Themes in European Integration History

1
Themes in European Integration History

• Lecture course 3 November 15 December 2006
• Juhana Aunesluoma
• University Lecturer in Political History
• University of Helsinki
• course pages www.valt.helsinki.fi/blogs/jauneslu/e
  uhistory.htm

2
History and theory

• history-averse social scientists
• theory-averse historians
• integration studies
• a meeting point of social scientists who take
  history seriously, and historians who take theory
  seriously
• integration has in general attracted
  theoretically oriented scholarship
• the historians task in integration studies?

3
Todays lecture

• course programme and course work
• reading list, compensations, examination etc.
• 3 sc and 5 sc options (optional essay seminar)
• historians and EU history
• an introduction to historiography
• scholarly debates over EU history
• introduction to the themes dealt with in
  subsequent lectures

4
Course programme

• 3 November 1. lecture course programme and
  course work, reading list, exam and assessment
  Introduction to EU history scholarship European
  integration and historical writing, outline of
  main debates.
• 10 November 2. lecture European reconstruction
  and the origins of European integration, the
  Marshall plan -debate
• 17 November 3. lecture Integration as a rescue
  of the nation state? The Milward-controversy in
  EU history.
• 24 November 4. lecture The uniqueness of EU
  integration? History, grand theory and the
  Moravcsik-controversy in EU history.
• 1 December 5. lecture Integration and the
  international system. New Cold War history and EU
  history.
• 8 December 6. lecture Finland's road into the
  European Union. Debating Finland's place in
  Europe.
• 15 December EXAM

5
Course work

• all instruction and discussion is in English
• written work can be submitted in English, Finnish
  or Swedish
• 3 credits (2. period)
• lectures (6 x 2h)
• compulsory reading (8 texts, 227 pages)
• final exam (lectures reading)
• 5 credits (2.-3. periods)
• all above
• 15 000 character essay
• essay seminar (6 x 2h) 16.1.27.2.2007
• oral presentation
• opening of discussion on one other paper
• active participation in discussion

6
Reading list

• Desmond Dinan, The Historiography of European
  Integration, in Desmond Dinan (ed.), Origins and
  Evolution of the European Union, 297324.
• Michael J. Hogan, American Marshall Planners and
  the Search for a European Neocapitalism, The
  American Historical Review, Vol. 90, No. 1.
  (Feb., 1985), 4472.
• Alan S. Milward, The Reconstruction of Western
  Europe, in Charles S. Maier (ed.), The Cold War
  in Europe. Era of a Divided Continent (1991),
  241269.
• Geir Lundestad, Empire by invitation in the
  American Century, Diplomatic History, Vol 23, No
  2 (Spring 1999), 189217.
• Alan S. Milward Vibeke Sorensen,
  Interdependence or integration? A national
  choice. Chapter 1 in the book Alan S. Milward et
  al (ed.) The Frontier of National Sovereignty.
  History and theory 19451992 (1993, 1994), 132.
• Alan S. Milward, The lives and teachings of the
  European saints. Chapter 6 in the book The
  European Rescue of the Nation-State (1992, 2000),
  318344.
• Andrew Moravcsik, Negotiating the Single
  European Act National Interests and Conventional
  Statecraft in the European Community,
  International Organization, Vol 45, No 1 (Winter
  1991), 1956.
• Paavonen, Tapani, From Isolation to the Core
  Finlands Position towards European Integration,
  196095, Journal of European Integration History
  7 (2001) 1, 5375.

7
Historians study of integration

• how and why did the EC come about?
• what have been the driving forces behind
  integration?
• why does it survive?
• why was European reconstruction so successful
  after 1945?
• how did the Franco-German partnership come about?
• the significance of particular actors
• the significance of particular events and phases
  in integration
• histories of negotiations, decision-making,
  personalities history of political behaviour and
  diplomatic history
• economic history integration and convergence

8
Phases in EU history (P. Taylor)

• the setting up of the institutions and the logic
  of the founding agreements
• the crisis in 1965 and the resulting
  institutional changes
• the proposals of the Hague Conference in 1969 and
  their outcome in the early 1970s
• the new intergovernmentalism and the Paris Summit
  of December 1974
• the new phase of integration starting in 1984
  the progress towards the Maastricht Treaty
• the Maastricht Treaty and its context
• ...?
• ... enlargement 2004
• ... the failure of the Constitutional Treaty in
  2005
• ...?

