Week 4 - Summarized Notes + Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards reviewing major European integration theories, mechanisms, phases, and contemporary dynamic models from the lecture notes.

Core State Powers

The central capacities that historically constitute a sovereign nation-state, specifically organized means of coercion (armed forces, police, border patrols), fiscal autonomy (taxes and debt capabilities), and administrative capacity.

Bellicist State-Building

A process described by bellicist theory wherein central authority and capacity in core state powers are centralized and constructed at the central level in response to existential military threats.

Bellicist Integration

A dynamic wherein external military threats lead member states to reinforce their own national state capacities with the support and coordination of EU institutions, rather than centralizing powers supranationally.

Weakest-Link Problem

A collective action challenge where the success of joint action depends on the capacity or size of the smallest individual contribution, creating functional demand for risk- and burden-sharing mechanisms.

Functional Condition of Bellicist State-Building

The requirement that sub-central or national capacities are weak or uneven, creating a functional demand and comparative advantage for central capacity-building during a crisis.

Postfunctional Condition of Bellicist State-Building

The requirement that military threats are immediate, symmetric, and exogenous enough to induce strong collective security imperatives, align interests, and foster internal solidarity.

Neofunctionalism

A theory of European integration originated by Ernst Haas asserting that integration is an elite-driven, self-reinforcing process where cooperation in technical and economic sectors generates spillovers into wider policy domains.

Functional Spillover

A neofunctionalist mechanism where integration in one specific technical or economic sector generates technical pressures for integration in related economic or policy sectors.

Political Spillover

The process in neofunctionalism whereby political elites become socialized into regional norms and practices, coming to seek and appreciate regional solutions to policy problems.

Geographical Spillover

A neofunctionalist dynamic where the integration of an initial group of member states creates functional pressures to enlarge the regional organization to include neighboring non-member states.

Cultivated Spillover

The dynamic where supranational institutions actively foster integration by mediating disputes, facilitating dialogue, and cultivating functional-economic interdependence.

Liberal Intergovernmentalism

Andrew Moravcsik's theory positing that regional integration is state-driven based on national economic interests and achieved through national preference formation, intergovernmental bargaining, and institutional choice.

Postfunctionalism

A theory advanced by Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks stating that regional integration is fundamentally shaped, constrained, or derailed by public opinion, identity cleavages, and politicisation.

Permissive Consensus

A historical period of passive public acquiescence and benevolent indifference toward European integration that allowed political elites to negotiate integration unhindered by mass politics.

Constraining Dissensus

The emergence of public politicisation and widespread Euroskepticism that restricts political elites, stalls further supranational integration, or drives disintegration.

Empowering Dissensus

A concept in discursive post-functionalism where public politicisation and citizen demands expand the range of available policy options, pressuring decision-makers to execute collective solutions.

Realist Intergovernmentalism

Stanley Hoffmann's early integration theory asserting that member-state leaders govern European integration to protect national geopolitical interests and sovereignty in high-politics areas.

Eurafrica

A perspective championed by Peo Hansen and Stefan Jonsson viewing early European integration treaties of the 1950s as a colonial project designed to secure European access to African resources and territories.

Great Power Wedging

A realist mechanism where external great powers use incentives, rewards, or coercive threats to divide member states and impede regional integration.

Great Power Binding

A realist mechanism where external great powers leverage influence, aid, or security guarantees to align regional states and accelerate regional integration.

Phase 1 of European Integration Theory

The foundational period from the late 1950s to the 1970s characterized by methodological pluralism, pitting Ernst Haas's neofunctionalist supranationalism against Stanley Hoffmann's realist intergovernmentalism.

Phase 2 of European Integration Theory

The phase beginning in the 1990s marked by a sharp methodological divide between historical institutionalist supranationalism and rational choice liberal intergovernmentalism.

Phase 3 of European Integration Theory

The phase during the 2010s characterized by constructivist and discursive institutionalist frameworks, pitting 'new' supranationalists against 'new' intergovernmentalists.

Phase 4 of European Integration Theory

The recent phase from the mid-2010s onward focusing on politicisation, splitting rationalist/historical post-functionalists from constructivist/discursive post-functionalists.

Discursive Institutionalism

An analytical framework that explains institutional continuity and change through the ideational content and interactive communication (coordinative and communicative discourse) of sentient actors.