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History and Theory of European Integration

Explore the history and theory of European integration through critiques of Intergovernmentalism and Neofunctionalism, examining the enduring qualities of nationalism, statehood, and the failure of unification movements. Delve into the factors influencing the international system's diversity and the counterarguments surrounding self-determination principles. Analyze the logic of diversity versus integration and the achievements and limitations of the functional method in the European Union context.

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History and Theory of European Integration

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  1. History and Theory of European Integration Marina V. Larionova JEAN MONNET European Module

  2. Lecture 4 The Intergovernmentalist backlash Critiques and contemplations of Neofunctionalism JEAN MONNET European Module

  3. Readings 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 JEAN MONNET European Module

  4. Competing or complementary approaches? • Socio political and academic contexts • Scientific progress • Ontological and epistemological foundations • Methodology • Scope • Purpose • Perspective JEAN MONNET European Module

  5. Functionsof 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 JEAN MONNET European Module

  6. Area • Polity: political community and its institutions • Examples, analyzing the 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 JEAN MONNET European Module

  7. Intergovernmental paradigmWhy? Enduring qualities of nationalism and statehood advanced arguments about state-centrism in the process of integration JEAN MONNET European Module

  8. Neofunctionlism as the theory of integration JEAN MONNET European Module

  9. Obstinate or Obsolete? The Fate of the Nation State and the Case of Western Europe(Stanley Hoffmann, 1966) JEAN MONNET European Module

  10. Foundations for 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 JEAN MONNET European Module

  11. Factors of unification movement failure JEAN MONNET European Module

  12. 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 Centrifugal tendencies versus convergency of interests JEAN MONNET European Module

  13. Counterargument Why must it be a diversity of nations, not a diversity of regions; federations, or “federating” blocks? JEAN MONNET European Module

  14. Answer? • Legitimacy of the self determination principle. • Newness of many of the nation states and the nationalist upsurge accompanying the process. JEAN MONNET European Module

  15. But • 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? JEAN MONNET European Module

  16. Further 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. • 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; • the only method left for unification is the national “self abdication”. JEAN MONNET European Module

  17. Factors of unification experiment failure analysis of the functional method limitations continued The Logic of Diversity versus the Logic of Integration JEAN MONNET European Module

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  20. Two integration achievements proving the logic of diversity wrong: • European Common Foreign and Security Policy • Economic and Monetary union JEAN MONNET European Module

  21. Crucial factors of the community method successanalysis of the functional method limitations continued • Agreement on the Goals of Integration • Agreement on the Method of Integration • Gamble on the Outcomes of Integration JEAN MONNET European Module

  22. Agreement on the Goals of Integration JEAN MONNET European Module

  23. Agreement on the Method of integration JEAN MONNET European Module

  24. Gamble on the results of integration JEAN MONNET European Module

  25. 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 JEAN MONNET European Module

  26. Sum up of Hoffmann’s generalizations • The state is still the major political community • The success of federalism would be a tribute to the durability of the nation state; its failure so far is due 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 • 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 JEAN MONNET European Module

  27. Lessons JEAN MONNET European Module

  28. Limits of the functional method (intergovernmental view) • Sidelining the centrality of the state actors and persistence of supranationalist sentiments • Denying prevalence of traditional methods of intergovernmental bargaining • Underestimation of the “conflicts over value 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 JEAN MONNET European Module

  29. Marxists’ contemplation of neofunctionalism JEAN MONNET European Module

  30. Ernst Mandel 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 politicalideology as well as an institutional configuration designed to meet the needs of capitalism. JEAN MONNET European Module

  31. Stuart Holland Stuart Holland (1980) UnCommon Market: Capital, Class and Power in the European community (London: Macmillan) EC – the product and the vehicle for capital concentration in Europe. “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 • Role of the elites of a given class structure • Alliance of sections of state and key strata of capital JEAN MONNET European Module

  32. Peter 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. JEAN MONNET European Module

  33. Neo 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) JEAN MONNET European Module

  34. Objectives • Development of a more sophisticated theory and methodology • Acceleration of comparative regional integration analysis JEAN MONNET European Module

  35. Haas’s contemplation of neofunctionalist pretheory as “obsolescent” • Limited capacity for the theory transferability because 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 JEAN MONNET European Module

  36. The challenge of conceptualizing the EC as a complex political system in the global world order Difficulties of definition Donal 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”. JEAN MONNET European Module

  37. Concordance systemExplaining Community as a Network • A forum for positive sum interaction • A complex entity where nation states remained the primary actors, bur where arenas of political action operated at several levels and levels of influence varied from one issue area to another • Distinctive attitudinal environment of prevailing pragmatism: • Bargaining aimed at construction of convergent goals • Actors’ attention to international interdependence • Mutual sensitivity and responsiveness JEAN MONNET European Module

  38. Lindberg, L.N. and Scheingold, S.A. (1970) Europe’s Would be Polity: Patterns of Change in the European Community (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall). JEAN MONNET European Module

  39. Explaining 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 JEAN MONNET European Module

  40. Elements of the model: • Outcomes – decisions enhancing or decreasing the functional scope and institutional capacity of the system • 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 JEAN MONNET European Module

  41. Explaining 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?) JEAN MONNET European Module

  42. From 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. JEAN MONNET European Module

  43. From 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 JEAN MONNET European Module

  44. The concept of interdependence – a route out of n=1 conundrum? JEAN MONNET European Module

  45. Neo-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 transformtive 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 JEAN MONNET European Module

  46. Multi-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.” JEAN MONNET European Module

  47. Poli-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”. JEAN MONNET European Module

  48. More than “thirty years later”Critical 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 JEAN MONNET European Module

  49. Transformative 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 JEAN MONNET European Module

  50. Transformative cycle • Elite values more focused on regional symbols and loyalties, while the national one 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” JEAN MONNET European Module

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