History and Theory of European
Integration
Marina V. Larionova
JEAN MONNET European Module
Lecture 4
The Intergovernmentalist challenge to the core
propositions of neofunctionalism
Critiques and contemplations of neofunctionalism
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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
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Competing or complementary
approaches?
• Socio political and academic contexts
• Scientific progress
• Ontological and epistemological foundations
 Methodology
 Scope
 Purpose
 Perspective
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Functions of 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
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Area
• Polity: Political community and its institutions
Examples, analyzing 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
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Neofunctionlism as the theory of
integration
Obstinate or Obsolete?
The Fate of the Nation State and the Case of
Western Europe
(Stanley Hoffmann, 1966)
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Foundations of 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
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Why has “the new Jerusalem been postponed”
Intergovernmental paradigm
Enduring qualities of nationalism and statehood
advanced arguments about state-centrism in the
process of integration
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Factors of unification movement failure
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
Fragmentation reproduces diversity
Centrifugal tendencies versus convergency of interests
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Counterargument
Why must it be a diversity of nations,
not a diversity of regions; federations, or “federating”
blocks?
Answer?
• Legitimacy of the self determination principle.
• Newness of many of the nation states and the nationalist
upsurge accompanying the process.
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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?
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Further arguments
Two unique features of the present first truly global
international system
1.
Axis of the local – regional – global:

2.
attraction of the regional forces is offset by the pull of the other forces
both local and global.
The 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 to unite;
the only method left for unification is the national “self abdication”.
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Factors of unification versus factors of
nation state prevailance
Experiment failure
analysis of the functional method
limitations continued
The Logic of Diversity versus the Logic of
Integration
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The logic of integration
The logic of diversity
The double pressure of necessity and Limits the logic of integration to the
supranational institutions will be area of welfare and low politics
eroding nationalism and lead to a spill
over of the integration process
Commitments to the agreed objectives
In areas of key importance to the
and expectations of benefits help to national interests nations prefer the self
controlled certainty and national self
overcome the diversity of interests
reliance
Expectations that the overall gains will Losses are not compensated by gains on
exceed the occasional losses will help to vital issues
continue the integration
Supranational sentiment would begin to Appearance of supranational institutions
perceived by the national policy actors
infect national consciousness
as posing threats
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The logic of integration
The logic of diversity
Uncertainties of the supranational Uncertainties of the supranational
function process are creative leading to function process are destructive causing
upgrading of common interests
conflict between governments
Ambiguity
lulls
the
national
consciousness into integration as long as
the benefits are high, the costs low, the
expectations considerable
Ambiguity may arouse and stiffen the
national consciousness into nationalism
if the benefits are slow, the costs high,
the expectations deferred
Pluralism is conducive to spill over / Pluralistic societies would ensure
functional pressures force further peaceful adjustment through deliberate
integrative steps in crisis situations
political decisions
The method has sufficient potency to The method does not work for high
promise permanent excess of gains politics
over losses to ensure continuum from
economics to politics
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Two integration achievements proving the logic
of diversity wrong?
• European Common Foreign and Security Policy
• Economic and Monetary union
• Justice and Home Affairs
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Crucial factors of the community method
success
analysis of the functional method limitations
continued
• Agreement on the Goals of Integration
• Agreement on the Method of Integration
• Agreement on the Outcomes of Integration
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the Goals of Integration
Construction of a radically Construction of a new super
new kind of political unit / state/ federal state ?
security community ?
Overcoming power politics A power game on a new scale
through
cooperation
and
compromise,
change
the
nature, not the scale of the unit
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the Method of integration
Integration as a process of A linear progress turns into a
technical package deals
vicious circle unless the goals
are clearly defined and the
results achieved satisfactory
linear
progress
achieved
taking into accounts the
diversity of the member states
interests /
upgrading common interests
basis
Essential interests of the nation
state
prevail
over
the
community interests /
minimum
common
denominator basis
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Gamble on the results of integration
•
•
•
•
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
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Summing up Hoffmann’s generalizations
• The state is still the major political actor
• The success of federalism would be a tribute to the durability
of the nation state; its failure so far testifies 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
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Summing up Hoffmann’s generalizations
• 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
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Lessons: Limits of the functional method
(intergovernmental view!)
