THE FIVE QUESTIONS OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION

European integration is itself a large topic, the full understanding of which requires considerable knowledge of history, economics, law, and all the major sub-disciplines of political science (political theory, comparative politics and international relations.) We can gain some provisional sense of the range and complexity of the topic by focusing upon five questions that immediately crop up when one tries to give a reasonably full account of European integration. Bartolini's position becomes apparent when we consider what he has to say about each of these questions.

What is European integration?

When talking about European integration, it is helpful to draw a distinction between the project, the process, and the current product of integration. The project of European integration refers to the efforts of intellectuals, political elites, and popular movements to create some form of European polity. The process of European integration refers to the actual step-by-step transformation of Europe's separate nation-states into a more integrated political, legal, and economic system. The product of European integration refers to the current outcome of this process, the political institutions, policies, and practices of the EU itself.

Bartolini's principal focus is on the process of European integration. In contrast to most political scientists who have written on this topic, Bartolini conceptualises this process as part of a broader

'In contrast to most political scientists who have written on this topic, Bartolini conceptualises this process as part of a broader trajectory of European political development from the collapse of the Roman Empire through to the rise of the modern state in the sixteenth century'

trajectory of European political development from the collapse of the Roman Empire through to the rise of the modern state in the sixteenth century. To make sense of this broader trajectory, Bartolini draws upon Stein Rokkan's concepts of 'boundary maintenance' and 'internal structuring'. From Rokkan's perspective, we can understand the rise of the modern nation-state as a dynamic process involving the efforts of political elites to achieve some form of boundary closure in the face of tendencies of groups to seek to exit.

Like Rokkan, Bartolini recognises the need for a theory of political development that can combine macro- and micro-perspectives. Both take their micro-theory of individual behaviour from Albert Hirschman's famous terminology of 'exit, voice, and loyalty', as three different responses to the failing performance of an organisation like the firm or the state. Bartolini develops this idea in a somewhat more rigorous form than Rokkan (see esp. pp. 24–47). The threat of exit, he argues, is handled primarily by 'centre formation', which is to say, by strengthening the administrative and military capacities of the central organisational hierarchy (the state (or state-like entity), in other words); the affirmation of loyalty is related to, what Bartolini calls, 'system-building', a catch-all term that covers the formation of various forms of collective identity; and the resort to 'voice', is handled by, what Bartolini terms, 'political structuring', which is to say institutional mechanisms that allow for the articulation of interests and grievances.

Bartolini identifies five key stages (or critical junctures) of political development in Europe: 'state-building', 'capitalist development', 'nation-building', 'democratisation', and 'social sharing' (p. 60). In a sense, these different stages correspond to the 'differentiation' (to use Bartolini's terminology) of distinctive functional political tasks. The modern European nation-state differs from earlier types of polity – the polis, the Empire, the medieval regnum, the early modern absolutist state, and so forth – in its capacity to operate with more or less the same boundary around all of these functional tasks. Thus, in crossing the boundary of one nation-state into another, we (the citizens of a nation-state) simultaneously move under 'the rule of alternative extractive agencies, into a different economic market, a different cultural community', and different educational and welfare regimes (p. 21).

For Bartolini, the process of European integration appears as the sixth stage of political development. In one sense, this sixth stage is the same as earlier ones in that it involves a critical juncture in a long-range process of boundary-removing and boundary-building. Bartolini himself stresses the importance of this similarity (hence his usage of the term 'sixth stage'). Yet in another sense, this sixth stage is very different from the five earlier ones. The earlier stages can be seen, at least retrospectively, as a process leading to the development of a 'rationalised' (in the Weberian sense)

'Bartolini's developmental terminology allow us to consider the possibility that European integration will yield an unstable, political entity that stands in the same relation to the 'nation-state' as the fractured political entities of Europe's dark ages stood to the Roman Empire'

political system that succeeded where others failed in solving the problem of military efficacy, economic efficiency, and civic loyalty. The process of European integration, however, involves a process of redrawing boundaries in such a way that the EU – the current product of this process – appears to be anything but a rationalised political system. On the contrary, the EU exists – sometimes at the centre, but more often not – of a complex process of boundary-removing and boundary-building. Bartolini's developmental terminology allow us to consider the possibility that European integration will yield an unstable, political entity that stands in the same relation to the 'nation-state' as the fractured political entities of Europe's dark ages stood to the Roman Empire. In this sense, the sixth stage of European political development is better captured by the term 'disintegration' than 'integration'.

