Multiple connections in European co-operation: international organizations, policy ideas, practices and transfers 1967–92

Abstract

International organizations are ubiquitous in contemporary Europe and the wider world. This special issue takes a historical approach to exploring their relations with each other in Western Europe between 1967 and 1992. The authors seek to ‘provincialize’ and ‘de-centre’ the European Union’s role, exploring the interactions of its predecessors with other organizations like NATO, the OECD and the Council of Europe. This article develops the new historical-research agenda of co-operation and competition among IOs and their role in European co-operation. The first section discusses the limited existing work on such questions among historians and in adjacent disciplines. The second section introduces the five articles and their main arguments. The third section goes on to elaborate common findings, especially regarding what the authors call the vectors for the development of policy ideas and practices and their transfer across different institutional platforms.

Keywords:

• Cold War
• co-operation
• competition
• European Communities
• European Union
• international organizations

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the FU Berlin “The Transformative Power of Europe” Research College for support for our research project on co-operation and competition among international organizations in Europe after 1945, which has resulted in this special issue. Our special thanks go to the Research College’s directors Tanja Börzel and Thomas Risse for their valuable insights and friendship over the years. Kiran Klaus Patel would also like to thank the Gerda Henkel Foundation for its support as Gerda Henkel Visiting Professor at the German Historical Institute London and the London School of Economics in 2014/15.

Notes

1. Kaiser and Storeide, ‘From Europe to the World’.

2. See, for example, Martens and Jacobi, eds., Mechanisms of OECD Governance; Jacobi and Martens, ‘Diffusion durch internationale Organisationen’.

3. Stobart, ‘Fifty Years of European Co-operation on History Textbooks’; Stradling, Teaching 20th-Century European History.

4. Cf. Feyen and Krzaklewska, The ERASMUS Phenomenon.

5. Alter and Meunier, ‘Politics of International Regime Complexity’, 13.

6. Raustiala and Victor, ‘The Regime Complex for Plant Genetic Resources’.

7. Patel, ‘Provincialising European Union’.

8. Kaiser and Johan Schot, Writing the Rules for Europe, 4.

9. Westad, The Global Cold War.

10. Patel, ‘Provincialising European Union’, 653.

11. See, e.g., Bulmer, ‘The Governance of the European Union’; Kassim ‘Policy Networks, Networks and European Union Policy Making’.

12. Lyons, Internationalism in Europe 1815–1914, 13–14.

13. Kaiser and Johan Schot, Writing the Rules for Europe, chapter 4.

14. Hitchcock, France Restored.

15. See, e.g., HAEU, CEAB 4, 114, ECSC, High Authority, Note pour les membres de la Haute Autorité, 1959; Paul Reuter, Organisations européennes (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1965), 152–4.

16. PAAA, B 20–200/95B, Vertretung der Bundesrepublik beim Europarat an Auswärtiges Amt, ‘Gedanken über den Europarat’, 15 May 1957.

17. Malmborg and Olesen, ‘The Creation of EFTA’.

18. For this see Kaiser, ‘The Successes and Limits of Industrial Market Integration’.

19. For an introduction to the historiography of the present-day EU see Kaiser and Varsori, European Union History.

20. See the criticism in Gilbert, ‘Process’.

21. See, in particular, Milward, The European Rescue of the Nation-State.

22. Knudsen, Farmers on Welfare; as attempts to transcend such a realist perspective, see, for example, Patel, Europäisierung wider Willen; Patel, Fertile Ground for Europe?

23. See, for example, Dumoulin, The European Commission; Bussière, The European Commission.

24. Griffiths, Explorations in OEEC History.

25. Wassenberg, Histoire du Conseil de l’Europe.

26. For introduction to IOs and their agency see Mackenzie, A World Beyond Borders.

27. Haas, The Uniting of Europe.

28. Didem Buhari-Gulmez, ‘Stanford School’.

29. Werner and Zimmermann, ‘Beyond Comparison’; Middell, ‘Kulturtransfer und Historische Komparatistik’.

30. As in Haas, Beyond the Nation-State.

31. See e.g. Young, ‘Institutional Linkages in International Society’.

32. As in Mansfield and Reinhardt, ‘Multilateral Determinants of Regionalism’.

33. Aggarwal and Fogarty, ‘The Limits of Interregionalism’.

34. As in Raustiala and Victor, ‘The Regime Complex for Plant Genetic Resources’.

35. Alter and Meunier, ‘Politics of International Regime Complexity’, 16.

36. Alter and Meunier, ‘Politics of International Regime Complexity’, 16–19.

37. Biermann, ‘Towards a Theory of Inter-Organizational Networking’.

38. For networks among political parties see Salm, Transnational Socialist Networks in the 1970s; Kaiser, Christian Democracy and the Origins of European Union; for an example from the field of culture see Faure, Netzwerke der Kulturdiplomatie.

39. Biermann, ‘Towards a Theory of Inter-Organizational Networking’, 173.

40. Witte and Thies, ‘Why Choose Europe’.

41. Rasmussen and Davies, ‘Towards a New History of European Law’.

42. See, for example, Weiler, ed., The EU, the WTO, and the NAFTA.

43. Kaiser and Meyer, International Organizations and Environmental Protection.

44. See Meyer, ‘From Nature to Environment’.

45. Cf. Romano, ‘Untying Cold War Knots’.

46. See e.g. Defrance,‘The Élysée Treaty in the Context of Franco-German Socio-cultural Relations’.

47. See also Calligaro, Negotiating Europe.

48. Wassenberg, Histoire du Conseil de l’Europe.

49. Meadows, Limits to Growth.

50. Cf. Smith, Europe’s Foreign and Security Policy: The Institutionalization of Cooperation.

51. Sunstein, ‘Social Norms and Social Roles’; Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production.

52. Borowy, ‘(Re-) Thinking Environment and Economy’; Kaiser, ‘Sometimes it’s the Economy, Stupid’.

53. See Littoz‐Monnet, The European Union and Culture.

54. For the EU’s legal integration in historical perspective see Vauchez, Brokering Europe; Davies and Rasmussen, ‘Towards a New History of European Law’; Witte and Thies, ‘Why Choose Europe’.

55. Patel, ‘Provincialising European Union’, 653.

56. Cf. Högselius, Kaijser and van der Vleuten, Europe’s Infrastructure Transition; Patel and Schot, ‘Twisted Paths to European Integration’; Badenoch and Fickers, Materializing Europe.

57. Iriye, ‘Historicizing the Cold War’; also see, for example, Connelly, ‘Taking Off the Cold War Lens’.

58. Ludlow, European Integration and the Cold War.