Towards a theory of disintegration

ABSTRACT

Existing theories of European integration offer little purchase on the problems facing the European Union today. New theories of disintegration are emerging, but they remain disjointed. The purpose of this comment is to suggest an overarching theoretical framework. This framework helps to structure the existing literature and to suggest new areas for research. It also helps to explain how integration and disintegration interact at different levels of aggregation.

KEYWORDS:

• Brexit
• disintegration
• equality of opportunity
• Gunnar Myrdal
• integration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Erik Jones (http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6473-7680) is professor of European studies and international political economy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and senior research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford.

Notes

1 Myrdal's work has found wide acceptance in the fields of economic development and economic geography. It has also been cited in classic works on the economics of integration by scholars like Bela Belassa, Willem Molle and Loukas Tsoukalis. Nevertheless, it has not found wide use among scholars of European integration. James Angresano (1997) is a rare exception. The focus of Angresano's analysis is on the transformation of Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of communism. This contribution has benefited greatly from conversations I had with Jim more than 15 years ago about the broader relevance of Myrdal's work to the European project (Jones 2003).