and the European Union

Interest-based theories of International Relations view the European Union as a functional supranational body and an actor in Global Politics. According to the interest-based view, through the institution of certain procedures and standards such as in many laws, and cooperation throughout a multitude of areas such as the economy, environment and security, international organisations like the European Union can help bring prosperity to countries and help advance their mutual interests. Many different liberal institutionalist theories of International Relations provide different explanations of how and why countries cooperate. Interest-based theories argue that as countries aim to make decisions which advance many interests, not just power, those same countries will be drawn to cooperate as that is more beneficial.

The introduction of classical liberal thinking into global politics led the way for modern interest-based theories, which are also sometimes called liberal theories. Immanuel Kant, the enlightenment philosopher, was one of the first to formulate the idea of the democratic peace (Dunne, 2007, p. 90), an important bridge between liberal political philosophy and liberal international relations theory. Kant described a scenario where if the “consent of citizens is required” for war to be declared, the citizens would be inclined to be cautious, knowing that the “calamities of war” would be brought upon them rather than the ruler of their state (ibid). Therefore, it is considered unlikely that two democratic states would go to war if their citizens weigh up the rewards and costs that the war would bring to them. Kant also correctly predicted that developments in technology will result in much more destructive weaponry, and this would reinforce any existing democratic peace as the risk-averse citizens are aware that any war would bring solely destruction (Knutsen, 1997, p. 110). Eventually, this would result in a perpetual peace and a harmonious international community. The general idea of the democratic peace is still present within interest-based theories, but cannot solely explain reasons for the formation of the European Union or other international organisations, as there likely would not have been a reason to have no such complex political organisation at the level of the European Union, United Nations or similar bodies.

International regimes and organisations emerged in the 19th and 20th centuries for various reasons leading to scholars of politics (and the newly developing international relations discipline) describing and explaining their emergence and purpose. An international organisation is a form of international institution which possesses quasi actorhood status in global politics as a result of pooled or delegated sovereignty by its member states (Rittberger, 2006, p. 6). International organisations also focus on a wide

range of issues which can include collective security, environmental and economic problems. International organisations in this context can be defined as an organisation formed through the decision of three or more sovereign states in an intergovernmental agreement, or through the decision of an existing intergovernmental organisation (ibid.). Therefore, most of these organisations can be said to have emerged in the 20th century, specifically in its later half. According to the yearbook of international organisations, in 2021 there were 7,853 international organisations in the world, a number which has been increasing since 1909 when the yearbook started, and significantly since 1980 (Baylis, Smith and Owens, 2023, p.309-310). Also within the category of international institutions are international regimes, which are characterised by their issue-area-specific focus and “basic principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures” around which governments converge (2006, p. 6). Importantly, they do not function as actors in international relations. With the growth of many international organisations, which include the European Union, it was of greater interest to scholars of international relations who studied them and explained them through the existing theoretical frameworks such as realism and liberalism.

Various interest-based theories were to arise to comment on the emergence of international organisations, including early liberal thinking, which has been labelled as “idealist” by E.H. Carr and his contemporaries (2023, p. 104, p. 316), and cold war era liberal institutionalist theories such as federalism, functionalism, neo-functionalism, transactionalism. In the last quarter of the 20th century, many liberal institutionalist thinkers responded to realist ideas leading to the development of the dominant institutionalist theory, sometimes called neoliberalism or neo-institutionalism. All of these theories can be utilised to comment on how and why the European Union or similar intergovernmental bodies emerged.

Idealism is a theory of international relations espoused in the 19th and early 20th centuries, eventually losing its prominence by the interwar period. Idealism states that as humans are moral actors who are guided by interests such as their ideals, values and norms, and as they are the people behind the state, they can find common normative ground with other societies (2006, p.21). This can lead to the formation of supranational organisations such as the European Union or in the case of the post-First World War global politics, the League of Nations, because, as people tend to value peace, it was held by idealists that if states were democratic that they would structure the international community in a way peace is upheld. Wilson and other idealists believed that global opinion would always favour peace even when individual states wished to go to war, meaning that on the whole peace would indeed be upheld. Carr was very critical of the idealists, arguing that the rise of internationalism was rooted in patterns of power and interests and that realism was the correct approach to studying

international politics (2023, p.104). Liberals were viewed as utopian and rather than describe international politics as it is, they resorted to discuss how it should be (2007, p.90). With the inability of the League of Nations to prevent the events leading up to the Second World War, and the first great debate of the discipline, idealism was no longer considered a viable theory for explaining and predicting the formation of international organisations.

