Introduction

This chapter seeks to illustrate and test the analytical framework elaborated in the previous chapter on integration schemes from nineteenth and twentieth-century Europe. It begins, in section 2, by examining one of the most successful examples of integration, the European Union. The section traces the EU's achievements to the existence of demand and supply conditions. First, demand conditions are examined through two examples chosen to illustrate the key role played by corporate actors in pressing for deeper integration: the constitutionalization of the Treaty of Rome and events leading up to the Single European Act. The section then turns to the enlargement issue and examines the conditions leading to acceptance or rejection of new potential members. Supply conditions are then considered. The section examines the role of two “commitment institutions,” the Commission and the European Court of Justice, in fostering integration, and Germany's critical contribution as institutional leader and regional paymaster to the successful collective supply of integration. The section concludes with a statistical test of the relationship between integration and investment flows, adducing strong evidence of the efficiency view of integration. Section 3 provides a second test case of the analytical framework, namely the German Zollverein. Its structure is identical to that of section 2. The final section turns to failed European integration schemes and asks whether they can be explained in terms of absence of demand and supply conditions.