Whatever one thinks of this disintegration–integration dynamic, the more general point remains that Bartolini's developmental perspective allows us to identify the central ontological feature of the EU. The EU is the current product of a complex process of integration, a process that involves abolishing and redrawing boundaries. The simple definitional question – what is the EU? – cannot be answered independently of some account of this process. Furthermore, the process of European integration cannot itself be understood independently of the earlier process of nation-state formation.

How did European integration proceed this far?

European integration has, by any stretch of the imagination, been remarkably successful. Even thirty years ago, very few scholars of European politics would have predicted that the EU would have such wide boundaries covering so many different functional tasks. Bartolini offers a conventional explanation for this achievement. He thinks that the process of European integration has been driven by the inability of nation-states, acting singly or jointly, to solve two problems: (i) to avoid the costs of highly destructive wars and (ii) to manage economic competition. While the process of European integration has been driven by European political elites' perceptions of the military and economic deficiencies of the nation-state, this process was facilitated by the Atlantic Alliance, which solved, at least for a period, some of Europe's military and economic problems.

The EU remains today a far cry from being a nation-state, but it has had to replicate key features of the nation-state – including certain nation-building, democratic, and redistributive features – to get this far. Bartolini notes, however, that the process of European integration cannot go any further without certain forms of boundary-removing at the nation-state level that jeopardise the legitimisation capacities of the nation-state. The great danger for Europeans, so he argues, is that boundary-building at the European level will not prove adequate to compensate for boundary-removal at the nation-state level.

Why support or resist European integration now?

Given Bartolini's account of a Europe caught between processes of boundary-removal and boundary-building, perhaps the most important question facing any European citizen is whether or not to lend support or resist these processes. This question is, at heart, a normative or philosophical question about the justification for drawing boundaries in different ways. Most political scientists who write about European integration tend to ignore this normative question. Bartolini is, at one level at least, no exception. The reader comes away from this book with no clear view of where he stands on the justification of different possible ways of drawing the administrative-extractive, military, economic, democratic, and welfare boundaries in Europe today. He certainly does not offer any philosophical justifications for preferring one set of boundary-coincidences over another.

Yet, although he never makes it explicit, Bartolini does have a normative position that takes the form of a modernist commitment to the nation-state, the post-war European nation-state in particular. Bartolini reinforces this commitment by noting how the multiple coincidences of different boundaries in the nation-state produce 'a collectivity of human beings that shares a common understanding about what is important in their lives ... and have ways ... to regulate their lives in common' (p. 112). The European nation-state, in short, makes possible the role of citizen.

It is not clear how Bartolini would respond to various post-modernist claims concerning the obsolescence of sovereignty (Tully, 1995) or the end of democracy (Guehenno, 2000). Nor is it clear what he would make of neo-liberal claims about the impossibility of robust welfare states in an era of globalisation (Morgan, 2003). He does make clear, however, his own worries about a Europe caught between a process of eroding national boundaries and a faltering process of European-level boundary-building.

Who can be expected to support or resist European integration?

Whether one focuses upon the historical issue (the second question above) or the normative issue (the third question above), a theory of European integration is going to have to consider the question of political agency. Who – which political agents? – can be expected to be the principal movers behind boundary-removing and boundary-building? Or as Bartolini himself puts it, in the closing sentence of his book: 'which boundaries are built and removed, by whom, and for what purpose?' (p. 412). Part of Bartolini's answer to this question is implied by his own modernist prejudices mentioned earlier. For Bartolini, the 'coincidence' of identities, social practices, and rule setting at the level of the nation-state allows for the emergence of a powerful form of political agency (p. 112, p. 411). But now that such 'coincidences' have broken down – which is to say, different boundaries (military, economic, cultural) have become incongruent – this form of political agency has disappeared without any alternative emerging in its place. If Bartolini is correct, then the process of European integration will likely be driven (whether forwards or backwards) not by citizens organised into national publics, but by global capital interests, experts, bureaucrats, lobbyists, inchoate populist movements, and a street-protesting rabble.

