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The Counter-Core Role of Middle Powers in Processes of External Political Integration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Jean Barrea
Jean Barrea
Affiliation:
Belgian “Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique”, is now Associate Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Louvain, Belgium.
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Extract

Theorists in the field of political integration have already established that first-rank states usually assume leadership of the process of what I term external political integration. (The concept itself is neutral: Several autonomous political units merge into a larger one, which may take the form of a loosely-knit confederation, a full federation, or a unitary state.) To use Karl Deutsch's terminology, die leading states usually operate as “core areas.” This phenomenon shows that a first-rank state usually regards its relationship with the process of integration as arising out of the theoretical demands of its prestige.

Type
Research Notes
Information
World Politics , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , January 1973 , pp. 274 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1973

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References

1 I propose the term external political integration because it is conceptually more neutral than the terms used throughout literature. The term international integration presupposes that the political units undergoing integration are nation-states; the term political unification implies that the superstate will assume a unitary character; and the term regional political unification is not as neutral as external political integration. Only the latter refers equally to local, regional, continental, or even universal processes of political integration.

2 For the purpose of this article there is no need for a more detailed definition. Readers interested in more exhaustive definitions should refer, for example, to Deutsch, Karl W. and others, Political Community and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton 1957), 5–7Google Scholar; Etzioni, Amitai, Political Unification (New York 1965), 4Google Scholar; Haas, Ernst B., The Uniting of Europe (London 1958), 16Google Scholar; Lindberg, Leon N., The Political Dynamics of European Economic Integration (Stanford 1963), 6Google Scholar; and to Lindberg, and Scheingold, S. A., Europe's Would-Be Polity (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1970), 32.Google Scholar

3 This is not the opinion of Galtung, who maintains that “aggression is most likely to arise in social positions in rank-disequilibrium.” Galtung, Johan, “A Structural Theory of Aggression,” Journal of Peace Research, No. 2 (1964), 98.Google Scholar

4 Etzioni, (fn. 2) 46Google Scholar; see especially his footnote 59.

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