European Integration and Theories in International Relations
Introduction
With the beginning of the integration process in Western Europe in the early Fifties numerous theories have been developed in order to study and understand this process. Those theories provide explanations and concepts useful to appreciate the past and to predict the future steps of eventually further integrations.
It is necessary to make a short description of European integration since its beginning with the Treaty of Rome, that dates back to 1957. With the Treaty of Rome six countries (that is to say, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and Western Germany) established the European Economic Community (ECC), which set out a common market emphasizing four major subjects: agriculture, competition, commerce, and transport. Moreover, the Treaty established (art. 235) the possibility to expand the range of issues the European Community would maintain preferential right of legislating about, by unanimity system of voting.
The ECC was anticipated by the establishment (Treaty of Paris) of a less ambitious organization, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), that nevertheless administrated these important energy sectors. Its aims wish to begin a new period of cooperation (especially between France and Germany) and to guarantee economic development. ECSC and ECC, together with the EURATOM established in Rome in 1957 as well, constituted the so-called European Communities.
The European expansion of scopes (and of members with the three enlargements – 1973: Denmark, Ireland, United Kingdom; 1981: Greece; 1986: Spain, Portugal) went on with the Single European Act (1986) establishing provisions for environment, regional policy, and R&D. With Maastricht (1992) and Amsterdam (1996/1997) entered in force respectively in 1993 and 1999, the European enlargement took fundamental steps in order to transform the ‘integration’ into the ‘unification’ of Europe, finding its path in the administration of monetary policies and Common Security and Foreign Policy (CSFP). To conclude this paragraph it is necessary to add the last enlargements: Austria, Finland, and Sweden in 1995; Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Malta, Slovenia, and Slovakia in 2004; Romania and Bulgaria in 2007.
IR Theory
Even if the theories about European integration are numerous and, consequently, different – it can be constructive to begin with the two endpoints of the long spectrum of IR theories: liberalism and realism.
Liberalism
Liberalism is principally interested in a peaceful international order and in economic welfare. Simplifying and conceptualizing liberalist beliefs, European integration has been seen as an effort against the possible repetition of tragic events, such as World War II. In fact, in their point of view, the easiest way to guarantee an international order – not based on the mechanism of ‘balance of power’ – is through international organizations and institutions.
The most important group among the liberalist tendencies for what concerns our subject, is the Liberal Institutionalism (especially its ‘neo-’ variant). It underlines the necessity of founding institutions able to manage and maintain peace and to prevent war, not eliminating the ‘deep-rooted’ characteristics of the international system (anarchy and sovereignty of States), but regulating them. After the human and economical disaster of the WW II, European States were not able to keep important functions necessary to guarantee the subsequent reconstruction and order (then descended into the constitution of economical and energetic institutions). Sounding quite tautological, the best way to limit anarchy and conflicts is to promote co-operation in order to achieve new ways of interactions and interdependency. (European) Co-operation is best performed through (European) integration, makes the ties among member states stronger and – consequently – limits the negative effects of the anarchic system.
Some of its exponents are known as functionalists. They sustain the importance of a sector-oriented integration that will guarantee a higher development in more subjects thanks to the so-called ‘spill-over’ effect. Here is important to say that, also about integration, there are different understandings of its definition. Some scholars, such as Inkeles, assume that the ‘integration’ is a condition in which actors grant functions to bigger actors, but maintaining a substantial number of functions. Otherwise, for scholars such as Haas (founding father of the neo-functionalism), the characteristics of integration are the emergence of new actors as the ‘offspring’ of the integration as such; new actors that reduce the sovereignty of their ‘parents’.
Realism
Realism argued that States constitute the main and principal actors of the international system, basically dominated by anarchy. The prime consequence of anarchy is the so-called ‘security dilemma’ which brings states to privilege a conflictive/competitive approach in order to protect their national interests (in terms of power). The solution for alleviate the consequence of such an international system is the ‘Balance of Power’.
