Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-01T09:00:39.885Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Theory and Method in the Study of International Integration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

James A. Caporaso
Get access

Extract

In many ways the study of international integration is in what Thomas Kuhn has called the pre-paradigm stage of the development of science. This stage is characterized by disagreement on the entities to be studied and the definitions, concepts, and indicators to be employed. Controversy is widespread even on the simplest of issues and, what is more discouraging, this controversy does not take place in a theoretical-methodological context which facilitates its resolution. There is a general lack of common standards by which to evaluate knowledge, decision-rules to interpret evidence, and criteria to measure progress. Thus, what constitutes advance for one school may mean retreat for another, and efforts to exchange views and harmonize aims frequently only serve to further define existing cleavages. Given this disagreement on broad philosophical issues it should not be surprising that research efforts and presentations of “evidence” have had little compelling impact in altering theoretical convictions. It is also no accident that the two most promising efforts to date are not presentations of data but are attempts to fashion a generally acceptable framework within which to evaluate evidence. Leon Lindberg has urged the adoption of a systems perspective which would harmonize a variety of research efforts and would, as well, make findings roughly comparable. Joseph Nye has suggested that we must “disaggregate” the concept of integration before we can meaningfully answer the important questions facing us. I have already indicated how complementary Lindberg's and Nye's suggestions are, and I feel that implementation of their suggestions would aid in making research findings touch base with one another and thus impart to evidence its proper multiplying effect.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , Spring 1971 , pp. 228 - 253
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1971

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Kuhn, Thomas S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962)Google Scholar.

2 Lindberg, Leon N., “The European Community as a Political System: Notes toward the Construction of a Model,” Journal of Common Market Studies, 06 1967 (Vol. 5, No. 4), pp. 344–387CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Nye, Joseph S., “Comparative Regional Integration: Concept and Measurement,” International Organization, Autumn 1968 (Vol. 22, No. 4), pp. 855–880CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Caporaso, James A. and Pelowski, Alan L., “Economic and Political Integration in Europe: A Time-Series Quasi-Experimental Analysis,” American Political Science Review, 06 1971, forthcomingGoogle Scholar.

5 Lindberg, Leon N. and Scheingold, Stuart A., Europe's Would-Be Polity: Patterns of Change in the European Community (Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 1970), p. 29Google Scholar.

6 Friedrich, Carl J., Europe: An Emergent Nation? (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), p. 38Google Scholar.

7 Deutsch, Karl W. et al. , France, Germany and the Western Alliance: A Study of Elite Attitudes on European Integration and World Politics (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1967), p. 219Google Scholar.

8 For the details of working out the RA index, in addition to some of its mathematical properties, see Savage, I. Richard and Deutsch, Karl W., “A Statistical Model of the Gross Analysis of Transaction Flows,” Econometrica, 07 1960 (Vol. 28, No. 3), pp. 551–572CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Rabier, Jacques-René, L'Information des européens et l'intégration de l'Europe (No. 10) (Brussels: Instirut d'études européennes, Université libre de Bruxelles, 02 1965), p. 38Google Scholar.

10 Les Européens: “Out” à l'Europe, Résultats commentés d'un sondage d'opinion réalisé en janvierfévrier 1970 dans les six pays de la Communauté européenne et en Grande-Bretagne (Brussels: Direction générale de la presse et de l'information, Commission des Communautés européennes, 05 1970), pp. 4 and 11Google Scholar.

11 Inglehart, Ronald, “An End to European Integration?” American Political Science Review, 03 1967 (Vol. 61, No. 1), p. 91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Puchala, Donald J., “The Common Market and Political Federation in Western European Opinion,” International Studies Quarterly, 03 1970 (Vol. 14, No. 1), p. 32CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Puchala's data applies only to France, West Germany, and Italy.

13 Ibid., p. 53.

14 Cobb, Roger W. and Elder, Charles, International Community: A Regional and Global Study (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970), p. 138Google Scholar.

