HISTORY AND POLITICS OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION:
Details on the exams:
POLH1035
POLH1036
POLH1038

. The main debates on the origins, developments, and nature of European integration
. A complex phenomenon
. Various, contending interpretations of this phenomenon

• 2 books, 4 ECTS
• Two texts in total :
• 1.
Kaiser, Wolfram & Varsori, Antonio (eds.): European
Union History. Themes and Debates (Palgrave Macmillan,
2010) All the book
• 2.
Dinan, Desmond (ed.): Origins and Evolution of the
European Union (The New European Union Series,
Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 297-324 .
• 3.
Milward, Alan: The European Rescue of the Nation
State (Routledge, London, 2nd revised edition, 2000), pp.
318-344.

• History-averse social scientists; theory-averse historians …
• But European integration, as a complex phenomenon, necessarily brings together social scientists who take history seriously, and historians who take theory seriously
• Integration has in general attracted theoretically oriented scholarship
• The historian’s task in integration studies?

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How and why did the EC come about?
What have been the driving forces behind integration?
Why did it survive?
Why was European reconstruction so successful after 1945?
How did the Franco-German partnership come about?
The significance of particular actors (leaders?)
The significance of particular events and phases in integration
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Histories of negotiations, decision-making, personalities: history of political behaviour, political and diplomatic history
Economic history: integration and convergence
• Need for theories is obvious …

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The 1950s: the setting up of the institutions and the logic of the founding agreements
The 1960s: the crisis in 1965 and the resulting institutional changes
The 1970s: 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 1980s: the new phase of integration starting in 1984: the progress towards the Maastricht Treaty
• The 1990s: the Maastricht Treaty, the Eurozone
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• A new phase?
Enlargement 2004, failure of the Constitutional Treaty in 2005
Treaty of Lisbon 2008-2009
Never-ending state of crisis: 2008…

• Narratives as “stories on History”
• Interpretations as contending views on the way things went and why they went that way
• Often, agreement on the events but differences in interpretations
• The main evolution: from Walter Lipgens to Andrew
Moravcsik, from the heroic federal narrative to a scientific appraisal of what happened and why
• Differences in national approaches and the barrier of language?
• English-language literature, French literature, German literature
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• Most of what we will see is in English
Differences, yet agreements on the main points

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What Milward denounces in his book (the livs and teachings of the European saints, p. 318)
Dominating interpretation from the 1940s to the 1970s, still dominant in some quarters
Walter Lipgens, Richard Mayne, Jean Monnet’s memoirs
The European integration finds its origins in the works of great men looking beyond their nations towards a European ideal where the community of Europe would win over national differences.
Finds the origins of European integration in the pre war Pan-
European and federalist movements. A political process based on ideals: Christian ideals, critic of the nation-state
• Recently, demands more efficiency in managing Europe, and thus more federalism
A political narrative:
• Moral justification for integration as a greater cause; critic of the evils of intergovernmentalism; federalist rhetoric; praises achievemnts and loathes failures (Hague Congress 1948, EDC 1954)

• An evolution of the federalist narrative, a more realistic view on the process of integration
• Spill-over effect
• no economic determinism; political changes in the behaviour of governments
• Integration as a sporadic and conflictual process, a war waged at state and non-state level, in economy, culture and politics
• The role of non-state actors
• Interest groups and social movements providing the dynamic of integration
• Ernst Haas, Leon S. Lindberg, Joseph S. Nye,
Philippe Schmitter

• D. Dinan
: the ”Milwardian onslaught”:
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• An economic historian by trade, specialist of Britain’s economic history
The Reconstruction of Western Europe 1945
–51
,1984
• Change in the conditions of the game: greater access to national and other archives since the late 1970s (the 30 years
’ rule: 1980
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->1950)
Postulates the impossibility to separate politics from economics and economics from politics
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Strong criticism towards both the federalist and neofunctionalist views. Doubts influence of ideas and societal movements, ridicules the cult of leaders and exceptional men
A state-centric explanation
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• The nation-state in 1945
Integration driven by national economic and social interests, amongst them mostly for Western
European the salvation of welfare-state systems and the reaffirmation of the state’s legitimacy
• The nation state and the supranation are mutually reinforcing
• Supranational solutions relatively few, a choice to be made, a choice made in favor of integration over simple cooperation
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European integration as the “ arm of the European nation-states to realize things that were out of their reach ”
Sources, primacy of national interests, mutual dependence of the nation-state with the supranational: “ nation states choose to surrender sovereignty in a supranational entity when it suited them to go beyond traditional interdependence ”

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European integration in Cold war history
• east-west relations
• intra-west relations, trans-atlantic relations
• the influence of cold war security issues on Western Europe
• Is the EU the daughter of the Cold War? Can it survive the Cold War?
• the role of the US in European integration: from cross-fertilization to hostility?
Long term evolution of the European states and international system
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• the ’rules of the game’ in Europe the evolution and dissolution of different historical ’orders’ or regimes in Europe
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• the German question the inter national 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

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Traditionalists (Gillingham, Schwabe more moderate, Hogan): take political factors and US influence for the decisive factor of European integration.
• SCHWABE Klaus, « The United States, Western
Security and European Integration (19451963) », in
DUMOULIN Michel, DUCHENNE Geneviève (dir.),
L'Union européenne et les États-Unis , Bruxelles, Peter
Lang, 2003.
• Dinan: European integration largely driven by national interests and American influence.

