Comparative Regional Integration

Theoretical Perspectives

Finn Laursen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351769020
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This title was first published in 2003. After briefly reviewing the basic theoretical stances animating the rest of the proceedings, Laursen (international politics, U. of Southern Denmark) presents 11 contributions that comparatively review processes of regional integration around the world.

PART I

Introduction

Chapter 1

Theoretical Perspectives on Comparative Regional Integration

Finn Laursen

Introduction

Theories of integration have mainly been developed to explain European integration. Europe was the region of the world, where regional integration started in the early 1950s with the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1952. Ernest Haas theorized this experience in The Uniting of Europe (1958). The main theoretical contribution was the concept of spillover. Later Lindberg used this concept to study the early years of the European Economic Community (EEC), which started its existence in 1958 (Lindberg, 1963). These early theories are usually referred to as neo-functionalist theories.

There were some efforts to apply these neo-functionalist theories to integration in other parts of the world, especially in Latin America (Haas, 1961; Haas and Schmitter, 1964; Haas, 1967).

The integration process in Europe experienced a crisis in the mid-1960, when General de Gaulle instructed his ministers not to take part in meetings of the EEC Council. In the Luxembourg Compromise in January 1966, the then six members of the European Communities (EC) agreed to disagree. The French insisted that decisions by a qualified majority vote (QMV) could not take place, when a Member State opposed a decision because of important national interests.

The nature of common institutions has remained a controversial issue in Europe, but Europe has gone further in creating effective common institutions than other regions in the world.

Some neo-functionalists tried to modify the theory to take account of the events in Europe in the mid-60s. This included Lindberg and Scheingold in Europe’s Would-Be Polity (1970) and J. S. Nye in Peace in Parts (1971). But many students of European integration started stressing the ‘logic of diversity’ and the more intergovernmental aspects of the EC (e.g. Hoffmann, 1965; Taylor, 1983).

The early rich theoretical discussions about European integration petered out during the 1970s and early 1980s. But as the European integration process got a new momentum from the mid-1980s, with the Single European Act (SEA) and the Single Market programme, scholars started taking a theoretical interest in European integration again. Some argued that neo-functionalism still had explanatory power (e.g. Laursen 1990, Tranholm-Mikkelsen 1991). Others looked for new ways to explain the phenomenon.

The main alternative was intergovernmentalism, which put emphasis on the role of the member states. Andrew Moravcsik developed ‘liberal intergovernmentalism’ during the 1990’s to explain the process of integration in Europe, suggesting the combination of a liberal theory to explain national preference formation and an intergovernmental theory of interstate bargaining to explain substantive outcomes (Moravcsik, 1991, 1993). Later he added a third stage, institutional choice, where pooling and delegation of sovereignty are mainly seen as a way to create ‘credible commitments’ (Moravcsik, 1998).

During the 1990s, in parallel with the IR debate concerning rationalist approaches vs. social constructivist approaches, it has also been claimed that we need a social constructivist approach to understand European integration (e.g. Checkel, 1999; Marcussen et al., 1999). In the following we shall take a closer look at some of these approaches and theories.

The Concept of International Integration

When early theories of integration were developed, there was much discussion in the literature on how to define the concept. It was, for instance, discussed whether integration refers to a process or to an end product. Of course the two can be combined. Integration could then be defined as a process that leads to a certain state of affairs. Karl Deutsch, for instance, defined integration as ‘the attainment, within a territory, of a “sense of community” and of institutions and practices strong enough and widespread enough to assure, for a “long” time, dependable expectations of “peaceful change” among its population.’ When a group of people or states have been integrated this way, they constitute a ‘security community.’ Deutsch and his collaborators used another term, amalgamation, to refer to ‘the formal merger of two or more previously independent units into a single larger unit, with some type of common government’ (Karl W. Deutsch et al., 1957, pp. 5–6). These distinctions led to a simple two-by-two table (see Table 1.1).

On the bases of empirical studies Deutsch and his collaborators made conclusions about the conditions of creating security communities and arriving at amalgamated security communities. The cases included the USA (break-up of union during the Civil War and reunion afterwards), the UK (union with Scotland, break-up of union with Ireland), German and Italian unifications in 19^th century, the Habsburg Empire (long preservation and dissolution in 1918), Norway-Sweden (union in 1814, separation in 1905) and the gradual integration of Switzerland that was completed in 1848 (Ibid., pp. 16–17). The conclusion was that nine conditions were essential for an amalgamated security-community:

1. mutual compatibility of main values

2. a distinctive way of life

3. expectations of stronger economic ties or gains

4. a marked increase in political and administrative capabilities of at least some participating units

5. superior economic growth on the part of at least some participating units

6. unbroken links of social communication, both geographically between territories and sociologically between different social strata

7. a broadening of the political elite

8. mobility of persons, at least among the politically relevant strata, and

9. a multiplicity of ranges on communication and transaction (Ibid., p. 58).

Table 1.1 Integration and amalgamation according to Karl Deutsch

	Non-Amalgamation	Amalgamation
Integration	Pluralistic Security-Community Example: Norway-Sweden today	Amalgamated Security-Community Example: USA today
Non-Integration	Not Amalgamated Not Security-Community Example: USA-USSR during Cold War	Amalgamated but not Security-Community Example: Habsburg Empire 1914

Source: Karl W. Deutsch et al. (1957, p. 7).

