Better the devil you know? Synthetic and confederal understandings of European unification

West European Politics

Volumn 21, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 1-18

  Warleigh, Alexander ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

INTERNATIONAL RELATION; MAASTRICHT TREATY; REGIONAL POLITICS; REGIONALISATION; UNIFICATION PROCESS;

EUROPE;

EID: 0031666018     PISSN: 01402382     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01402389808425255     Document Type: Article

References (56)

1. See, for example, T. Risse-Kappen, 'Exploring the Nature of the Beast: International Relations Theory and Comparative Analysis Meet the EU', Journal of Common Market Studies 34/1 (March 1996) pp.53-80; S. Hix, 'The Study of the European Community: The Challenge to Comparative Polities', West European Politics 17/1 (Jan. 1994) pp.1-30; S. Bulmer, 'The Governance of the EU: A New Institutionalist Approach', Journal of Public Policy 13/4 (1993) pp.423-44; A. Sbragia, 'Thinking About the European Future: The Uses of Comparison', in idem (ed.) Europolilics-Institutions and Policy Making in the 'New' European Community (Washington DC: Brookings 1992).
2. The terms 'EU' and 'the Union' are used throughout this article to denote all the incarnations of the European Union. This has been done for reasons of clarity and is not meant to imply a disregard for historical accuracy!
3. M. Forsyth, Unions of States: The Theory and Practice of Confederation (Leicester: Leicester UP 1981) p.6.
4. Alternative views of confederal theory are to be found. P. Kropotkin uses it as part of his anarchist manifesto Mutual Aid (London: Freedom Press 1987). He applies it to the Leagues of Free Cities which sprang up in Europe in the Middle Ages, such as Hansa. This usage is
5. also invoked by Murray Bookchin who proceeds to employ it as the basis of a blueprint for an ecologically sound society which centres on powerful municipalities bound to each other in a loose confederation. See M. Bookchin, Urbanization Without Cities - The Rise and Decline of Citizenship (NY: Black Rose Books 1992).
6. The path from confederation to federation is taken if the member states choose to create a closer union for purposes of stability or to ensure the successful meeting of common goals which the confederal structure has proved too weak to guarantee. At that stage, the member states would invest the majority of their powers in independent supranational institutions rather than maintain collective control.
7. The use of the term 'neo-realism' might be deemed controversial as the term 'intergovemmentalism' is currently more widespread. However the latter term more properly describes a process of decision making rather than a theory of it. Moreover, revisions of classic realism have consistently been labelled in this way even though scholars within the tradition may find the term unhelpful. Keohane, for example, prefers the term 'neo-liberal institutionalist'; Moravcsik calls himself a 'liberal intergovemmentalist'. The term 'neorealist' is thus used here to denote members of a group of scholars who share revisionist realism as a basic philosophy; 'neo-realism' refers to their thought.
8. For a full account of neo-functionalist theory, it is necessary to delve into Ernst Haas' texts Beyond the Nation State (Stanford UP 1964) and The Uniting of Europe (ibid. 1968). L. Lindberg and S. Scheingold, Regional Integration (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1971 ) is an excellent guide to the revision of the theory after the de Gaulle crisis. The best secondary source is probably still to be found in C. Pentland, International Theory and European Integration (London: Faber 1973), although several Readers in integration theory are due to be published soon and Michael O'NeilPs The Politics of European Integration (London: Routledge 1996) covers much useful ground.
9. E Haas, The Obsolescence of Regional Integration Theory (Berkeley, CA: U. of California Press 1975).
10. S. Hoffmann, Duties Beyond Borders (NY: Syracuse UP 1981).
11. P. Taylor, The Limits of European Integration (Beckenham: Croom Helm 1983).
12. W. Sandholtz and J. Zysman, '1992: Recasting the European Bargain', World Politics 42/1 (1989) pp. 95-126
13. G. Ross, Jacques Delors and European Integration (Cambridge: Polity Press 1995).
14. See for example, P. Taylor, International Organisation in the Modem World (London: Pinter 1993); A. Moravcsik, 'Preferences and Power in the European Community: A Liberal Intergovemmentalist Approach', Journal of Common Market Studies 31/4 (Dec. 1993)pp.19-56
15. See R. Keohane and S. Hoffmann, 'Institutional Change in Europe in the 1980s', hi idem, (eds.) The New European Community: Decision Making and Institutional Change (Oxford: Westview Press 1991); J. Tranholm-Mikkelsen, 'Neo-functionalism: Obstinate or Obsolete? A Reappraisal in the Light of the New Dynamism of the EC', Millennium 20/1 (1991) pp.1-22.
16. See F. McGowan and H. Wallace, 'Towards a European Regulatory State', Journal of European Public Policy 3/4 (1993) pp.560-76.
17. E. Haas, 'The Study of Regional Integration - The Joy and Anguish of Pre-Theorising', International Organization 24 (1970) pp.607-46. p.607.