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• neo-functionalist revisionists
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• The role of social movements
The SEA/Maastricht/enlargement/EMU boost
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• Identities and identity politics
• Core and peripheral identities, elites - people, different social and political groups
Nationally constructed integration narratives
The process of integration as a struggle between the market and the state
• John Gillingham (2003)
Integration and globalisation
• European integration and new global history
Multilevel, the role of common institutions…
From the process to the nature of the European institutions and ”europeanization”: political science rediscovers history

• history and theory closely entwined in integration studies
• The present informs the past
• strong influence of the Milwardian interpretation, established in the 1990s
• new perspectives: allegiance, legitimacy, identities …
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• the challenge of non-nationally constructed narratives, putting the state in size
The relevance of the historian’s ethos scripted by
Milward: sources, phenomena , …

. The European ideology
. The role and the emergence of nation-states
. The debate on the nature of Europe
. Political, economic, ideological projects before 1945
. European identity?

• 2 books, 4 ECTS
• 1.
Pagden, A., The Idea of Europe, From Antiquity to the
European Union (Cambridge University Press, 2002)
• 2.
Hobsbawm, Eric: Nations and Nationalism since 1780
(Cambridge University Press, 1990)
• 3.
Mikkeli, Heikki: Europe as An Idea and An Identity
(London and New York: Macmillan and St. Martin's Press
1998)

• Difficult to draw one main theme of the book
• Main argument mostly spelled in Pagden ’ s introduction and part 1
• The rest are case studies
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Conceptualizing a continent:
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• A series of essays on various conceptualizations of ” Europe ” as a cultural and political notion
Identity, Europe, nations…
• Europe as a blurry geographical concept, and an even blurrier intellectual notion
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The emergence of the state, the link of the state with democratization, the fears of losing the state
Elements of definition: geography, habits, government, etc…
The question of what will come next?
• Ernest Renan: After the nationstate will come a confederation of Europe…
• States are under stress from under (regional identities), and above (the EU being one form of post-1945 processes that have challenged the nation-state)
The role of these ideas in the post-1945 process of European integration?
• Little to none…
• While solving the German problem, the idea of creating Europe as a compelling alternative to warmongering states

• A difficult book, scattered between different authors
• Pagden’s introduction and Part 1: tying in the contributions, conceptualizing Europe
• Interesting cases good for precise questions:
• Part 2: Some Europes and their History
• Part 8: European Nationalism and European Union
• 10, 12, 13: Muslims, Germans and European Identity,
Economic Federalism

• Eric Hobsbawm:
• Renown British scholar: 20th century, the invention of tradition, etc…
• Marxist, thus quoting for example Stalin ’ s Marxism and the National and
Colonial Question , mostly as an influence in the debates. Also, insistence on class consciousness as a source of nation-state building. A vocabulary, mostly.
Most of his interpretations on the development of nationalism are canon.
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What is a nation? How identities are built around the nation?
• An historical part to the book: the development of nation-states in Europe:
• From proto-nationalism to the creation of nation-states
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• An analytical part: the nature of nationalism and nation-states
Against the “ objective definition ” of the states.
• Hobsbawm ’ s nation-state is a construct, a myth, not the result of an economic, ethnic, linguistic inevitability.
Criticizes the vision of the state as ” deeply rooted in the thoughts and behaviors of peoples ” (Something he sees for example in Benedict Anderson: Imagined
Communities )
• Hobsbawm ’ s states are constructs built by elites, propaganda systems propagated through narratives, myths, artifacts
Hobsbawm's nation-state is novel, artificial, eventually condemned, yet still very strong. It stands in the way of European integration.

• Especially 1-79, 2 first parts
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Evolution from patriotism (attachment to a place, proto-nationalism) towards nationalism and the nation-state
Nationalism as a construct, debunking “ objective ” definitions of the nation, the nation as an elite project

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• Two parts: Europe as an idea ; European Identity
A blurry idea, changing through time
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• Europe defines itself mostly against others
• Defining Europe against barbarians, Americans, etc …
The contours and evolutions of European identity
• The historical evolutions of visions of Europe
• The question of identification and definition
• The eternal dilemma of European identity
• David Michael Green, The Europeans (2007): European identity is second to national or local identity, but it exists. It is “ passionless ” , linked with concrete things. The Euro is the single strongest sign of this identity… Nobody would die for it, but it binds peoples.

• Part 1 especially
• The way the idea of Europe was used, defined
• The role of Christianity and religion
• The Enlightenment
• The role of nationalism, federalism
• Post-1945 European integration as the climax of this European integration?