For a pluralistic security-community, on the other hand, only two or three conditions were considered essential:

1. compatibility of major values relevant to political decision-making

2. the capacity of the participating political units or governments to respond to each other’s needs, messages, and actions quickly, adequately, and without resort to violence

3. mutual predictability of behaviour (which however is closely related to the second condition) (Ibid., pp. 66–67).

Deutsch’s concept of a pluralistic security community has kept intriguing social scientists and has remained relevant for understanding regional integration in the world. Amalgamation goes beyond the examples of regional integration studied in this book, although in the case of the EU one could ask whether the process is approaching amalgamation, a kind of pre-federal order.

As mentioned, most early efforts to study regional international integration concentrated on the European case, especially the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Economic Community (EEC). In Ernst Haas’s classical study of the ECSC, The Uniting of Europe, integration was defined as

… the process whereby political actors in several distinct national settings are persuaded to shift their loyalties, expectation and political activities to a new center whose institutions possess or demand jurisdiction over the pre-existing national states (Haas, 1958, p. 16).

In Leon Lindberg’s study of the early EEC, The Political Dynamics of European Economic Integration, integration was defined without reference to an end point:

… political integration is (1) the process whereby nations forgo the desire and ability to conduct foreign and key domestic policies independently of each other, seeking instead to make joint decisions or to delegate the decision-making process to new central organs; and (2) the process whereby political actors in several distinct settings are persuaded to shift their expectations and political activities to a new center (Lindberg, 1963, p. 6).

Lindberg considered his own concept of integration more cautious than that of Haas. Central to it was ‘the development of devices and processes for arriving at collective decisions by means other than autonomous action by national governments’ (Ibid., p. 5).

Some concepts of integration applied in studies of the European Communities (EC) may be too specific, if we want to conduct comparative studies. Clearly, the process of European integration within the EC has gone further than integration in other regional settings. A relatively loose definition may be better for comparative studies. However, it seems fair to say that collective decision-making is an important aspect of all regional integration efforts. This collective decision-making can cover a varying number of functional areas (scope). The decision-making process can be more or less efficient and the common institutions established can be more or less adequate (institutional capacity).

What then explains changes in functional scope and institutional capacity of regional integration efforts? This is the central question in integration theory. Ernst Haas developed the concept of spillover, which was also applied by Lindberg. According to Lindberg

… ‘spillover’ refers to a situation in which a given action, related to a specific goal, creates a situation in which the original goal can be assured only by taking further actions, which in turn create a further condition and a need for more action, and so forth (Lindberg, 1963, p. 10).

Haas saw the EEC as spillover from the ECSC. He talked about ‘the expansive logic of sector integration.’ He predicted that the process would continue in the EEC. Liberalization of trade within the customs union would lead to harmonization of general economic policies and eventually spillover into political areas and lead to the creation of some kind of political community (Haas, 1958, p. 311).

When the European integration process experienced a crisis in the mid-1960s, however, many scholars concluded that Haas’ early theory had been too deterministic. This included Haas himself, who now admitted that he had not foreseen ‘a rebirth of nationalism and anti-functional high politics.’ A revised theory would have to take account of ‘dramatic-political’ aims of statesmen such as General de Gaulle (Haas, 1967).

In a much-quoted article, Stanley Hoffmann argued that the national situations and role perceptions were still rather diverse within the EC. In general he argued:

Every international system owes its inner logic and its unfolding to the diversity of domestic determinants, geo-historical situations, and outside aims among its units (Hoffmann, 1966, p. 864).

So, he contrasted the logic of integration with the logic of diversity. The latter sets limits to the degree to which the ‘spillover’ process can operate. ‘It restricts the domain in which the logic of functional integration operates to the area of welfare.’ Hoffmann advanced the suggestion that ‘in areas of key importance to the national interest, nations prefer the certainty, or the self-controlled uncertainty, of national self-reliance, to the uncontrolled uncertainty’ of integration (Ibid., p. 882).

Early Comparative Studies

In a study where Haas compared regional integration in Europe with integration in other regions of the world, he suggested that one should study the environments in which the processes take place to understand the differences. He listed three sets of ‘background’ factors, which he considered important. The first factor was social structure. Here Western Europe is dominated by pluralism, i.e. the existence of ‘articulate voluntary groups, led by bureaucratized but accessible elites.’ The second factor was economic and industrial development. Here Western Europe has a high degree of industrialization and urbanization. The third factor was ideological patterns. Here there is a certain degree of homogeneity in Western Europe. According to Haas, ‘integration proceeds most rapidly and drastically when it responds to socio-economic demands emanating from an industrial-urban environment, when it is an adaptation t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• PART I: INTRODUCTION
• PART II: GOVERNMENTALIST PERSPECTIVES
• PART III: POWER PERSPECTIVES
• PART IV: CONSTRUCTIVIST PERSPECTIVES
• PART V: NEOFUNCTIONALIST AND HISTORICAL INSTITUTIONALIST PERSPECTIVES
• PART VI: CONCLUDING COMMENTS
• Index