15 Although the Committee of Permanent Representatives is not specifically mentioned in the Treaty Establishing the European Economic Community (Rome Treaty), it has come to occupy a central role in the community decisionmaking machinery. It is a delegate body for the Council of Ministers, imparting day-to-day administrative continuity to the irregular council sessions and preparing the work for its meetings. It also acts as a clearinghouse for commission proposals and is in this sense akin to an “early warning system,” alerting the nationally minded council to any possible supranational maneuvers on the part of the commission.

16 Coombes, David, Politics and Bureaucracy in the European Community: A Portrait of the Commission of the E.E.C. (Beverly Hills, Calif: Sage Publications [in cooperation with Political and Economic Planning], 1970), p. 327Google Scholar.

17 Fisher, William E., “An Analysis of the Deutsch Sociocausal Paradigm of Political Integration,” International Organization, Spring 1969 (Vol. 23, No. 2), p. 273CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Savage, and Deutsch, , Econometrica, Vol. 28, No. 3, p. 551CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Ibid., p. 552.

20 Alker, Hayward Jr, and Puchala, Donald, “Trends in Economic Partnership: The North Atlantic Area, 1928–1963,” in Singer, J. David, ed., Quantitative International Politics: Insights and Evidence, Vol. 6 of International Yearbook of Political Behavior Research (New York: Free Press, 1968), p. 290Google Scholar.

21 Smoker, Paul, “A Time Series Analysis of Sino-Indian Relations” (Paper presented at the Second International Peace Research Association Conference, Tallberg, Sweden, 06 17–19, 1967), p. 3Google Scholar.

22 Deutsch et al., p. 218.

23 Ibid., p. 219.

24 Inglehart, , American Political Science Review, Vol. 61, No. 1, p. 91CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Fisher, , International Organization, Vol. 23, No. 2, p. 273Google Scholar.

25 Inglehart, , American Political Science Review, Vol. 61, No. 1, p. 91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Lindberg, , Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 5, No. 4, p. 344CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 See Inglehart, Ronald and Schoenbergcr, Robert, “Communications and Political Mobilization: Development of a European Orientation in Great Britain, France, and Italy” (Paper delivered at the annual American Political Science Association Convention, Washington, 1968), especially pp. 2–6Google Scholar.

28 The assumption here is that the world is composed of only four or five regions. The RA index technically is not based on perfect zero-sum assumptions in the sense that increases in integration between any two actors must be canceled out elsewhere in the system. However, it is based on assumptions that may be described as “highly competitive.” For example, imagine a trading system of three actors (A, B, and C). Imagine that A's RA score with B increases. It is technically possible for A's RA score with C to increase also. Roughly, the conditions under which this can occur require: 1) an approximate equality of actor A's raw trade in imports and exports with actors B and C; 2) an approximately equal increase of A's imports and exports with B and C; and 3) A's increases with B and C must be greater than the increases between B and C.

A rough idea of the empirical competitiveness of the RA score is provided by our data. We have a three-actor system, West Germany, the EEC, and the world. If the RA score has no scarcity biases, we should expect West Germany's trade (measured in RA scores) with the EEC and the world to be uncorrelated. In fact, West Germany's exports to the EEC and to the world correlate at –.836 and imports correlate at –.960. Thus, despite the fact that West Germany's total trade increased with both the EEC and the world, the RA scores for trade with these two systems are negatively related.

I am grateful to Raymond Duvall of Northwestern University for working out the mathematical properties of the RA index as well as providing simulated data on the behavior of this index in a variety of international trade systems.

29 Deutsch actually utilizes five streams of evidence including survey research and content analysis. However, Deutsch bases his strongest conclusions on trade data and other measures of “structural integration.” See Deutsch et al., pp. 218–220.

30 Nye, Joseph S., in his brilliant article, “Comparative Regional Integration: Concept and Measurement,” International Organization, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 855–880CrossRefGoogle Scholar, persuasively argues that political integration may not only be different from economic and social integration but political integration itself may include several distinct components.

