Identity, Integration and Security: Solving the Sovereignty Puzzle in E.U. Studies

Abstract

Western Europe is probably area in world where one meets most advanced case of border fluidity and transgression of sovereignty. John Ruggie recently suggested that the institutional, juridical and spatial complexes associated with community may constitute nothing less than emergence of first truly postmodern international political form.(1) Postmodernity in context of international relations first of all means post-sovereignty. The European Union (E.U.), as it now calls itself, is thus a prominent case to investigate if one is interested in issues like changing nature of boundaries and possibilities of constructing political communities beyond sovereignty. One way to address this question would be to see to what extent politics in E.U. proceed according to old rules, and to what extent they follow new patterns. However, this is easier said than done. A principle like state sovereignty is neither an empirical designation nor an edict on limits of accepted behavior, so one cannot in a simple sense check empirical events against this description. Rather, sovereignty is an underlying organizing principle, a structure visible to extent that events can be seen as effects of its particular generative grammar.(2) Thus it is impossible to find conclusive evidence for status of generative grammars or organizing principles. In observing simultaneity of European Court supremacy and persistence of national legal systems, postmodernist will see proof of new organizing principles, while traditionalist will argue - legitimately - that system is still constituted on basis of sovereignty. As argued by Hedley Bull: Indeed, it is difficult to believe that anyone ever asserted statecentric view of international politics that is today so knowingly rejected by those who seek to emphasize role of the new international actors. What was widely asserted about European international relations from time of Vattel in mid-eighteenth century until end of First World War was legal fiction of a political universe that consisted of states alone, doctrine that only states had rights and duties in international law.(3) There is good reason to be careful not to proclaim a radical transformation every time one sees change, or what Ruggie has referred to as: prevailing superficiality of proliferating literature on international transformations, in which sheer momentum of processes sweeps international polity along toward its next encounter with destiny.(4) Therefore, it is easy to write entertaining essays on how Western Europe has become neo-medieval, post-sovereign or organized by fractal politics. But it is difficult to substantiate such claims in a satisfactory way, unless one makes a straw-man out of sovereignty and transfers it from its role as underlying principle to a role of empirical regularity or judicial limitation. In order to overcome this dilemma, this article will look at E.U. on a different level, through a discussion of overall dynamics of process, rather than day-to-day operations and decision making (although they will, of course, be part of analysis). Whether or not E.U. is beyond sovereignty is an impossible discussion. It is definitely possible to make case against transformation. The really interesting discussions are those that address destiny of project, whether E.U. points realistically (and not just programmatically) beyond sovereignty; and if it points beyond sovereignty of present states, whether this necessarily leads to a sovereign E.U. or to something post-sovereign. This requires a return to big questions of integration and integration theory. Classical Questions, Unconventional Approaches and False Starts To founding fathers of integration theory, Ernst B. Haas, Karl W. …