18. Taylor (note 13); D. Chryssochoou, 'Democracy and Symbiosis in the EU: Towards a Confedeacute;ral Consociation?', West European Politics 17/4 (Oct. 1994) pp.1-14.
19. See for example, Sbragia (note 1); F Scharpf, 'The Joint Decision Trap-Lessons From German Federalism and European Integration', Public Administration 66/3 (Autumn 1988) pp.239-78.
20. Ross (note 12).
21. E. Wistrich, After 1992: The United States of Europe (London: Routledge 1991).
22. T. Kühn, The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change (U. of Chicago Press 1977).
23. Tranholm-Mikkelsen (note 14).
24. H. Wallace and W. Wallace (eds.), Policy Making in the European Union (Oxford: OUP 1996).
25. J. Nye, 'Comparing Common Markets: A Revised Neo-functionalist Model', in Lindberg and Scheingold (note 7).
26. Tranholm-Mikkelsen (note 14) p.4.
27. Keohane and Hoffmann (note 14) p.22.
28. J. Grieco, 'The Maastricht Treaty, Economic and Monetary Union, and the Neo-rralist Research Programme', Review of International Studies 21 (1995) pp.21-40.
29. A. Moravcsik, 'Idealism and Interest in the EuropeanCommunity: The Case of the French Referendum', French Politics and Society 11/1 (1993) pp.45-S6
30. D.Puchala, 'Of Blind Men, Elephants and International Integration", Journal of Common Market Studies 10/3 (Sept, 1972) pp.267-84.
31. B. Bueno de Mesquita and F. Stokman (eds.) European Community Decision Making: Models, Applications and Comparisons (New Haven, CT: Yale UP 1994).
32. S. Andersen and K. Eliassen (eds.) Making Policy in Europe: The Europeification of National Policy Making (London: Sage 1993).
33. A. Milward, The European Rescue of the Nation State (London: Routledge 1994).
34. J. Peterson, 'Decision Making in the European Union -Towards a Framework for Analysis', Journal of European Public Policy 2/1 ( 1995) pp.69-94.
35. C. Stefanou, 'European Integration Theory: Micro-Macro Theories, Spheres of Focus and Synthetic Theories', Paper to UACES Research Conference, University of Birmingham, 18-19 Sept 1995.
36. The use of the label 'political systems' to denote theorists of the EU from outside the IR paradigm is advocated by Michelle Cini because it has a greater inclusive capacity than 'comparative polities'. This is particularly helpful given the current diversity of thought on the Union, and I am grateful to Dr Cini for pointing this out to me.
37. Scharpf (note 18); for a later view, see F, Scharpf, 'Community and Autonomy: Multi-level Policy Making in the EU', Journal of European Public Policy 1/2 (1994) pp.219-42.
38. E. Kirchner, Decision Making in the European Community -The Council Presidency and European Integration (Manchester UP 1992).
39. Sbragia(note 1).
40. Sbragia lists these characteristics as the reconciliation of interests in the political system of various territorially defined groups as well as functional interest groups, a mixture of high and low politics within the system, the existence of powerful actors at the top level of the system, the paramountcy of federal (here, EU) law, the formal equality of component states, and the inability to achieve hegemony within the system.
41. See inter alia L. Hooghe and M. Keating, 'The Politics of European Union Regional Policy', Journal of European Public Policy 1/3 (1994) pp.3 67-93.
42. See G. Marks, 'Structural Policy in the EC', in Sbragia (ed. (note 1); L. Hooghe (ed.), Cohesion Policy and European Integration (Oxford: OUP 1996).
43. W. Wallace, The Transformation of Western Europe (London: Pinter 1990).
44. Taylor(note 13).
45. On this issue, see Peterson (note 3 5).
46. Taylor(note 13)p.93.
47. Puchala(note31)p.276.
48. See Chryssochoou (note 17).
49. On the need for avoiding determinism in EU theory, see G. Schneider and L. Cedermann, 'Changes of Tide in European Integration', International Organization 48/4 (1994) pp.633-63.
50. A. Hurrell and A. Menon, 'Politics like Any Other? Comparative Politics, International relations and the Study of the EU', West European Politics 19/2 (April 1996) pp.386-402.
51. A. Moravcsik, 'Preferences and Power in the European Community: A Liberal Intergovernmentalist Approach', Journal of Common Market Studies 31/4 (Dec. 1993) pp.473-524.
52. A. Moravcsik, 'Negotiating the Single European Act: National Interests and Conventional Statecraft in the European Community', International Organization 45/1 (1991) pp.15-56.
53. See Pentland (note 7).
54. See Bulmer (note 1); J. Andersen, 'The State of the (European) Union: From the Single Market to Maastricht, From Singular Events to General Theories', World Politics 47 (April 1995)pp.441-65
55. J. Ohrgaard, 'Less than Supranational, More than Intergovernmental: European Political Cooperation and the Dynamics oflntergovemmental Integration', Millennium 26/1 (1997) pp. 1-29.
56. See S. Bulmer, 'The European Council and The Council of the European Union-Shapers of a European Confederation', Publius 26/4 (1996) pp.17-42 for such an analysis. According to Bulmer, the EU is a partnership of institutions, at the apex of which are the two Councils, whose task is to build consensus and navigate the centripetal and centrifugal squalls in order to produce policy outcomes.