In this case international organizations (as multilateral relations) – European Union is one of them – are seen as the product of the systemic dependency of the less powerful States towards the more powerful ones. In fact – and obviously – the intensification of multilateral relations triggers the increase of the number of international institutions, as ‘safety valve’ by which States manage to maintain the shape of the system and keep the destabilizing effects under control. That is why at the beginning of the Cold War the number of international organizations raised exponentially. The European Communities, therefore, have to be seen as a consequence of the U.S.A.’s will. The European Union is an international institution considered to be ‘an epiphenomenal reflection of the underlying distribution of material power’ in the international system. The irregular progress of European institutions, as Kenneth Waltz suggests, is caused by the fact that the USA emerged as a power and as a guarantor of Western European security, leaving the member states of the European Communities free to pursue integration without concerns about security threats.
That is why security concerns increased (CFSP/ESDP) in the return of a multipolar international system (Mearsheimer). European countries found themselves in what Buzan called a ‘security complex’ [1]. This concept stresses security interaction among the neighbour-States and it gives importance to the geographical proximity in the security relations. The problem is that the mere institutionalization does not guarantee the need for the regional security. Regional security, together with cooperative security, is a prospective security option for its post-modern environment, establishing communicative ties between security communities and their neighbours and mitigating the emergence of security dilemma. Here is the reason for the eastern enlargement of EU and NATO. Indeed, the EU by itself does not have the capability, or the intention, to defend the new group of States if they face a serious military threat, this is something that will be done eventually by the North Atlantic allies. Considering the evolution of Europe and the Cold War two sides of the same medal, realists predicted the end of EU (and NATO as well) once USSR dissolved. Nevertheless it did not happen, and Grieco explained the even faster development as coincident to the return of Germany and its ‘fearsome’ economic hegemony (especially for France and Italy). The European Union is a bandwagoning behaviour towards the potential hegemonic Germany.
Conclusion
Obviously it is not easy to say which theory better represents the evolution of the European integration and unification. Taken as such, liberalism has an implicit unwillingness to place their claims at any real risk of empirical disconfirmation, and realism excessively simplify the international system, without considering the role of actors such international organization, NGOs, and citizens as well.
I find myself closer to a constructivist approach, which basically claims the importance of building identity (-ies). Constructivism argues that reality is inter-subjective and social, and that it can be objectively analysed. Political identities (and regions) are shaped in discourse by collective perception of shared values, and therefore are invented and re-invented on the base of empirical and theoretical assumptions. What is fundamentally important is how region-builders (e.g. political élites, scholars) construct discursive structures of dominant and repetitive meanings of regional identities.
Therefore EU can be interpreted as a puzzling, contested actor. It is seen as more than a simple intergovernmental bargaining forum, and in my opinion, with Moisio’s words, Europe is a “new post modern spatial innovation – a multidimensional polity that allows for the co-existence of various levels of governance and boundaries”. Therefore member state still represents the core of the system, but it is connected to a complex web of scales from local to European.
In order to give a personal opinion about the future of Europe, without considering its Constitution, but concentrating the attention on the EU-Russia relationship, this approach would be quite helpful. Therefore, if we consider the ‘Europe of concentric circles’ – result of the centralisation of power – Russia will be ‘peripheralised’ and it will be just an object in the shaping policy discourse of EU. If the future, otherwise, will be the ‘Europe of the Olympic rings’ Russia will probably be treated in a non-discriminated manner, helping in alleviating problems such as the European dependency on Russia energetic resources and improving the HR issue in our big neighbour.
1-A group of States whose primary security concerns link together sufficiently closely, so that their national securities cannot be realistically considered apart from one another (and we should apply the same sentence to the regional security – “a set of units whose major process of securitisation, de-securitisation, or both are so interlinked that their security problem cannot reasonably be analysed or resolved apart from one and another” –).
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