In the terms of his own developmental theory, Bartolini handles the question of political agency by way of a micro-theory

'If Bartolini is correct, then the process of European integration will likely be driven (whether forwards or backwards) not by citizens organised into national publics, but by global capital interests, experts, bureaucrats, lobbyists, inchoate populist movements, and a street-protesting rabble'

that employs (much like Rokkan) Hirschman's concepts of 'exit, voice, and loyalty'. These three strategies represent interesting and important alternatives for individuals and groups faced with states seeking to consolidate their territorial boundaries and enhance central control. But the key issue for European integration is who pursues what strategy. The strategy pursued by Europe's leading financial and commercial interests is clearly of greater significance than the strategy of a nationally organised labour union. Bartolini does not always explain why or how some political agents were more important than others in any particular episode of boundary-removing and boundary-building. Thus, in his account of the post-war process of European integration, he emphasises the role of 'European political elites', but does not identify which – nor explain how – these particular elites were able to get their way (p. 367). The book does, however, contain a very interesting and insightful discussion of how, in the present EU, different territorial, corporate, and electoral interests are represented. Bartolini's conclusion here is that the EU tends to 'destructure national interest intermediation structures far more than it restructures them at its widened level' (p. 304). In other words, the EU tends to diminish rather than enhance the ordinary citizens' capacity for political agency.

What is the likely outcome of the process of European integration?

Europe's political elites have tended to steer clear of any discussion of the telos of European integration. Indeed, this is a subject that remains deeply divisive within European political circles. Certainly, there are still those who favour a federalist outcome. But this position has lost ground in recent years. Even those political elites who favour a federalist outcome tend to think that this outcome is better approached indirectly through a process of building policies and institutions ahead of any strong popular support. Non-federalist proponents of European integration tend to think that the EU now is and will remain a sui generis post-sovereign polity. They envisage an EU with multiple different centres operating at multiple different levels. Bartolini does not take a clear position on the ultimate telos of European integration. His work does, however, suggest that the post-sovereignist position, which tends to make a virtue out of boundary incongruities, underestimates the difficulties of achieving an effective, popular form of government.

Bartolini's theoretical framework invites us to view both the nation-state and the EU as two developmental stages in a continuous process of boundary-removing and boundary-building. There is, from this angle, nothing sui generis about the EU. No less significantly, Bartolini's arguments suggest that the nation-state, which entails the multiple coincidences of different functional boundaries, is much better equipped to legitimate itself than the EU. For the moment, the EU can continue to rely upon the legitimating power of national governments. But Bartolini worries that the EU will eventually undermine national governments. In a bleak concluding assessment, Bartolini writes (pp. 411–412) The scattered elements of identities, interests, and institutions need to be reconciled ... into a new coherent order. If this reconstruction does not occur at some level other than that of the nation-state, then tensions, conflicts, and problems are likely to emerge that could jeopardize the features specific to European civilization.

THE INTERGOVERNMENTALIST REJOINDER

While the central thread of this book's argument involves an account of boundary-removing and boundary-building, Bartolini hangs onto this thread a number of illuminating discussions of different aspects of European integration. Two of these discussions stand out: one, a discussion of Europe's alleged legitimacy problems; and two, a discussion of the prospects of European parliamentary democracy.

Bartolini's book contains an extremely refreshing discussion of Europe's so-called 'legitimacy deficit' (pp. 165–179). Taking a page from the intergovernmentalists' manual, Bartolini notices that the EU, at least in its present form, does not need any additional legitimacy than that provided by national governments. EU level decisions are (for the most part) based on the voluntary decisions of national governments, who (again for the most part) have ample option to exit. So far as the claim that Europe needs more democracy to legitimate itself, Bartolini believes that 'political legitimacy can only be achieved via electoral responsibility of the top executive and legislative deciders' (p. 167).

