The Study of Regional Integration: Reflections on the Joy and Anguish of Pretheorizing

International Organization

Volumn 24, Issue 4, 1970, Pages 606-646

  Haas, Ernst B ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84971721230     PISSN: 00208183     EISSN: 15315088     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0020818300017495     Document Type: Article

References (17)

1. I consider the pioneering work in this field to be Karl W. Deutsch’s Political Community at the International Level: Problems of Definition and Measurement (Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday & Co., 1954). Deutsch raised all the major questions and introduced many of the concepts that still preoccupy and guide the research effort.
2. For an identification of highly or closely linked national polities with the notion of “integrated international system” see Michael K. O’Leary, “Linkages Between Domestic and International Politics in Underdeveloped Nations,” in James Rosenau (ed.), Linkage Politics: Essays on the Convergence of National and International Systems (New York: The Free Press, 1969), pp. 324–346. See also the argument of W. F. Hanrieder to the effect that regional integration movements provide a key way of isolating linkages. Wolfram F. Hanrieder, “Compatibility and Consensus: A Proposal for the Conceptual Linkage of External and Internal Dimensions of Foreign Policy,” American Political Science Review, December 1967 (Vol. 61, No. 4), pp. 972–973. This approach is rejected by James N. Rosenau, “Compatibility, Consensus, and an Emerging Political Science of Adaptation,” American Political Science Review, December 1967 (Vol. 61, No. 4), PP. 983–988. He argues that the questions addressed in integration frameworks of study cannot be combined with questions which hinge on adaptation. This is a more restrictive definition of adaptation and of integration than is necessary or desirable.
3. For a representative agenda of topics and articles illustrating the rubrics regionalism, regional co-operation, regional organization, regional systems, etc., see Joseph S. Nye, Jr. (ed.), International Regionalism: Readings (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1968).
4. This stab at a definition differs appreciably from the working definition of integration involving a shift in the loyalties of political actors with which I had worked previously. In abandoning the earlier definition I am expressing my agreement with the criticism Nye leveled at my own and at Deutsch’s definitions. See Joseph S. Nye, “Comparative Regional Integration: Concept and Measurement,” International Organization, Autumn 1968 (Vol. 22, No. 4), pp. 856–858.
5. These definitions are too well known to require extensive recapitulation. For discussions see Amitai Etzioni, Political Unification: A Comparative Study of Leaders and Forces (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965), chapter 1; the process of “political unification” is described in chapter 2. Philip E. Jacob and James V. Toscano (ed.), The integration of Political Communities (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1964), chapter 1; chapters 2 and 3 of this volume contain an admirable summary by Karl Deutsch zf the communications-transactions approach to integration. The federalist case is made in a sophisticated fashion by Dusan Sidjanski, Dimensions europeennes de la science politique: Questions méthodologiques et programme de recherches (Paris: Librairie generate de droit et de jurisprudence, 1963).
6. Philippe C. Schmitter, “La dinámica de contradicciones y la conduccidn de crisis en la integracidn centroamericana,” Revista de la integracion, November 1969 (No. 5), pp. 140–147, offers the notion of self-encapsulation which highlights the problem of identifying organizational success with progressive integration.
7. Leonard Binder, “The Middle East as a Subordinate International System,” World Politics, April 1958 (Vol. 10, No. 3), pp. 408–429. Michel Brecher, “International Relations and Asian Studies: The Subordinate State System of Southern Asia,” World Politics, January 1963 (Vol. 15, No. 2), pp. 213- 235.
8. This is shown in Bruce M. Russett, International Regions and the International System: A Study in Political Ecology (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1967). See the comment on such treatments of regionalism in Oran R. Young, “Professor Russett: Industrious Tailor to, a Naked Emperor,” World Politics, April 1969 (Vol. 2i, No. 3), pp. 486–511
9. This distinction was first clearly elaborated by Schmitter in the article cited in footnote 7. It may be observed also in Africa and in Eastern Europe. For a European example see Robert L. Pfaltzgraff and James L. Deghand, “European Technological Collaboration: The Experience of the European Launcher Development Organization (ELDO)” Journal of Common Market Studies, September 1968, (Vol. 7, No 1), pp. 22–34.
