AVRUPA ENTEGRASYONU - Deneme Sınavı - 7

Sui generis is a Latin phrase that means “of its (his, her, their) own kind; in a class by itself; unique.”

The Advantages of Regional Integration

✓  Cooperation makes war and conflict less likely.

✓  The single market offers European businesses a larger pool of consumers.

✓  Mergers and takeovers create world-class European corporations, helping the EU better compete in the global marketplace.

✓  There is greater freedom of cross-border movement within the EU.

✓  It pools the economic and social resources of multiple member states.

✓  Member states working together enjoy new global power and influence.

✓  Less advanced member states rise to standards maintained by more progressive states.

✓  Funds and investments create new opportunities in the poorer parts of the EU.

✓  Democracy and capitalism are promoted in less advanced member states.

I. Federalism, III. Functionalism V. Transactionalism are early integration theories.

Neofunctionalism, as a popular theory of the European integration in the 1950s and 1960s, focused particularly upon the integration project in Europe.

Functional spillover implies that economies are so interconnected that if states integrate one sector of economies, it will lead to the integration of other sectors.

Neofunctionalist expectations about the European institutions

Neofunctionalist has formulated theories that they have used to predict the behavior of European institutions.

The European Commission is expected to act as a political entrepreneur as well as mediator. The Commission will, according to neofunctionalist theory, try to push for greater cooperation between member states in a direction that leads to more and more supranational decision making.

The European Court is expected not only to rule on the basis of legal arguments but also to favor political integration. In this way, the Court will seek to expand the logic of Community law to new areas.

The European Parliament is expected to be a supranationally oriented institution and to be the natural ally of the European Commission. Although the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are elected by the nationals of their home country, they are divided politically and ideologically in their daily work. Neofunctionalists expect MEPs to develop loyalties towards the EU and the European idea so that they would often (though not always) defend European interests against national interests.

The EU Council is expected to be the institution where national interests are defended. However, neofunctionalists would also expect member states to be influenced by the logic of spillover, which would lead them to argue for greater economic and political integration, despite their national interests. The member states are also expected to be influenced by the fact that they are involved in ongoing negotiations in a supranational context. This makes it difficult for a member state to resist proposals that lead to further political integration.

Pluralism/Pluralist

In a pluralist system, interest groups lobby the formal institutions to try to get their preferred legislative options. It is a competitive system of seeking influence, but although early pluralist theories suggested that there was a level playing field of competition, it is now generally accepted that some groups have greater resources than others, and so benefit more from this form of interest representation.

Intergovernmentalists view the European integration from the standpoint of national states searching for mutually advantageous bargains. Whereas neofunctionalism explains integration as the outcome of cooperation and competition among societal actors, intergovernmentalism explains integration as the outcome of cooperation and competition among national governments.

Liberal intergovernmentalism is a synthetic approach that derives from both realist/liberal elements and domestic/international politics.

Unanimity Rule is a voting rule in which decisions are made based on unanimous approval of those casting votes. That is, every voter must cast the same vote. Unanimity is used in elections where there is no room for doubt or disagreement.

‘Supranational’ literally means ‘above the national’. A supranational institution is one that has power or influence going beyond that permitted to it by national governments. An international institution, in contrast, is one that results from the co-operation of national governments and has no power beyond that permitted to it by those governments. The European Union and the World Trade Organization are both supranational entities. In the EU, each member votes on a policy that will affect each member nation. The benefits of this construct are the synergies derived from social and economic policies and a stronger presence on the international stage.

The Disadvantages of Regional Integration

✓ Loss of sovereignty and national independence.

✓ Loss of national identity as laws, regulations, and standards are harmonized.

✓ Reduced power of national governments.

✓ The creation of a new level of distant and impersonal ‘big government’ in Brussels.

✓ Too little reference to public opinion regarding key decisions on integration.

✓ Increased competition and job losses brought by the removal of market protection.