Bartolini's argument concerning the irrelevance of democratic legitimacy seems very similar to the argument of an intergovernmentalist like Andrew Moravcsik. Yet, whereas Moravcsik, (2002, 2005) thinks that the EU in its present form is stable and successful, Bartolini disagrees. Here his theoretical framework serves him well, because it allows him to consider the simultaneous effects of boundary-removing on the nation-state and boundary-building at the European level. Bartolini's assessment of current boundary arrangements is far less complacent than that of many intergovernmentalists. In the face of the competence accretion of the EU, Bartolini doubts whether the indirect legitimacy afforded by national governments will be sufficient to legitimate EU decisions. Against those who pin their hopes on the legitimating power of non-majoritarian regulatory agencies (Majone, 2005), Bartolini counters that this power is unlikely to bewitch anyone outside the magic circle of agency participants. Furthermore, the effort to devolve technical questions to these agencies simply begs the question of who is to decide what counts as a technical question.

Part of Bartolini's misgivings about the current division of labour between the nation-state and the EU derives from his understanding of the consequences of boundary-removal at the nation-state level. Although Bartolini himself does not exactly put it this way, his message here is this: the nation-state cannot, in future, be relied upon to secure EU legitimacy, because the EU has undercut nation-state legitimacy. This line of argument rests upon the idea that the nation-state owes its own legitimacy (and much else) to a mutually reinforcing overlap of national identity, social sharing, and political participation. The boundary-removing process set in motion by European

'One of the weaknesses of Bartolini's present workis that he makes no effort to provide us with rigorously formulated counterfactual hypotheses or (perhaps all that can be done in this area) imaginatively constructed alternative future scenarios'

integration deprives nation-states of this mutual reinforcement.

One possible line of response to some of Bartolini's more pessimistic assessments of Europe's current political arrangements comes from those – such as Andreas Follesdal and Hix (2006) – who look forward to the regeneration of European democracy by way of a politicisation of issues in the European parliament. For Follesdal and Hix, the answer lies in the manufacture of a certain measure of adversarial contestation. Bartolini is very critical of such proposals. In perhaps the most impressive section of this book, Bartolini provides us with a tour de force account of 'political structuring' in the nation-state and the European Union.

This section of the book (Chapter 6) can be read as a self-contained, state-of-the-art discussion of parties, party systems, representation, electoral cleavages, and voter alignments. The general thrust of the argument here is to suggest that political structuring at the European level faces major constraints. Bartolini has no confidence in proposals to inject more partisan controversy through Europe's political parties. He fears that these proposals, if implemented, are likely to raise popular expectations that cannot be fulfilled. In a very gloomy prognosis, he concludes that (p. 408) the institutional design of the EU militates against any stable form of political structuring for its representative actors, while its growing political production tends to undermine national mechanisms of political representation and legitimation.

Bartolini's disagreements with Moravcsik and Follesdal and Hix are important and warrant further investigation. It must be noted, however, that it remains somewhat unclear what empirical evidence is necessary to settle these disagreements. One of the weaknesses of Bartolini's present work is that he makes no effort to provide us with rigorously formulated counterfactual hypotheses or (perhaps all that can be done in this area) imaginatively constructed alternative future scenarios. Much of Bartolini's disagreement with Moravcsik, for instance, turns on his belief that the current functional boundaries in Europe today are such that they are unlikely to be able to withstand major economic and security crises. Bartolini is, in my view, absolutely right, but his position would have been bolstered by a few scenarios of discord, dissolution, and unravelling.

A EUROPEAN NATION-STATE

To the extent that Bartolini's theoretical approach has a weakness, it lies in his failure to consider the possibility that European integration is merely an ephemeral sixth stage of political development soon be eclipsed by a seventh stage called 'globalisation' (Leibfried and Zurn, 2005). Bartolini does not much like the term 'globalisation'; it does not make it into his rather selective index; and he relegates any explicit discussion of the phenomenon to a lengthy footnote on pages 367–368. Yet, what he has to say there suggests that

'the difficulty remains that the boundary transcendence entailed by globalisation may render irrelevant the boundaries being built at the European level'

he needs to consider the phenomenon of globalisation in much greater detail. For Bartolini, globalisation and integration are similar, in that they involve 'boundary transcendence'. The key difference between the two, as he understands it, is that European integration involves 'boundary-removing' and 'boundary-building', while globalisation is merely a matter of 'boundary transcendence'.