. Europe ’ s economic development after 1945
. Basic economic concepts at stake in European integration
. Monetary Integration, Common Agricultural Policy
. The economic incentives behind European integration

• 1.
Eichengreen, Barry: The European Economy since
1945: Co-ordinated Capitalism and Beyond (Princeton
University Press, 2006/2008)
• 2.
Milward, Alan: The European Rescue of the Nationstate (Routledge, London, revised edition 2000) 3.
Kiran
Klaus Patel (ed.), Fertile Ground for Europe? The History of European Integration and the Common Agricultural
Policy since 1945 (Nomos, 2009)
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Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol, A Europe Made of Money.
The Emergence of the European Monetary System
(Cornell Uni Press, 2012)

• Economic history is the study of how economic phenomena evolved in time. Analysis in economic history is undertaken using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and by applying economic theory to historical situations.
• A mix of economic theory and historical research, with an emphasis on the latter:
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• Yale University economist Irving Fisher , 1933, 'Debt-Deflation Theory of Great Depressions' ( Econometrica , Vol.1, No.4: 337-338):
'The study […] may proceed in either of two ways. We may take as our unit for study an actual historical case of great disequilibrium, such as, say, the panic of 1873; or we may take as our unit for study any constituent tendency, such as, say, deflation, and discover its general laws, relations to, and combinations with, other tendencies. The former study revolves around events, or facts; the latter, around tendencies. The former is primarily economic history; the latter is primarily economic science.
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Economic history uses economic theories in an effort to understand the economic side of historical events.

• What economic incentives behind post-1945 European integration? What economic context? What steps, what phases?
• Economy as an incentive…
• European economic developments as a context
• The economic consequences of European integration: common policies, opening of markets, subsidies, etc.
• Long-term threads of European integration as an economic project: Prosperity (emphasis on economic growth), free trade inside Europe (construction of a European market), economic planning (controlled change)
• Direction: the strengthening of economic integration has been continuous, the EU being mostly an economic reality today

• The main steps of this project?
• The 1950s-1960s: prosperity, European integration, “ regulated capitalism ” , then crisis and the strengthening of the Common
Agricultural Policy
• The 1970s: ” stagflation ” , energy crisis, the European Monetary
System
• The 1980s: the hiatus of Keynesian economics ( “ the fashion passed… ” ), more harmonization in economic and monetary policy
• The importance of the choice by the French government in 1983-84 of a specific economic policy that allowed for a measure of economic integration
• Debates in the current days:
• The role of the Central Bank and the debate over the Stability pact
• Is budget discipline and a strong Euro the right method?
• The role of the EU in economic governance
• The link between social and economic
• Globalization-induced fears: the EU as the liberal monster? On the contrary, the EU as too dirigist?
• The Common Agricultural Policy

• The author
• George C. and Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and
Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley.
• Presented his argument already in a 1996 contribution:
• Institutions and economic growth, in Nick Crafts & Gianni Toniolo,
Economic Growth in Europe since 1945 , (Cambridge University Press)
• The main argument
• Institutions (states, but also other structural institutions) as motor of growth in the 1950s-1960s, then less in the 1970s-1980s.
• Coordinated capitalism in Western Europe: the role of states, compromises between employers and trade unions, controlled capitalism, “ neo-corporatist ” bargain (bargain at the level of states, bargain at the European level), the example of the US to follow
• European institutions facilitated postwar recovery in western
Europe during the 1950s and 1960s, with high growth. However, in the 1970s, the unsuitability of those same institutions for innovation was seen as creating a crisis of adjustment.

• Introduction and 2
• The basic argument, and the components of Eichengreen ’ s vision
• 3, 4, 6, 7
• Post-1945 situation in Europe, national cases, and the role of
European integration in this
• 12, 13
• The future of the European economy

• Federalism did not create “ Europe ” after the war. The states did it, for the sake of their own survival
• Post-war societies
• Post-war nation-states: new domestic bargains, the states stronger than ever …
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The example of Belgium
The example of England
Lives of the European saints…
• Spaak, Monnet, Schuman described as pragmatists eager before everything to bargain national interests in a novel, seemingly efficient way …
• My emphasis: The post-war nation-state, Belgium, Lives of the European saints

• Presentation of the CAP as a political and economic process
• The main argument:
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• From the very start, an important part of the process, driven by some nationstates: France, but also others (the Netherlands…).
A process started for economic reasons, each country reacting according to the patterns of its agriculture and the policy of its government in this domain
• Now, a critical assessment of the process: a financial burden, an outdated policy
• An ambiguous process, with Europe appearing at the same time as a support for rural regions and agricultural forces, and a threat (opening of markets, the feeling of a change in the ways of life, etc)
• The example of Finland: farmers against the EU accession because of economic risks, apart from symbolic and political elements

• The creation of the European Monetary System before the euro
• An economic and financial process…
• …linked irremediably to a political process: a tighter political Europe through financial integration (“A Europe made of money”).
• The actors: a group of experts, politicians and central bankers becoming an acting community and lobbying group.