31 Savage, and Deutsch, , Econometrica, Vol. 28, No. 3, p. 552Google Scholar.

32 Brams, Steven J., “Transaction Flows in the International System,” American Political Science Review, 12 1966 (Vol. 60, No. 4), pp. 880–898CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 See for example, Blalock, Hubert M. Jr, “The Measurement Problem: A Gap between the Languages of Theory and Research,” in Blalock, Hubert M. and Blalock, Ann B., eds., Methodology in Social Research (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1968), pp. 5–27Google Scholar.

34 Deutsch, Karl W., “The Propensity to International Transactions,” Political Studies, 06 1960 (Vol. 8, No. 2), pp. 147–155CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Lindberg and Scheingold, pp. 32, 37. See also the excellent articles on the preparation of community decisions at the national level by Holtz, Theodor, Gerbert, Pierre, Olivetti, Marco, de Muyser, Guy, and De Bruin, Robert in La Décision dans les Communautés européennes (Brussels: Presses universitaires de Bruxelles, 1969)Google Scholar.

36 Parsons's conception of power is one that is seen as infinitely expandable depending upon the number of functional contexts in which it operates. See “On the Concept of Political Power,” in Parsons, Talcott, Sociological Theory and Modern Society (New York: Free Press, 1967), pp. 297–355Google Scholar.

37 Campbell, Donald T. and Fiske, Donald, “Convergent and Discriminant Validation by the Multitrait-Multimethod Matrix,” Psychological Bulletin, 03 1959 (Vol. 56, No. 2), pp. 81–105CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

38 Cronbach, Lee and Meehl, Paul, “Construct Validity in Psychological Tests,” Psychological Bulletin, 05 1955 (Vol. 52, No. 3), pp. 281–302CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

39 Campbell, and Fiske, , Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 56, No. 2, p. 83Google Scholar.

40 Scott, William A., “Attitude Measurement,” in Lindzey, Gardner and Aronson, Elliot, eds., The Handbook, of Social Psychology, Vol. 2Google Scholar: Research Methods (2nd cd.; Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1968), p. 254Google Scholar.

41 This results in a “multimethod matrix,” a variant on the Campbell-Fiske theme. Technically, there are four methods and one trait since imports and exports are viewed as indicators of the same construct. We thus expect high interindicator correlations and are not concerned here with discriminant validity.

42 Toscano, James V., “Transaction Flow Analysis in Metropolitan Areas: Some Preliminary Explorations,” in Jacob, Philip E. and Toscano, James V., eds., The Integration of Political Communities (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1964), pp. 102–103Google Scholar.

43 Karl Deutsch points out that if two countries double their shares of world trade “while the average trade of the rest of the world remains unchanged, and if their mutual trade were proportional to their respective shares in world trade,” then the total flow of trade between these two countries will increase fourfold. See Deutsch et al., p. 228.

44 Russett, Bruce M., “‘Regional’ Trading Patterns, 1938–1963,” International Studies Quarterly, 12 1968 (Vol. 12, No. 4), p. 362CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 This technique is not stricdy comparable to the other three because it introduces a new term (Y) and because it considers imports and exports in a combined way rather than separately. The assumption here is that the impact of EEC trade on West Germany can be treated roughly as West German imports from the EEC and West Germany's impact on the EEC treated comparable to West German exports to Common Market countries.

46 I hasten to add that this does not invalidate the RA index although it does decrease our confidence in it. The criterion of convergence could be looked upon as a kind of “halfway house” for validity. In principle, though, any construct should be amenable to measurement through a variety of methods. If, after exhaustive attempts to find other techniques sensitive to the same variance as the RA index, the RA index still stands alone, we would be tempted to draw the conclusion that the variance is due to special properties of the method. (In this line of reasoning, in particular with respect to the view of convergence as a “halfway house,” I am indebted to Thomas Milburn, professor of social psychology, DePaul University.)