Bartolini's description of globalisation is unobjectionable. He even notices that some aspects of the boundary transcendence driven by globalisation involve the creation of new global centres of governance. But the difficulty remains that the boundary transcendence entailed by globalisation may render irrelevant the boundaries being built at the European level. The process of European integration was, in its formative stages, driven by the thought that Europe needed a large single market. This type of thinking has now been eclipsed by worries about how Europeans will fare in a new global economy where capital can and must shift rapidly to exploit the most favourable conditions for profit. Boundaries built at the European level do not offer much protection against Chinese-manufactured footwear, particularly when all European countries have consumers demanding cheap shoes, but only a few European countries (Italy and Portugal, for instance) have significant shoe manufacturing industries. The country-specific aspects of global economic competition may, in short, overwhelm Europe's newly constructed boundaries.

Bartolini can resist a serious engagement with globalisation as a seventh stage of development, only because he remains at heart a nation-stateist. Indeed, this entire book can be read as a powerful defence of the nation-state; a polity that unifies political practices, institutions, and identities, thereby providing citizens with a sense of political agency. At some point, Bartolini's normative commitment to the nation-state (which remains implicit rather than philosophically justified) parts company with his theoretical understanding of 'integration' as the sixth stage of development. Yet, he cannot conceal his worries that this new sixth stage will never be able to match the achievements of the nation-state in the fields of democratic representation and social solidarity. This is not to say that Bartolini is a Eurosceptic. He recognises that the European nation-state system ultimately failed to solve its own military and economic problems. There is no suggestion in this book that a European nation-state system would fare any better now at solving these problems.

There is, however, one important alternative that Bartolini fails to consider: the idea of a European nation-state – or Superstate, as it might be termed (Morgan, 2005a). From this perspective, everything that Bartolini has to say about the nation-state holds true. The nation-state is a rationalised, highly effective type of polity, precisely for the reasons of boundary coincidence that Bartolini identifies. It must not be forgotten that, regardless of political developments in Europe, the single global superpower – the United States of America – remains a classic nation-state that jealously guards its own sovereignty. Given this situation, it is difficult to give too much credence to talk of the death or obsolescence of the nation-state (Cooper, 2004). It may turn out that Europe finds itself alone at Bartolini's sixth stage of political development, while the rest of the world's global powers (not merely the US, but Russia, China, and Japan) are happily stuck at the fifth.

This point brings us to an underdeveloped feature of Bartolini's argument. Bartolini, in justification of his 'holistic approach to integration', maintains, quite rightly, that scholars of European Union need to overcome rigid distinctions between domestic and international politics (p. xv). Bartolini's theoretical framework seems, however, at least to this reader, to be a framework that is better suited to incorporating the concepts and data of comparative politics than the concepts and data of international politics. Europe's nation-states, whether acting singly, bilaterally, or through pooling their sovereignty in the European Union, form part of an international state system that still operates, in many ways, in accordance with a realist logic of power politics (Morgan, 2005b). True, there exists a nascent international society – a society of international norms, laws, and organisations – that overlays this international state system. But it would be reckless for any major power to think that they can trust the security and welfare of their citizens to this international society. Both Europe's nation-states and the EU must, in short, operate in a world where power politics still matters.

The world of international power politics is no less significant, when it comes to predicting the future political development of Europe. In recent times, European political developments have been driven by decisions taken by great powers like the United States and the Soviet Union. Presumably, Bartolini would want to conceptualise such events as exogenous developments that precipitate another round of European boundary-removing and boundary-building. But to the extent that these exogenous developments are now the principal drivers of European political development, then Bartolini has a theoretical framework that omits too much of the world of international relations.

Not only does this omission have theoretical consequences, it also has normative consequences. Bartolini's account of a Europe caught betwixt and between a boundary-eroding nation-state and an inadequately bounded European Union is unduly pessimistic, because it fails to consider the possibility that the nation-state will eventually, in the dim and distant future, be reconstituted at the European level. Needless to say, this outcome now appears very unlikely, especially in the wake of recent difficulties over Europe's Constitutional Treaty. But Europe's political history has been punctuated by unlikely developments. If you had told people in 1975 that within thirty years Europe would have a common currency, a common passport, open internal borders, and twenty-five member states, they would have thought you mad.