Post-Second World War liberal institutionalist approaches followed after a period of regional and global reintegration. These ideas were federalism, functionalism, neofunctionalism and transactionalism (2006, p. 17). Federalism was an analysis of the creations of confederations and federal states which formed from the 18th century onwards and concluded that federations could be established through the decision of elites and support of the public in states in order to form a common order (ibid.). Functionalism, on the other hand, took international organisations to be associations which aid states in overcoming common problems that arise from interdependent relationships, which increase as a result of technological progress and economic requirements (ibid.) Functionalist theory evolved into neofunctionalism as it observed the integration of Europe through the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Community (EC) (Niemann, 2017). Neofunctionalists predicted there would be a “spillover of cooperation” beyond what the organisations were initially founded for, and that the political integration would be pushed by “international bureaucrats who were fully attuned to political dynamics” (2023, p.316). However, neofunctionalist theory incorrectly predicted the extent to which regional and world integration would occur (ibid., p. 317), such as in Latin America, which failed to turn MERCOSUR into a fully-fledged customs union and an intergovernmental body capable of any real decision-making (ibid., p. 316). Ultimately, the neofunctionalist theory was abandoned in the 1970s (ibid., p.317) though can be useful in some aspects when analysing the emergence of some supranational organisations like the EU. It has been superseded by other theories.

Liberal theories can also be split according to whether they are actor-centred or structure centred (2007, p. 92-93). Actor-centred theories give more weight to the politics of the country, whether the people will be open to greater integration, for example. Meanwhile, structure-centred theories place more stress on the institutions of a country, such as whether they are democratic or not, or how their governments are organised. Liberal institutionalism as a whole makes the assumption that actors are rational nonetheless, meaning that they calculate ends and means, acting to maximize their given interests (ibid., p. 92).

The most dominant liberal institutionalist theory is the neoliberal or neo-institutionalist theory, developed primarily by Robert O. Keohane and Joseph Nye (2006, p.18). Like realism, neoliberals took the state as their primary actor in international politics (2023, p. 317), and argued that states used international organisations to advance their self-interest (Keohane, 2005, p. xi). While these countries are supposed to be rational, they do not necessarily cooperate and form international organisations. This is because they are limited by their bounded rationality, arising from something such as asymmetric information, which makes the governments respond only to information they are aware of. Keohane argues that because states become interdependent on one another to protect their citizens from unexpected fluctuations in the global economy (ibid., p. 5), they have the choice to cause disharmony internationally by forcing the cost of adjustment onto foreign countries (ibid., p. 6). If this choice seems sensible given the information they are aware of, and other countries act similarly, the interdependence and intervention will lead to neither country achieving the goals that are most optimal for them. An example of this may be the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom in 2016, where the decision was left to the people who voted based on limited information.

States have common interests during discord, so it is important for them to, in Keohane’s words, “make mutual adjustments” (ibid., p. 12). An international organisation is founded as it facilitates that, through the provision of information to many states. In that way, asymmetric information and other obstacles to collective strategic calculation can be overcome and all parties can benefit from regional integration (ibid.), the rewards of which can include lower long-term transaction costs, making it easier and more effective to renegotiate deals or treaties agreed upon in the past (ibid., p. 90). These can be observed within the EU and its preceding organisations.

Previous attempts to integrate Europe politically were made through the League of Nations, which although a global organisation, aimed to give countries a forum to settle their disputes and encouraged democratisation and sovereignty, believing that reduction in conflict would follow. The Kellogg-Briand Pact also attempted to prevent war through mutual agreement between 15 nations, including France and Germany, which stated that they would abandon armed warfare as a means of political resolution (Booker, 2005, p. 10). Aristide Briand, the French foreign minister, worked very closely with German foreign minister Gustav Stresemann in order to create a Franco-German entente through the treaty of Locarno in 1925, and the 1926 meeting at Thoiry (Dinan, 2004, p. 3). Stresemann even gave a speech to the League of Nations in September 1929 advocating for a common currency and greater integration, and Briand gave a famous May 1930 memorandum requesting European states within the League of Nations to coordinate economic policy and create political integration (ibid.). These attempts were ultimately not fruitful as a result of the rise of fascism and unwillingness

of countries to delegate any sort of authority. David Mitrany, a functionalist international relations scholar attributed the failure of the League of Nations and the interwar international system to the increasing government control within their own countries and the weakness of the international bodies, such as the League of Nations (Mitrany, 1966. Cited in Nelsen, 2014, p. 109-110). The league has little power beyond what its most powerful member states were willing to carry out (ibid.), which led to inability to prevent conflict as tensions in Europe and worldwide increased.