1.
Sidelining the centrality of the state actors and persistence of
supranationalist sentiments
 Denying prevalence of traditional intergovernmental bargaining
methods
 Underestimation of the “conflicts over values decisions” deadlocks
 Ignoring intervening variables in the spill over process
2.
Overestimation of the role of the institutional machinery
 Its authority is limited, conditional, dependable, reversible
 Its stake controlled by the states
3.
4.
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
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Marxists’ contemplation of neofunctionalism
Ernst Mandel (1967) “International Capitalism and “Supranationality”, in R. Miliband and J. Saville (eds), The
Socialist register 1967 (London: Merlin)
Supranationalism – a powerful economic and political
ideology as well as an institutional configuration designed
to meet the needs of capitalism.
EC – the product and the vehicle of capital concentration.
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Stuart Holland
Stuart Holland (1980) UnCommon Market: Capital, Class and
Power in the European community (London: Macmillan)
EC – “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
 Relating the role of the elites of a given class structure
 Alliance of sections of state and key strata of capital
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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.
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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)
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Objectives
• Development of a more sophisticated theory and
methodology
• Acceleration of comparative regional integration
analysis
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Haas’s contemplation of neofunctionalist
pretheory as “obsolescent”
• Limited capacity for the theory transferability as 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
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The challenge of conceptualizing the EC as a
complex political system in the global world order
Persisting challenge of definition
Donald 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”.
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Concordance system
Explaining Community as a Network
• A complex entity where nation states remain the primary
actors, bur where arenas of political action are operated at
several levels and levels of influence vary from one issue area
to another
• A forum for positive sum interaction
• Distinctive attitudinal environment of prevailing pragmatism:
Bargaining aimed at construction of convergent goals
Actors’ attention to international interdependence
Mutual sensitivity and responsiveness
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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).
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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
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Elements of the model:
Outcomes – decisions enhancing or decreasing the functional scope
and institutional capacity of the system – a function of
• 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
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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
great social complexity (why?)
turbulent setting of
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?)
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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.
“.. The independent role of these conditions should decline as
integration proceeds until joint negotiations vis-à-vis outsiders
has become such an integral part of the decisional process that
the international system accords the new unit a full
participant status.”
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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
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The concept of interdependence –
a route out of n=1 conundrum?
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Neo-Neofunctionalism
Déjà 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 transformative nature of the process
• Epistemological dimension:
evidence based on dramatic political events or upon prosaic socioeconomic cultural exchanges
Neo functionalism – transformative and rooted in observation of gradual,
normal, unobtrusive exchanges across a wide range of actors
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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.”
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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”.
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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
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Transformative cycle
1.
Increase in the reform mongering role of the regional
institutions
2. Regional institutions’ attempts at externalization
3. Domestic Status Effect
4. Fragmentation of national actors and emergence of a new
superimposed wider identity
5. Formation of stable transnational coalitions
6. Increased activism by Eurocrats / reaction on the part of the
government decision-makers to the erosion of their
monopolistic control over certain policy areas
7. 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
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Transformative cycle
8. Elite values more focused on regional symbols and
loyalties, while the national ones do not wither away
9. Extra regional dependence becomes partly
endogenous and is no longer determined excessively
by exogenous factors
10. Regional system of political parties emerges
11. Democratization of the process
12. The end-state: A multi-level and Poly-centric system
of governance / “consortio” or “condominio”
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To conclude
“understanding and explanation in this field of enquiry
are best served not by a dominance of a single
“accepted” grand model or paradigm, but by the
simultaneous presence of antithetic and conflictive
ones which – while they may converge in certain
aspects – diverge in so many others. If this sort of
dialectic of incompleteness, unevenness, and partial
frustration propels integration processes forward, why
can not it do the same for the scholarship that
accompanies them.”
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Thank you!
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