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Articles on the European Constitution
The Federal Future of Europe: From the European Community to the European Union.
Dusan SidjanskiISBN: 0-472-11075-6
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Pub. Date: September 2000The Federal Approach to the European Union or The Quest for an Unprecedented European Federalism
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Foreword by Harold K. Jacobson, former director of the Institute for Social Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
The Federal Future of Europe: From the Origins of the European Community to the European Union is a marvelous addition to the English literature on the European Union. This insightful and powerful book has been available in its original French and in other languages since the early 1990s, but not in English. Here finally is an English edition. This English edition, however, is more than a translation of a previously published book. This version brings the story up to date and adds new evaluations and recommendations. It is in many ways a new book.
The Federal Future of Europe is a book of profound scholarship. It is an unparalleled history and analysis of the evolution of the European Union. It analyzes changes in civil society as well as in state behavior and institutional structures. It is informed by but not beholden to American scholarship on international relations and comparative politics broadly and the European Union in particular. It introduces European scholarship, particularly the work of Denis de Rougemont, which is seldom considered by English-speaking scholars.
The Federal Future of Europe is also - perhaps even more so - a book of advocacy. Dusan Sidjanski is a deeply committed federalist. His book makes a powerful case for a federal future for Europe. He believes that only through the creation of a federation can Europe overcome the national and ethnic divisions that have caused such great catastrophes in the twentieth century.
The blending of profound scholarship and powerful advocacy makes this a very special book. Since May 1950 when Robert Schuman proposed that Germany and France merge their coal and steel industries, English speakers have followed the process of European integration closely. Americans particularly have sought theoretical constructs to provide a framework for analyzing the process.
Drawing from the tactics employed by Jean Monnet, Ernst B. Haas in his masterful The Uniting of Europe (1958) developed the theory of neo-functionalism. According to Haas the key to the process of European integration was the expansive logic of sectoral integration: technology and the expanding size of economic activity would lead to integration in one sector; integration in one sector would create pressures that would "spill over" and force integration in other sectors; the process would be led and shaped by supranational actors. For many years, neo-functionalism was the favored American explanation for the process of European integration.
Federalism was the eventual outcome envisaged by Monnet, and by many neo-functionalists, but in neo-functionalism federalism was achieved almost by stealth. Moreover, not all neo-functionalists have been explicit about the eventual outcome that they envisioned for European integration.
More recently American analysts of European integration have divided between those who continued in the tradition of neo-functionalists and emphasized the role of supranational actors and those who argued that the governments of the major states were principally responsible for driving and shaping the process. Andrew Moravcsik argues this case forcefully in his The Choice for Europe (1998). For Moravcsik the driving forces are commercial advantage, the relative bargaining power of governments, and interstate bargaining. Moravcsik and others of his persuasion note the transfer of sovereign power from the member states to European institutions and argue that this will endure, but they draw back from predicting a federal future for Europe.
The federalist position has generally been ignored in analyses of European integration written by English-speaking authors. Curiously, given the United States own proud history of creating a federation, Americans have particularly ignored the federalist position. The English version of The Federal Future of Europe fills a major gap in the literature. It will stand with Haas's and Moravcsik's work as a seminal statement of a point of view about Europe. Sidjanski clearly articulates the federalist position. He makes clear how deep the historical roots of European federalism are, and he shows how strongly committed contemporary leaders are to the concept and how much it has affected European civil society.
American social scientists will be intrigued by The Federal Future of Europe. Whether or not we accept and adhere to positivist tenets, we are not used to reading books that are both profound works of scholarship and powerful statements of advocacy. The Federalist was in this tradition as was Woodrow Wilson's Congressional Government, but in the second half of the twentieth century social scientists have rarely written such books. Because effectively linking advocacy and scholarship is so rare, The Federal Future of Europe is a treat to be savored.
Its message must be pondered. The future of Europe is one of the great questions of contemporary life. Is European integration a process that in historical retrospect will resemble the unification of Germany and Italy in the nineteenth century or is it a process that is creating new forms for allocating political authority, much as occurred in the seventeenth century when through the Peace of Westphalia and subsequent developments the sovereign territorially defined state emerged as the dominant form? Sidjanski makes a powerful case for a federated Europe as both the most desirable and most likely outcome. Whether or not one agrees, his argument must be considered and addressed. The publication of the English version of the book will facilitate the argument becoming a vital part of the academic and popular debate about the future of Europe.
Sidjanski's book reflects his life. Born a Yugoslav, he emigrated and eventually settled in Switzerland and became a Swiss citizen. His professional career was spent in Switzerland, where he became a Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Geneva. He was one of the first Swiss political scientists to employ modern analytical techniques, and he modernized and strengthened Geneva's department. As a Yugoslav, he knows the terrible consequences of ethnic conflict. As a Swiss, he knows the benefits and operating principles and practices of federalism.
The Federal Future of Europe was written with insight, knowledge, and passion. Readers will be informed and moved. I strongly commend it to everyone interested in Europe and to those more broadly interested in contemporary international affairs.