Immediately following the Second World War but prior to the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community, there were two notable attempts to integrate Europe both economically and politically. The first one was the result of the excitement created by the Marshall Plan, which led to the creation of several organisations in order to spearhead economic integration, among them the Committee for European Economic Co-operation (CEEC) which was formed in July 1947, and the Organisation of European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) formed in April 1948 (2005a, p. 41-42). While the French government, influenced by Jean Monnet who was called the “Father of Europe” (2014, p. 21), wished for this body to be granted an executive council and a permanent secretariat, other governments such as that of the UK, Switzerland and Sweden, strongly opposed this (2005a, p. 42). The second attempt was the Council of Europe, which saw the UK slowly withdraw interest following the second session’s attempt at establishing supranational powers(ibid., 45-46). Ultimately, these attempts can be summarised by their immediate attempts at political integration, rushing to create supranational bodies, powerful secretariats and roles, without international organisation bodies to integrate on economic lines first.

The European Coal and Steel Community was formed in April 1951 (2004, p.52) with the understanding that “Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan”, but instead through “concrete achievements” (2014, p. 15). The production of coal and steel in member states were to come under a high authority in order to “provide for the common foundations for economic development” (ibid., p. 16). In 1957, agreements in Rome led to the establishment of two additional organisations - the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community (EurAtom) (2004, p. 73-78), for which Monnet wrote, “We are building, brick by brick” (2005a, p. 86). His aim, and that of other advocates of greater European integration, was the formation of an even more powerful international body to house the three organisations (ibid.). This reflects the “spill-over” between different policy areas, as discussed by liberal institutionalist scholars.

The European Communities evolved into the European Union through various treaties which revitalised and strengthened existing institutions, such as the Single European Act of 1986 and the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992 which officially launched the European Union (2004, p. 331). As a decision-making body and supranational actor, the European Union was much more powerful and independent. The EU consisted of a plenary organ, the Council of the European Union, which represented all member states, but also of a parliamentary assembly directly elected by citizens of member states, and an administrative staff of 25 people in the form of the European Commission which would be in charge of the day to day business (2006, p. 67-75). Decision making in the Council of the EU would focus on agricultural, environmental, economic and cultural issues pertaining to all countries, and a qualified majority in many areas would be enough for a decision to be made (ibid., p. 69). The European Commission also has extraordinary powers for a single organ in the international organisation, as the Council of the EU is dependent on the Commission for proposals, and because they have far-reaching and independent abilities to make law (especially around economic sectors), monitor the laws of member states and file lawsuits against them (ibid., p. 74)

The quasi-actorhood status of the European Union is a result of the delegated or pooled sovereignty given by the member states. For example, the UK Department of the Environment’s ability to make domestic policy independent of organisation actors was significantly reduced during the time when it was a member of the EU (2003, p. 169). Likewise, many ministries and departments were intertwined with European Union institutions, such as the Ministry of Agriculture (as a result of the Common Agricultural Policy of the EU) and the Department of Trade and Industry (as a result of the single market). Perhaps more importantly, institutions of the European Union exercised great legislative control with the European Court of Justice. The ECJ has the ability to make binding rulings and asserts their supremacy over the national law of member states (2006, p. 75).

Liberal institutionalist theory is able to describe the European Union and other international organisations precisely because it was designed around describing them and other forms of integration. It analyses the European Union as a quasi-actor in global politics, while dependent on its member states, has many powers and responsibilities, with many decisions it takes being binding to the states. Many countries are willing to join the European Union because of the common interests being met efficiently. As scholars of neoliberalism like Keohane have explained, this is not just common interests at play, but cooperation resulting from the willingness of countries to mutually adjust. Countries join political organisations such as the European Union for their benefits, but also have to reach certain standards first such as with Greece, as predicted.

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