There are, however, certain aspects of Bartolini's theoretical framework that lend support to the possibility of a European nation-state, even if he himself does not push his argument in this direction. Postwar European political development, including the initial process of European integration, has, as he notes, been driven by military and economic crises. The military crises of the first half of the twentieth century were a function of conflicts within and between European nation-states. The military crises of the future are likely to take place outside Europe. Perhaps Europe's present security arrangements – which involve a heavy reliance upon an asymmetrical military alliance with the United States – will prove adequate. But there are some good reasons, which Bartolini's boundary framework helps us to appreciate, for thinking that these security arrangements will not be much use in the event of a major security crisis.

'It must not be forgotten that, regardless of political developments in Europe, the single global superpower – the United States of America – remains a classic nation-state that jealously guards its own sovereignty'

Bartolini's framework lays bare the weaknesses of a polity with multiple, incongruent boundaries. A polity whose military borders are incongruent with its extractive-administrative borders, which are incongruent with its cultural identity-defining borders, is not a polity that will find it easy to raise an army and fight a war. This would be fine in an era when war is obsolete or when Europeans could rely upon the altruism and judicious diplomacy of their American ally. But this is not the world Europeans inhabit. A polity with multiple incongruent borders is a polity that makes it too easy for Europe's foreign enemies to practice divide et impera. Bartolini does not draw this conclusion himself. But this is clearly a logical implication of his argument.

Finally, Bartolini's framework reminds us that over the last two thousand years Europeans have drawn their political boundaries in a variety of different ways. In doing so, they have produced not merely multiple different territorial units – some big, some small – but different types of polity, including the polis, the Empire, the regnum, the absolutist state, the constitutional monarchy and so forth. The European Union has been described as 'the only fundamentally new macro-political form to emerge and prosper in nearly a century' (Moravcsik, 2006). Bartolini provides us with lots of evidence to suggest that this macro-political form has many internal weaknesses. In a benign international environment, these weaknesses might not prove disastrous. But were Europe to confront a genuine military crisis, Europe would need to take the initial steps to turning itself into a unitary sovereign state whose functional boundaries are more coincidental than at present.

CONCLUSION

Bartolini has written a great book that repays close scrutiny. It offers a welcome alternative to the spate of recent studies that celebrate Europe's decentred, post-sovereign alternative to the nation-state. Anyone who thinks that Europeans can flourish under such a polity needs to come to terms with Bartolini's arguments. No less importantly Bartolini's book prompts us to consider the impact of the EU on national political structures. If he is right, then the roots of at least some of the European electorates' current dissatisfactions with their own national political processes can be traced to Brussels.

References

1. Cooper, R. (2004) The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-First Century, London: Grove Press.
2. Follesdal, A. and Hix, S. (2006) 'Why there is a democratic deficit in the EU: A response to Majone and Moravcsik', Journal of Common Market Studies 44(3): 533–562.
3. Guehenno, J.M. (2000) The End of the Nation-State, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
4. Leibfried, S. and Zurn, M. (eds.) (2005) Transformations of the State, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
5. Majone, G. (2005) Dilemmas of European Integration: The Ambiguities and Pitfalls of Integration by Stealth, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
6. Moravcsik, A. (2002) 'In defence of the democratic deficit', Journal of Common Market Studies 40(4): 603–624.
7. Moravcsik, A. (2005) 'Europe without illusions, Prospect, April, No. 114.
8. Moravcsik, A. (2006) 'Restructuring Europe: Book review', West European Politics 29(3): 589–590.
9. Morgan, G. (2003) 'Hayek, Habermas, and European integration', Critical Review 15(1–2): 1–22.
10. Morgan, G. (2005a) The Idea of a European Superstate: Public Justification and European Integration, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
11. Morgan, G. (2005b) 'Realism and European integration: The lessons of the United States', European Political Science 4: 199–208.
12. Tully, J. (1995) Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

About the author

Glyn Morgan is Associate Professor of Government and of Social Studies at Harvard University (USA). He is the author of The Idea of a European Superstate: Public Justification and European Integration (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005).