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The Dialectics of Supranational Unification*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Amitai Etzioni
Amitai Etzioni
Affiliation:
Columbia University
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Extract

The application of several European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries for membership in the Common Market (EEC) is viewed in Washington with great pleasure: the development of a United States of Europe is widely anticipated. Many observers have already calculated the combined manpower, economic resources, military power, etc. of the new union, and have pointed to the decisive advantage the United States, in coalition with this “third power,” will have over the Soviet Union. Even the fact that the EEC and EFTA, if completely merged, would have 13 members is not considered unlucky: after all, the United States itself evolved out of a union of 13. It may however, be premature to prepare a celebration for the birthday of the United States of Europe. The following theoretical excursion suggests that loading the EEC with new members may well reduce it to the level of a glorified customs union rather than forward it to a political federation. Moreover, I shall argue, political communities often unify not by increasing their membership, but in a dialectic fashion: two or more groups form; they appear to be moving in opposite directions until each is well integrated, then they are “synthesized” (not merged) in a superior union. That is, they form one encompassing union without dissolving the bonds that held together the units that composed a group before the larger unification. The earlier autonomous groups become sub-groups in one union, adjusting to the new over-riding bond without being fused into one group that knows no internal divisions.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 56 , Issue 4 , December 1962 , pp. 927 - 935
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1962

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Footnotes

*

This article was written while I was a Research Associate at the Institute of War and Peace Studies. I am grateful to my colleagues at the 1962 Summer Institute of the American Academy of Art and Sciences, in particular to James A. Robinson, for comments on an earlier draft.

References

1 Theoretically one can increase the number of participants without increasing heterogeneity by adding new participants who are just like the old ones; this is the common justification for immigration policies, e.g., that discriminate in favor of readily assimilable applicants for entry. In practice, I assume for the purpose of this discussion that heterogeneity increases with size. Note, though, that no one-to-one relationship is assumed. Actually, the marginal heterogeneity produced by increases in size probably declines.

2 The obvious disadvantages of this system for the UN are irrelevant to the present analysis.

3 In Israel, many opposition parties share the leadership with the government leader, Mapai (Labor party), by joining the executive board of the Jewish Agency and the Hisladrut, often referred to as the two other governments of Israel. On their functions and their effect on Israeli politics see my “Kulturkampf or Coalition. The Case of Israel” Revue Française de Science Politique, Vol. 8 (June, 1958), pp. 311–331 Google Scholar.

4 See Melnik, Constantin and Leites, Nathan, The House Without Windows (Evanston: Rowe Peterson, 1958)Google Scholar.

5 Private communication with UN officials, and participant-observation in a UNESCO Conference in Montreal, in 1959.

6 Brzezinski, Zbigniew K., Ideology and Power in Soviet Politics (New York, 1962), pp. 150 ffGoogle Scholar.

7 Wallerstein, Immanuel, “Background to Paga-I,” West Africa, July 29, 1961, p. 819 Google Scholar.

8 See Hovet, Thomas Jr., Bloc Politics in the United Nations (Cambridge, Mass.: Center for International Studies, M.I.T., 1958)Google Scholar.

9 The EEC is represented in certain GATT negotiations by the Economic Commission as one polity rather than six national polities. See Kitzinger, W. W., The Challenge of the Common Market (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962), 3d ed., p. 27 Google Scholar.

10 See Eyck, F. Gunther, The Benelux Countries (New York, 1959), Pt. IGoogle Scholar.

11 Muret, Charlotte, “The Swiss Pattern for a Federal Europe,” in Earle, E. M., ed., Nationalism and Internationalism. (New York, 1950), pp. 261 ffGoogle Scholar.

12 Federal Reserve Bank of New York, “The Emerging Common Markets in Latin America,” Monthly Review, September, 1960 Google ScholarPubMed.

13 Cf. Lippmann, Walter, Western Unity and the Common Market (Boston, 1962), ch. 3Google Scholar.

14 For a keen analysis of the difference between inter-governmental and supranational structures, see Haas, Ernst B., The Uniting of Europe (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958), pp. 520 ffGoogle Scholar.

15 This point is elaborated in my “A Paradigm for the Study of Political Unification,” World Politics, Vol. XV (October 1962), pp. 44 Google Scholar.

16 See note 1, above, on the relationship between size and heterogeneity.

17 The union of the United States, well “prepared” by 1789, took a hundred years and a civil war before it solidified, and yet was one of a highly homogeneous group: “ … Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people—a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs.” John Jay, The Federalist, No. 2, cited by Mangone, Gerard J., The Idea and Practice of World Government (New York: Columbia University Press, 1951), p. 26, fn. 10Google Scholar.

18 Uniting of Europe, op. cit.

19 Haas, Ernest B., “International Integration,” International Organization, Vol. 15 (1961), pp. 366–392 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 See my “The Epigenesis of Political Community at the International Level,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 68 (Jan. 1963)Google Scholar.

21 Cf., for instance, the period of hegemony in the British, Hapsburg, and German empires to the periods of dual or multi-leadership. See also Brinton, Crane, From Many One (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. And compare the Communist bloc in the days when the Soviet Union had a clear hegemony to the later period of the Soviet-Chinese rift. See Mills, T. M., “Power Relations in Three Person Groups,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 18 (1953), pp. 351–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Simmel, Georg, “The Number of Members as Determining the Sociological Form of the Group,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 8 (1902), pp. 45–6Google Scholar.

22 See Camps, Miriam, Division in Europe, Policy Memorandum No. 21, Center of International Studies (Princeton University, 1960)Google Scholar.

23 Christian Science Monitor, October 28, 1957, p. 6 Google Scholar.

24 Such a union has been advocated by Kissinger, Henry A., The Necessity for Choice (New York, 1960), pp. 165–8Google Scholar. See also Kraft, Joseph, The Grand Design (New York, 1962)Google Scholar. Some of the problems involved in its formation have been pointed out by Deutsch, Karl W. et al. , Political Community and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton University Press, 1957)Google Scholar.

25 Not to be confused with a merger of nations as “individuals” in a European union, such as “revised” OEEC.

26 See Trillon, Robert, Gold and the Dollar Crisis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961)Google Scholar, ch. 4, and Buchan, Alastair, NATO in the 1960's (London, Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, 1959), ch. 4Google Scholar.

27 This point is elaborated in my The Hard Way to Peace (New York: Collier Books, 1962), ch. 8Google ScholarPubMed.