ABSTRACT
The European integration process has inspired a rich and still growing body of scholarship that is unique in many aspects. Since the 1950s, analysts have been fascinated by the developments in Western Europe where the evolving institutional framework of the European Communities successfully challenged more traditional views of world politics, themselves based on an explicit distinction between domestic affairs (what is going on within states) and international relations (what is going on between states). European integration seemed to provide an entirely new paradigm for the organization of international affairs, based on multilateralism and co-operation rather than emphasizing self-help and balance-of-power. European integration scholarship emerged to provide a refreshing contrast to the dominance of realist thinking in the academic field of international relations (IR). Indeed, for some time integration theory in the form of neofunctionalism offered the most convincing challenge to the stranglehold of neorealism on international affairs. At the empirical level, European integration questioned the central concept upon which traditional thinking of world politics in general, and the realist tradition in particular, was based—the Westphalian state, with its explicit connection between sovereignty and territory. European integration was fuelled by a desire to overcome the flaws of the Westphalian system. The anarchical structure created by the Westphalian system only led to a perpetual security dilemma. The two World Wars had amply demonstrated the consequent lack of trust and an emphasis on self-help, leading to armament, balance-of-power behaviour and warfare. Thus, one of the main motivating factors kick-starting the European project was the over-riding concern with finding a solution to the security dilemma arising out of the absence of a central authority above state level (i.e. anarchy). Concerted efforts focused on reigning in sovereignty and the power of the state and on transcending nationalism. Hence the supranational institutions, the very antithesis of the Westphalian state, which are unique to European integration.
