Summary of the compulsory chapters (3-4-5-7-8-12) from the book European Integration Theory (2009), written by A. Wiener and T. Diez for the course Theory and History of European Integration
Summary European Integration Theory (2nd edn, 2009)
A. Wiener & T. Diez
3 Neofunctionalism
A. Niemann and P.C. Schmitter (2009)
Intellectual roots
• Haas and Lindberg → 2 most influential and prolific neofunctionalist writers, combining
functionalist mechanisms with federalist goals
• Neofunctionalism emphasizes the mechanisms of technocratic decision-making, incremental
change and learning processes
• Neofunctionlists attach considerable importance to the autonomous influence of
supranational institutions and the emerging role of organized interests → specific regional
focus
• Neofunctionlists privilege changes in elite attitudes
• Jean Monnet → functional spillover
Early neofunctionalism
• Definition of integration
o Haas: ‘the process whereby political actors in several distinct national settings are
persuaded to shift their loyalties, expectations and political activities toward a new
centre, whose institutions possess or demand jurisdiction over the pre-existing
national states. The end result of a process of political integration is a new political
community, superimposed over the pre-existing ones’ (p.47)
o Lindberg: ‘the process whereby nations forego the desire and ability to conduct
foreign and domestic policies independently of each other, seeking instead to make
joint decisions or to delegate the decision-making process to new central organs: and
the process whereby political actors in several distinct settings are persuaded to shift
their expectations and political activities to a new centre’ (p.47)
• Underlying assumptions
o Fundamental precepts
▪ Aim at general theory-building
▪ Integration is understood as a process
▪ Neofunctionalism is pluralist in nature → regional integration is
characterized by multiple, diverse and changing actors who are not restricted
to the domestic political realm, but also interact and build coalitions across
national frontiers and bureaucracies
▪ Neofunctionalists see the Community primarily as ‘a creature of elites’
▪ Haas did not mention it, but he seems to have assumed uninterrupted
economic growth in Europe
o Neofunctionalism is mainly a theory about the dynamics of European integration →
5 assumptions
▪ Assumption rational and self-interested actors, who (nevertheless) have the
capacity to learn and change their preferences → Haas: membership in the
ECSC altered the way that interest groups and member governments
perceived their interests
1
, ▪ Once established, institutions can take on a life of their own and
progressively escape the control of their creators → concerned with
increasing their own powers, thus influencing the perceptions of
participating elites
▪ Primacy of incremental decision-making over grand designs and marginal
adjustments are often driven by the unintended consequences of previous
decisions
▪ Neofunctionalists reject the conventional realist axiom that all games played
between actors are necessarily zero-sum in nature → seeking to agreement
by means of compromises upgrading common interest in the Community
▪ Haas agreed that emerging functional interdependencies between whole
economies and their productive sectors tends inexorably to foster further
integration → spillover process would be automatic: emergence of a political
community in Europe before the end of the transitional period established
by the Rome Treaty
The concept of spillover
• Functional spillover: the expansive logic of sector integration → the integration of one sector
leads to technical pressures pushing states to integrate other sectors
• Political spillover: support for the integration process amongst economic and political elites
were of great significance → socialization processes (engrenage) and particularly the
increased habit of national elites to look for European solutions in solving their problems
would help to generate a shift of expectations and perhaps loyalties towards the new centre
on the part of national elites
• Cultivated spillover: the Commissions cultivation of contacts with national civil servants and
interest groups would in time lead to the Commissions progressive ‘informal co-optation’ of
member states’ national elites to help realise its European objectives
Criticisms
• Critique grand theoretical pretensions: neofunctionalism does not and cannot provide a
general theory of regional integration in all settings
• Neofunctionalism lack a sufficient coherent and comprehensive specification of the
conditions under which spillover will occur
• Neofunctionalism gives undue prominence to actors → especially in the role assigned to
supranational civil servants and representatives of sectoral interests; and that agents and
structural explanations need to be linked with one another more adequately
• Neofunctionalists systematically underestimate the continued impact of sovereignty
consciousness and nationalism as barriers to the integration process (f.e. the empty chair
crisis)
• The concept of spillover was connected to the implicit assumption that economic growth
would continue unabated in the capitalist world, and that all member states would benefit
more or less equally from that growth → that does not always occur
• Neofunctionalists fail to adequately take the broader international context into account
• Neofunctionalists have come under warranted criticism for their lack of attention to
domestic political processes and structures
2
, Most-likely cases and the conditions for spillover
• Functional spillover → the situation/process in which the original integrative goal can be
assured only by taking further integrative action, which in turn creates circumstances that
require further action
o Functional pressures have to be persuasive
▪ Original issue area and the objectives therein are (considered) salient
▪ When the interdependence with areas where further action is (regarded as)
strong
o Decision-makers do not anticipate that further integration in one area may create
problems in other areas, which in turn would lead to further (possibly undesired)
integration or when further spillovers are anticipated (the benefit of the first
integrational step is sufficiently salient that it outweighs the concerns about later
spillover effects into other areas)
o Functional interdependencies are most likely to occur in the presence of ‘high issue
density’
• Political spillover → the integrative pressures exerted by (national governmental and
especially non-governmental) elites realizing that problems of substantial interest cannot be
satisfactorily solved at the domestic level
o Role of non-governmental elites → interest groups are more likely to seek
supranational solutions when
▪ The potential gains from European integration are high
▪ Interest groups can easily ascertain the benefits of EU activity
▪ The relevant issue area has for some time been governed by the EU/EC, so
that organized interests had a change to familiarize themselves with the
Community policy process, to coordinate on the European level, and for
learning processes to occur
▪ Functional spillover pressures or internationally induced incentives drive or
reinforce the rationale for seeking supranational solutions
o Role of governmental elites as well as socialization, learning and deliberation,
especially with regard to the increasing number of (Council and other) working
groups and committees → conditions socialization, deliberation and learning
processes
▪ Need time to develop
▪ Tend to be significantly constrained if important members of a working
group/committee are distrusted
▪ Are impaired when issues become politicized
▪ Can be offset in the case of adverse bureaucratic pressures in national
ministries and administrations
▪ Tend to be obstructed when negotiations are rather technical in nature and
negotiations do not possess enough expertise
▪ May be impeded when officials are a priori against changing their norms and
habits and feel that they have been dragged into EU/EC cooperation
• Cultivated spillover → the integrative pressure exerted by supranational institutions: the role
of the Commission
o Its ability to forge internal cohesion
o The Commission’s capacity to shape the agenda
3
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