10. Paul Taylor, “Concept of Community and the European Integration Process,” Journal Common Market Studies, December 1968 (Vol. 7, No. 2), pp. 83–101. This argument misses the essential distinctions between ends and means and between activist/actor and theorist/observer. To illustrate: Jean Mon- net and Walter Hallstein are “federalists” in the sense that they hope to create a united Europe with more or less federal institutions; they are “functionalists” in the sense that they do not believe in constitutional conventions and elaborate institutional schemes because they prefer to initiate common policies and arouse new client groups which will eventually result in a federal regime. Federalist theorists believe in the federal end but may be willing to use functional means; federalist activists despise the recourse to functional means. Neo-functionalist theorists are concerned with the end postulated by the actors only to the extent that they are preoccupied with understanding why and how actual integrative outcomes occur. Neo-functional theory and federal theory, therefore, are by no means similar.
11. As examples of ideological federalists we cite the names of Denis de Rougemont, Hans Nord, Henri Brugmans. See also Alexandre Marc, Europe: Terre decisive (Paris: La Colombe, 1959). Another group of federal activists, in disappointment, has turned to a species of neo-functionalism for ideological sustenance; see Bino Olivi, L'Europa difficile (Milan: Edizioni di Communita, 1964), and Altiero Spinelli, The Eurocrats: Conflict and Crisis in the European Community (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1968). A new twist is given to this complex relationship by the emergence of a young group of federalists anxious to work with functional institutions to achieve the radical democratization of European society. They publish the monthly journal Agenor.
12. See Karl W. Deutsch, and others, France, Germany and the Western Alliance: A Study of Elite Attitudes on European Integration and World Politics (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1967), especially p. 218.
13. Karl Kaiser, “The U.S. and the EEC in the Atlantic System: The Problem of Theory, Journal of’ Common Market Studies, June 1967 (Vol. 5, No. 1), pp. 388 – 425, and Karl Kaiser, “The Interaction of Regional Subsystems: Some Preliminary Notes on Recurrent Patterns and the Role of Superpowers,” World Politics, October 1968 (Vol. 21, No. 1), pp. 84–107. See Etzioni, pp. 44–50, for a related treatment of “external elites.” Robert E. Denham, “The Role of the U.S. as an External Actor in the Integration of Latin America,” Journal of Common Market Studies, March 1969 (Vol. 7, No. 3), pp. 199–216. Nils Andren, “Nordic Integration,” Cooperation and Conflict, 1967 (Vol. r), pp. 1–25
14. For the classic statements of this position see Stanley Hoffmann, “Discord in Community: The North Atlantic Area as a Partial International System,” International Organization, Summer 1963 (Vol. 17, No. 3), pp. 521—549, and Stanley Hoffmann, “Obstinate or Obsolete? The Fate of the Nation-State and the Case of Western Europe,” Daedalus, Summer 1966 (Vol. 95, Nos. 3–4), pp. 862–916. Hansen treats the exogenous variable in this fashion, considering it the most “compelling” of all and using it as the most salient for predicting a reasonably rosy future for economic unions of less developed countries. He also explicitly accepts the dichotomy of “high” versus “low” politics, treating economic welfare issues in the third world as an instance of “high” politics. Hansen, World Politics, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 268–271, 246–250.
15. Illustrative of this practice is the massive work by Robert R. Bowie and Carl J. Friedrich (ed.), Studies in Federalism (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1954), which contains research and theorizing done on behalf of the then functioning European ad hoc Parliamentary Assembly.
16. Paul Taylor, “Concept of Community and the European Integration Process,” Journal Common Market Studies, December 1968 (Vol. 7, No. 2), pp. 83–101. This argument misses the essential distinctions between ends and means and between activist/actor and theorist/observer. To illustrate: Jean Mon- net and Walter Hallstein are “federalists” in the sense that they hope to create a united Europe with more or less federal institutions; they are “functionalists” in the sense that they do not believe in constitutional conventions and elaborate institutional schemes because they prefer to initiate common policies and arouse new client groups which will eventually result in a federal regime. Federalist theorists believe in the federal end but may be willing to use functional means; federalist activists despise the recourse to functional means. Neo-functionalist theorists are concerned with the end postulated by the actors only to the extent that they are preoccupied with understanding why and how actual integrative outcomes occur. Neo-functional theory and federal theory, therefore, are by no means similar.
17. See Karl W. Deutsch, and others, France, Germany and the Western Alliance: A Study of Elite Attitudes on European Integration and World Politics (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1967), especially p. 218