9
The Federalist narrative

• dominating interpretation from 1940s to 1970s
• origins in the pre war Pan-European and
  federalist movements
• grew in strength during and immediately after the
  war
• achievements and opportunities lost in
  integration
• Hague Congress 1948, EDC 1954
• the direct political uses of the narrative
• a moral justification for integration as a
  greater cause
• the evils of intergovernmentalism
• federalist rhetoric to give direction to
  integration
• christian ideals, western christian civilization
• the legends of great men, European saints (A.
  Milward)
• Walter Lipgens

10
Contemporary commentary and analysis

• journalists, writers, scholars, ex-diplomats or
  civil servants
• aim was to understand specific developments,
  events, phases and processes in European politics
  and integration
• analyses written immediately after or during the
  events
• for example the empty chair crisis, Britains
  first application etc.
• aim to see behind the rhetoric and at the actors
  preferences and interests
• what is really happening in Europe?
• critical views about the federalist explanations
• International Organization, Journal of Common
  Market Studies, Foreign Affairs
• Miriam Camps, Uwe Kitzinger, F. Roy Willis

11
Neo-functionalists

• a more realistic view on the process of
  integration
• a theory of regional integration
• spill-over effect
• no economic determinism
• likely changes in the behaviour of governments
• unintended consequenses
• integration a sporadic and conflictual process
• the role of non-state actors
• the secretariat, interest groups and social
  movements providing the dynamic of integration
• states important actors
• cold war theories (A. Milward)
• Ernst Haas, Leon S. Lindberg, Joseph S. Nye,
  Philippe Schmitter

12
Alan Milward

• an economic historian by background
• the impossibility to separate politics from
  economics and economics from politics
• strong criticism towards both the federalist and
  neofunctionalist views
• state-centric explanation
• integration driven by national economic and
  social interests
• the reassertion of the state post-1945 (welfare,
  economic security)
• the nation state and the supranation are mutually
  reinforcing
• supranational solutions relatively few
• interpretation was based on a greater access to
  national and other archives since the late 1970s

13
Andrew Moravcsik

• historical case studies built on empirical
  evidence
• state-centric view
• focus on commercial interests
• they determined preferences
• big member states
• theory of liberal intergovernmentalism
• bargaining between states
• interests of states are not fixed
• national preference formation and the strategic
  interaction of states in the bargaining process
• national and transnational coalitions

14
Integration and international history

• cold war history
• east-west relations
• intra-west relations, trans-atlantic relations
• the influence of cold war security issues on
  Western Europe
• the US role in European integration
• long term evolution of the European states and
  international system
• the rules of the game in Europe
• the evolution and dissolution of different
  historical orders or regimes in Europe
• the German question
• the international in European politics
• integration and international organisation
• the study of the nature of the international
  systems itself
• European history as a test case for other regions

15
Recent trends

• neo-functionalist revisionists
• the SEA/Maastricht/enlargement/EMU boost
• identities and identity politics
• core and peripheral identities, elites - people,
  different social and political groups
• nationally constructed integration narratives
• still attract considerable interest
• the process of integration a struggle between the
  market and the state
• John Gillingham (2003)
• integration and globalisation
• European integration and new global history

16
Conclusion

• history and theory closely entwined in
  integration studies
• how the present informs the past
• strong influence of the Milwardian
  interpretation, established in the 1990s
• new perspectives allegiance, legitimacy,
  identities
• the challenge of non-nationally constructed
  narratives, putting the state in size

17
Further reading(not on the reading list)

• Martin J. Dedman, The Origins and Development of
  the European Union 1945-95 (1996)
• Paul Taylor, The European Union in the 1990s
  (1996)
• Michelle Cini Angela Bourne, Palgrave Advances
  in European Union (2005)
• and there especially the article by Wolfram
  Kaiser on EU historiography
• Antje Wiener Thomas Diez, European Integration
  Theory (2003)