Theories of European Integration

For many years, the academic study of the European Communities (EC), as they were then called, was virtually synonymous with the study of European integration. The initially modest and largely technocratic achievements of the EC seemed less significant than the potential that they represented for the gradual integration of the countries of western Europe into something else: a supranational polity. When the integration process was going well, as during the 1950s and early 1960s, neo-functionalists and other theorists sought to explain the process whereby European integration proceeded from modest sectoral beginnings to something broader and more ambitious. When things seemed to be going badly, as from the 1960s until the early 1980s, intergovernmentalists and others sought to explain why the integration process had not proceeded as smoothly as its founders had hoped. Regardless of the differences among these bodies of theory, we can say clearly that the early literature on the EC sought to explain the process of European integration (rather than, say, policy-making), and that in doing so it drew largely (but not exclusively) on theories of international relations.

In the first edition of this volume, Carole Webb (1977) surveyed the debate among the then dominant schools of European integration, neo-functionalism, and intergovernmentalism, drawing from each approach a set of implications and hypotheses about the nature of the EC policy process. Similarly, here we review neo-functionalism and its views about the EU policy process, and then the intergovernmentalist response, as well as the updating of ‘liberal intergovernmentalism’ by Andrew Moravcsik in the 1990s.

In addition, we examine more recent bodies of integration theory-institutionalism and constructivism-which offer very different views of the integration process and very different implications for EU policy-making.

Neo-functionalism

In 1958, on the eve of the establishment of the EEC and Euratom, Ernst Haas published his seminal work, The Uniting of Europe, setting out a ‘neo-functionalist’ theory of regional integration. As elaborated in subsequent texts by Haas and other scholars (e. g. Haas 1961; Lindberg 1963; Lindberg and Scheingold 1970), neo-functionalism posited a process of ‘functional spill-over’, in which the initial decision by governments to place a certain sector, such as coal and steel, under the authority of central institutions creates pressures to extend the authority of the institutions into neighbouring areas of policy, such as currency exchange rates, taxation, and wages. Thus, neo-functionalists predicted, sectoral integration would produce the unintended and unforeseen consequence of promoting further integration in additional issue areas. George (1991) identifies a second strand of the spill-over process, which he calls ‘political’ spill-over, in which both supranational actors (such as the Commission) and subnational actors (interest groups or others within the member states) create additional pressures for further integration. At the subnational level, Haas suggested that interest groups operating in an integrated sector would have to interact with the international organization charged with the management of their sector. Over time, these groups would come to appreciate the benefits from integration, and would thereby transfer their demands, expectations, and even their loyalties from national governments to a new centre, thus becoming an important force for further integration.

At the supranational level, moreover, bodies such as the Commission would encourage such a transfer of loyalties, promoting European policies and brokering bargains among the member states so as to ‘upgrade the common interest’. As a result of such sectoral and political spill-over, neo-functionalists predicted, sectoral integration would become self-sustaining, leading to the creation of a new political entity with its centre in Brussels.

The most important contribution of neo-functionalists to the study of EU policy-making was their conceptualization of a ‘Community method’ of policy-making. As Webb pointed out, this ideal-type Community method was based largely on the observation of a few specific sectors (the common agricultural policy (CAP), and the customs union, see Chapters 4 and 15) during the formative years of the Community, and presented a distinct picture of EC policy-making as a process driven by an entrepreneurial Commission and featuring supranational deliberation among member-state representatives in the Council. The Community method in this view was not just a legal set of policy-making institutions but a ‘procedural code’ conditioning the expectations and the behaviour of the participants in the process. The central elements of this original Community method, Webb (1977: 13-14) continued, were four-fold:

1. governments accept the Commission as a valid bargaining partner and expect it to play an active role in building a policy consensus.

2. governments deal with each other with a commitment to problem-solving, and negotiate over how to achieve collective decisions, and not whether these are desirable or not.

3. governments, the Commission, and other participants in the process are responsive to each other, do not make unacceptable demands, and are willing to make short term sacrifices in expectation of longer term gains.

4. Unanimity is the rule, necessitating that negotiations continue until all objections are overcome or losses in one area are compensated for by gains in another.

Issues are not seen as separate but related in a continuous process of decision such that ‘log-rolling’ and ‘side payments’ are possible.

This Community method, Webb suggested, characterized EEC decision-making during the period from 1958 to 1963, as the original six member states met alongside the Commission to put in place the essential elements of the EEC customs union and the CAP. ............