{"id":1952,"date":"2013-03-15T10:51:01","date_gmt":"2013-03-15T10:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hum.port.ac.uk\/europeanstudieshub\/?page_id=1952"},"modified":"2017-06-14T08:47:50","modified_gmt":"2017-06-14T08:47:50","slug":"2-functionalism-neo-functionalism","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/hum.port.ac.uk\/europeanstudieshub\/learning\/module-4-theorising-the-european-union\/federalism-functionalism-and-transactionalism\/2-functionalism-neo-functionalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Neo-functionalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

International Relations functionalism<\/b> was in many ways a backlash against the lofty idealisms expounded by federalism. David Mitrany \u2013 its foremost theorist \u2013 once reproached the federalists for being \u2018so fascinated by a readily convenient formula that they have neither asked how it works where it exists, nor whether its origins bear any relation to the problem of uniting a group of states in the present social ambience\u2019.<\/p>\n

What mattered to functionalists was not the creation of a larger territorial unit (which would in its very essence be nationalist and would only repeat the errors of the nation-state on an even larger scale), but the maximisation of human welfare<\/b> \u2013 even if that meant transcending the borders of existing states. Mitrany mentioned the examples of the continental administration of railways, the intercontinental organisation of shipping and the universal management of aviation and broadcasting (Rosamond, 2000).<\/p>\n

Taking an optimistic view of mankind\u2019s abilities to overcome its arbitrary and counterproductive division by national borders<\/b>, functionalism can be placed firmly in the liberal tradition of International Relations.<\/p>\n

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Yet, functionalism was never designed as an analytical tool for European Integration. In fact, Mitrany was always opposed to regional integration since it merely replaced one border with another. This is what constitutes the fundamental difference between functionalism and neo-functionalism<\/b>: neo-functionalists specifically study regional integration with European Integration as their foremost case in point. But as the name suggests, there are many parallels between functionalism and neo-functionalism in other respects. Both stress the centrality of technocratic decision-making, incremental change and learning processes<\/b> (Niemann & Schmitter, 2009).<\/p>\n

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So what is European Integration all about for neo-functionalists? According to Ernst Haas \u2013 neo-functionalism\u2019s principal theorist \u2013 integration was the process \u2018whereby political actors in several distinct national settings are persuaded to shift their loyalties and activities towards a new centre, whose institutions possess or demand jurisdiction over the pre-existing national states\u2019 (Haas, 1958, p.16).<\/p>\n

In practice, this would look something like this: a group of countries decides one or more sectors of their economies (often of low political contention; e.g. coal and steel production) can be more profitably organised on an international level. To that end, they create a supranational organisation<\/b> (e.g. the European Coal and Steel Community) to administer the implementation of their joint policy. But they quickly discover that it makes no sense to only integrate one sector if related sectors (e.g. transport or energy) remain shackled within national borders. As integration thus acquires a dynamics of its own, more and more national elites (both governmental and non-governmental) will re-direct their energies towards the budding supranational organisation.<\/p>\n

The three crucial concepts to remember from this are:<\/b><\/p>\n