47 On this point see Fruchter, Benjamin, Introduction to Factor Analysis (Princeton, N.J: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1954), pp. 5–6Google Scholar.

48 Kenneth Boulding has developed a threefold typology of growth: simple growth, population growth, and structural growth. Simple growth and structural growth are relevant for our purposes. Boulding thinks of simple growth as “the growth or decline of a single variable or quantity by accretion or depletion” (“Toward a General Theory of Growth,” in Spengler, Joseph John and Duncan, Otis Dudley, eds., Population Theory and Policy: Selected Readings [Glencoe, Ill: Free Press, 1956], p. 109Google Scholar). Structural growth, on the other hand, consists not of a scale or volume change but of a change in the complexity of a system or in the relationships of the parts of the system to one another. We notice a striking parallel between this concept and Deutsch's conception of integration as reflected in the RA index:

This index thus measures by how many more or fewer percent these two countries deal with one another than they could be expected to do according to random probability and the mere size of their total foreign trade. The RA index separates, therefore, the actual results of preferential behavior and structural integration from the mere effects of the size and prosperity of countries. [Deutsch et al, p. 220.]

I do not, however, mean to imply that Deutsch's concept of integration and Boulding's idea of structural growth are identical. Boulding's notion of structural growth also includes changes in system complexity in which the system may gain new components without these additions being offset elsewhere in the system. This kind of growth is epigenetic in Etzioni's sense. See Etzioni, Amitai, “The Epigenesis of Political Communities at the International Level,” American Journal of Sociology, 01 1963 (Vol. 68, No. 4), pp. 407–421CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 Galtung, Johan, Theory and Methods of Social Research (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), p. 127Google Scholar. This quote should be seen in light of a position on which Galtung was commenting; it is not necessarily his own position.

50 Cronbach, and Meehl, , Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 52, No. 3, p. 290Google Scholar.

51 Peak, Helen, “Problems of Objective Observation,” in Festinger, Leon and Katz, Daniel, eds., Research Methods in the Behavorial Sciences (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1965), pp. 288–289Google Scholar.

52 This is almost the opposite relationship from the one suggested by Mitrany, David in his A Working Peace System: An Argument for the Functional Development of International Organization (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1966)Google Scholar.

53 There is no space to fully defend the selection of these two sectors here. Briefly, I considered the extent to which different groups were involved in the issue area, the extent to which autonomy is given to experts, the degree of involvement of key political decisionmakers in the decisions of the sectors, and the degree of problem-solving versus purely political (e.g., satisfying group interests) activity.

54 Fisher, , International Organization, Vol. 23, No. 2, p. 273Google Scholar.

55 Forsyth, Murray, “The Parliament of the European Communities,” Political and Economic Planning, 03 1964 (Vol. 30, No. 478), p. 52Google Scholar.

56 Lindberg, Leon N., The Political Dynamics of European Economic Integration (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1963), p. 35Google Scholar.

57 Sidjanski, Dusan, L'Originalité des Commtinautés européennes et la répartition de leurs pouvoirs (Paris: Editions A. Pedone, 1961), p. 25Google Scholar.

58 Sidjanski, p. 25.

59 Ibid.

60 Ibid.

61 See Scott in Lindzey and Aronson, p. 254.

62 Factor analysis is a multivariate technique particularly helpful in determining whether a given set of data (the data may be correlation coefficients) contains one, two, or “n” sets of organized properties. In short, it is very useful when one wants to dimensionalize an array of data.

63 Similarly, I have pointed out how this problem poses a limitation on the conclusions drawn by William Fisher in his test of Deutsch's theory of integration. See Caporaso, James, “Fisher's Test of Deutsch's Sociocausal Paradigm of Political Integration: A Research Note,” International Organization, Winter 1971 (Vol. 25, No. 1), pp. 120–131CrossRefGoogle Scholar.