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European Unification: A Strategy of Change*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Amitai Etzioni
Amitai Etzioni
Affiliation:
Columbia University
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Extract

The success of the European Economic Community often has been hailed as the most important development of international relations in the West in the last century. Even if the EEC does not progress beyond the point it has already reached, it is probably the most integrated union ever to have been formed among nation-states. Moreover, observers have been impressed by the momentum the EEC has had until recently, leading most of them to expect that its level of integration will continue to rise and its scope of unification to grow. Much of the credit for the success of the EEC is often attributed to “background” factors, to the fact that the member countries share the same European tradition, have a sizable Catholic population, are in a similar stage of economic development, have a similar civilization, and so forth.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , October 1963 , pp. 32 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1963

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References

1 Schmitt, Hans A., The Path to European Union (Baton Rouge, La., 1962), 16.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., 22.

3 On British orientation to unification, see a report by a Chatham House Study Group, Britain in Western Europe (New York 1956)Google Scholar. On Nordic support for the British position, see Wendt, Frantz, The Nordic Council and Cooperation in Scandinavia (Copenhagen 1959), 226–27.Google Scholar

4 For a discussion of this concept and of various levels of integration, sec Etzioni, , “A Paradigm for Political Unification”, World Politics, xv (October 1962), 44–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially p. 70.

5 Goodspeed, Stephen S., The Nature and Function of International Organization (New York 1959), 588ft.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., 589, 591.

7 “The intimate union of economies, which had been expected on both sides of the Atlantic, had not materialized under the OEEC” (Schmitt, 30).

8 For an account of the achievements of OEEC, see Ball, M. Margaret, NATO and the European Union Movement (New York 1959), 217–52.Google Scholar It is important to keep in mind the criterion used here for defining an aim as “high” or “low”, which is the amount of unification a given group of countries is willing and able to accept as compared with the amount aimed at by the charter of the organization in question. The goal of the OEEC, which was too high for its sixteen members, might well have been too low from some other viewpoint—for instance, for initiating a strong and wide enough spill-over process to bring about a United States of Europe.

9 Some socialists thought it was just another cartel. (Strauss, Erich, Common Sense About the Common Market [New York 1958], 76ft.Google Scholar) See also Lichtheim, George, The New Europe (New York 1963).Google Scholar

10 Haas, Ernst B., The Uniting of Europe (Stanford 1958), 109ft.Google Scholar

11 Strauss, 19.

12 It should also be pointed out that after the failure of the EDC and before the formation of the EEC, the less ambitious and more limited EURATOM was created.

13 Brooks, John, “The Common Market”, New Yorker (September 22, 1962), 56.Google Scholar

14 “It is only now that the political implications of this [economic union] are beginning to appear.” (Pryce, Roy, The Political Future of the European Community [London 1962], 9.Google Scholar) See also The Spectator (October 5, 1962), 464.

15 Kitzinger, U. W., The Challenge of the Common Market (Oxford 1962), 21–22Google Scholar. For another example of the efficacy of the multi-approach—in this instance, to international stabilization of prices of primary commodities—see Tinbergen, Jan, Shaping the World Economy (New York 1962), 74ft.Google Scholar

16 Lindberg, Leon N., The Political Dynamics of European Economic Integration (Stanford 1963), 201ff.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., Part 1.

18 The conditions under which these, as well as four other contemporary unions, developed is the subject of a comparative study in progress by the author.

19 Disraeli's book on the relations between the middle class and the laboring class was entided Sybil, or, The Two Nations (New York 1934).Google Scholar

20 Lowenthal, David, ed., The Federation of the West Indies (New York 1961).Google Scholar

21 See note 18 above.

22 Brooks, 47.

23 On the agricultural problems and policy of the EEC, see Dewhurst, J. F., Coppock, J. O., Yates, P. L., and associates, Europe's Needs and Resources (New York 1961), passim.Google Scholar

24 Wendt, 165ff.

25 Kitzingcr, 43.

26 A third fund, that for Overseas Development, is not discussed since it would require an analysis of the relations between the EEC and the African nations, which is beyond the scope of this article.

27 For a most effective review of this controversy, see Claude, Inis L. Jr., Swords into Plowshares (New York 1961), 407–32Google Scholar. See also Etzioni, , “European Unification and Perspectives on Sovereignty”, Daedalus, LXII (Summer 1963), 502–14.Google Scholar

28 Schmitt, 59–61.

29 Ibid.

30 The Latin America Free Trade Area was initiated in a similar fashion—that is, an intercountry political pressure group was created under the leadership of Raul Prebisch. (Shonfield, Andrew, The Attack on World Poverty [New York 1962], 42.Google Scholar)

31 The value of a gradualist approach to disarmament is illustrated by the following findings. In 1961, two-diirds of the respondents inthree countries, in answering the question, “For the next few years, would you give major attention to strengthening the Western deterrent or to pursuing general disarmament, as a matter of relative priority?” said that they would favor disarmament. Yet, when they were asked if they preferred stage-by-stagc disarmament or a “big package”, the results were:

(Daniel Lerner and Morton Gordon, European Community and Atlantic Security in the World Arena [Cambridge, Mass., 1961], chap, v, 10.) A gradualist approach to the reduction of international tensions and arms and to the development of international organization is presented in Etzioni, , The Hard Way to Peace: A New Strategy (New York 1962)Google Scholar.