✓ Progressive states are handicapped as standards are reduced to help integrate state with lower standards.

✓ Increased drug trafficking, crime and illegal immigration arising from the removal of border controls.

✓ Problems related to controversial initiatives such as the Common Agricultural Policy.

The Italian politician Altiero Spinelli was one of the fathers of the European Union. He was the leading figure behind the European Parliament’s proposal for a Treaty on a federal European Union - the so-called ‘Spinelli Plan’. This was adopted in 1984 by an overwhelming majority in the Parliament and provided an important inspiration for the strengthening of the EU Treaties in the 1980s and ‘90s.

The classic functionalist approach to world order is based on the assumption that states can create a peaceful world society through gradualist and pragmatic cooperation with one another in technical and economic sectors of activity. Functionalism offers an alternative model of the international order to the power politics approach to international relations which is the characteristic of realism. The idea is to eliminate nationalism which is seen as the root cause of any war by attacking national sovereignty.

Functionalism emerged as an alternative to federalist designs about the organization of the international system. Functionalism belongs to the liberal-idealist tradition of international relations theory and usually takes account of Immanuel Kant, John Jacques Rousseau, and Woodrow Wilson. The main figure of functionalism is David Mitrany.

Transactionalism differs from federalism and functionalism as it does not presume the need to establish federal bodies or functional agencies in order to ensure peace between nations. Transactionalism was pioneered by Karl Deutsch and his colleagues which focuses on the social rather than political or economic dimensions of integration in the 1950s. In other words, transactionalism seeks to ensure sufficient integration at a social level to make conflict unthinkable (Eilstrup- Sangiovanni, 2006: 29). Therefore, in contrast to federalism, the transactionalist approach does not presuppose a specific legal and institutional framework. Transactionalism views integration as a process of cultural assimilation, leading to the formation of international security communities in which peoples are linked in bonds of mutual trust and identification, and in which wars are no longer considered possible. Transactionalism rests on the idea that increasing interaction at a social level between people builds up feelings of trust and goodwill that would make conflict unthinkable

The question is answered with the concept of spillover. The concept of spillover in the neofunctionalist theory is considered as the most important driving process of integration. It simply suggests that deepening of integration in one sector is expected to create pressures for a further economic integration within and beyond that sector, leading to functional needs for a European authority. It was hoped that economic and technical cooperation would “spillover” into European politics. Spillover is a process where political cooperation conducted with a specific goal in mind leads to the formulation of new goals in order to assure the achievement of the original goal. What this means is that political cooperation, once initiated, is extended to overtime in a way that was not necessarily intended at the outset. Spillover is a valuable analytical concept but it is better understood when it is broken down into more specific varieties.

Haas paid little attention to public opinion, although he was well aware of public criticism of the European integration that today would be termed Eurosceptic (Haas 1958: 18). However, Haas deemed it justifiable to ignore such skepticism for two reasons. First, he argued that the public was simply ignorant and lacked understanding of the European integration. Second, given the bureaucratic nature of the European integration, decision-makers were shielded from public scrutiny and, therefore, public opinion simply did not matter for integration.

Euroscepticism “expresses the idea of a contingent, or qualified opposition, as well as incorporating outright and unqualified opposition to the process of European integration”

Intergovernmentalists view the European integration from the standpoint of national states searching for mutually advantageous bargains. Whereas neofunctionalism explains integration as the outcome of cooperation and competition among societal actors, intergovernmentalism explains integration as the outcome of cooperation and competition among national governments (Hooghe and Marks, 2019: 1115). Accordingly, if (neo) functionalism represents IR liberalism in the European Integration debate, (liberal) intergovernmentalism certainly constitutes its realist counterpart.

Unanimity Rule is a voting rule in which decisions are made based on unanimous approval of those casting votes. That is, every voter must cast the same vote. Unanimity is used in elections where there is no room for doubt or disagreement.