Perspectives on International Relations : Power, Institutions, and Ideas (9781506396200) by Nau Henry R

Author:Nau, Henry R. [Nau, Henry R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781506396200
Publisher: LightningSource
Published: 2018-01-09T14:33:51+00:00

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Candidate.

European Union

No regional organization has achieved greater significance in contemporary international affairs than the EU. How did this happen, and what can the case of the EU tell us about how and what kind of new actors might emerge in the world system in the future? The EU built on two ideas: the functionalist thinking of English scholar David Mitrany, who argued that working on practical activities such as food and health would make political differences over time less relevant, and the neofunctionalist thinking of Ernst Haas, a Berkeley professor who studied how economic cooperation leads to political cooperation and the formation of supranational loyalties.32 As regional institutions succeed, Haas showed, participants shift their loyalties (identities) from state institutions to higher-level supranational institutions. This happens through a combination of institutional processes such as spillover, as envisioned by the liberal perspective, and creative leadership, as envisioned by identity perspectives. Spillover involves path dependence, resolving one common problem that leads to the need to resolve additional ones. Establishing a common market in 1958 by reducing internal tariffs created additional needs to reduce nontariff barriers (such as differing regulations) and eventually unify national currencies, which the European Community did in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Creative leadership means establishing supranational institutions, such as the European Commission, that initiate proposals from the standpoint of common rather than national interests, compelling national governments to reassess their separate interests and upgrade or integrate them at a higher level. As time goes on and more issues are subjected to this process, member states identify more and more with the supranational authorities rather than their national authorities. As the perspectives feature in the margin shows, the causal arrow runs from supranational initiatives to more focus on common interests to shifts in political loyalties.

supranational institutions: institutions above the level of the state, like the European Commission, that are motivated by common, rather than state-specific, goals.

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