government decision-makers to the
erosion of their monopolistic control over
certain policy areas - New strategy accommodating the interests of a
broad transnational coalition as the result of
the package deals and a new status as a global
player
46Transformative cycle
- Elite values more focused on regional symbols and
loyalties, while the national ones do not wither
away - Extra regional dependence becomes partly
endogenous and is no longer determined
excessively by exogenous factors - Regional system of political parties emerges
- Democratization of the process
- The end-state A multi-level and Poly-centric
system of governance / consortio or
condominio
47To conclude
- understanding and explanation in this field of
enquiry are best served not by a dominance of a
single accepted grand model or paradigm, but by
the simultaneous presence of antithetic and
conflictive ones which while they may converge
in certain aspects diverge in so many others.
If this sort of dialectic of incompleteness,
unevenness, and partial frustration propels
integration processes forward, why can not it do
the same for the scholarship that accompanies
them.
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