Regional Integration and the European Union

• International organizations• The European Union (EU) as an international

organization• Ideas to explain the nature of the EU system of

administration and government: confederalism and federalism

• Theories of the European integration:- traditional approaches: neo-functionalism and

intergovernmentalism- The rationalist research programme

International Organizations

• IR conceptualization of the international organizations: definitions and issues

- Intergovernmental organizations (IGOs)• International non-governmental organizations

(INGOs)• Hybrid international organizations• The EU as an international organizations:

‘international organization’ features and the sui generis nature of the Union

Confederalism and Federalism Ideas

• The confederal system- definitions and examples

• The federal system- definitions and examples

• The EU confederalist features

• The EU federalist features

Theories of the European integration- traditional approaches

• Neofunctionalism- Ernst Haas- Integration as a gradual and self-sustaining process- Functional spillover and political spillover;- Supranational institutions.• Intergovernmentalism- Robert Keohane and

Stanley Hoffman The role of the national governments• Comparison between the two approaches- Explanatory logic;- Key actors conceived;- The ‘N=1 problem’.

Theories of the European integration- the rationalist research programme

• Realist approaches- Neo-realism- no security concerns in Western Europe;- Grieco- the ‘voice opportunity hypothesis’.• Liberal Intergovernmentalism (LI)- Moravcsik’s three-fold model: generation of national

preferences at the domestic level, intergovernmental bargaining and theory of institutional choice (pooling and delegation of sovereignty).

- critics of LI- constructivist, intuitionalist (historical and rational-choice institutionalism) and governance literature.

• Rational-choice Institutionalism: assumptions on the role of institutions, focus on ECJ and P-A analysis, comitology and analysis of the legislative process.