European Union aims which are liberal:

Aims
 The aims of the European Union within its borders are:
 promote peace, its values and the well-being of its citizens
 offer freedom, security and justice without internal borders, while also taking
appropriate measures at its external borders to regulate asylum and immigration and
prevent and combat crime
 establish an internal market
 achieve sustainable development based on balanced economic growth and price
stability and a highly competitive market economy with full employment and social
progress
 protect and improve the quality of the environment
 promote scientific and technological progress
 combat social exclusion and discrimination
 promote social justice and protection, equality between women and men, and
protection of the rights of the child
 enhance economic, social and territorial cohesion and solidarity among EU countries
 respect its rich cultural and linguistic diversity
 establish an economic and monetary union whose currency is the euro
 The aims of the EU within the wider world are:
 uphold and promote its values and interests
 contribute to peace and security and the sustainable development of the Earth
 contribute to solidarity and mutual respect among peoples, free and fair trade,
eradication of poverty and the protection of human rights
 strict observance of international law
 The EU’s aims are laid out in article 3 of the Lisbon Treaty.
Values
 The European Union is founded on the following values:
 Human dignity
Human dignity is inviolable. It must be respected, protected and constitutes the real
basis of fundamental rights.
 Freedom
Freedom of movement gives citizens the right to move and reside freely within the
Union. Individual freedoms such as respect for private life, freedom of thought,
religion, assembly, expression and information are protected by the EU Charter of
Fundamental Rights.
 Democracy
The functioning of the EU is founded on representative democracy. A European
citizen automatically enjoys political rights. Every adult EU citizen has the right to
stand as a candidate and to vote in elections to the European Parliament. EU citizens
have the right to stand as a candidate and to vote in their country of residence, or in
their country of origin.
 Equality
Equality is about equal rights for all citizens before the law. The principle of equality
between women and men underpins all European policies and is the basis for
European integration. It applies in all areas. The principle of equal pay for equal work
became part of the Treaty of Rome in 1957.
 Rule of law
The EU is based on the rule of law. Everything the EU does is founded on treaties,
voluntarily and democratically agreed by its EU countries. Law and justice are upheld
by an independent judiciary. The EU countries gave final jurisdiction to the European
Court of Justice - its judgments have to be respected by all.
 Human rights
Human rights are protected by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. These cover
the right to be free from discrimination on the basis of sex, racial or ethnic origin,
religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation, the right to the protection of
your personal data, and the right to get access to justice.
 The EU’s values are laid out in article 2 of the Lisbon Treaty and the EU Charter of
Fundamental Rights.
 In 2012, the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for advancing the causes of
peace, reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.

European Liberal Forum

Soesterberg seminar
16 / 17 October 2014
Liberal perspectives on European Integration

 Liberal political parties and organisations throughout Europe traditionally have a

strong pro-European profile.
 Over the course of the development of the eu Member States is to defending and
enhancing the freedom and prosperity of their citizens.
 ‘For a liberal, a democratically legitimate eu must allow its individual citizens to
shape their own views and values in free and open debate with each other’
 For a liberal, a democratically legitimate eu must, like any polity, allow its individual
citizens to give shape to their own views and values in free and open debate with each
other
 notion of a ‘European demos’ inclusively and looking forward: as a sense of solidarity
and a common destiny
 the eu institutions, measures like a stricter separation of powers between institutions,
direct involvement of national parliamentarians or creation of a European senate,
increasing transparency of decision-making and scaling down the Commission may
contribute to making the integration process subject to political dispute and more
democratic control.
 It is a common belief, also among liberals, that a successful and legitimate polity
cannot exist without some sense of community or belonging among its citizens
 Does such a shared identity exist on a European level?
 if not, can any conscious effort to create one ever be acceptable from a liberal point of
view, given our commitment to respecting plural and multidimensional identities?
 Common sense of belonging and community of values – the basis of European Union
according to liberals
 “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom,
democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights
of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States”
 rich foundation for fellow-feeling among Europeans – at least on paper.
 As we saw in the first discussion round, the notion of Europe as a community of
values is often seen as the basis of a common European identity or a European demos.
But do liberals agree that Europeans share a specific set of values – both concrete
enough and held by enough people to provide a meaningful bond?
 And if not: what else may bind us to the political project of European integration?
 answers given by liberals depend on how precisely these common values are defined.
We may all more or less agree that Europeans share a commitment to freedom,
equality, democracy and the rule of law, but when asked how these are interpreted
throughout the eu, we recognize that differences in culture and historical experience
often mean that these similarities are superficial at best
 There are certain values that can be said to have special significance in Europe, such
as socioeconomic solidarity, but it is difficult to isolate values that are both shared by
all (or most) Europeans and not prevalent outside Europe – respect for human rights,
democracy, freedom, rule of law all fail this test.
 The question is whether this is really a problem for liberals. If we were to rely on the
pre-existence of a widely shared set of values as an anchor point for a European
demos, the answer would probably be yes. However, liberals by definition believe that
people’s beliefs and attachments are multilayered and fluid, and that communal values
should always be developed and negotiated through societal and political discussion.
Thus, a rigid or broad consensus about shared values is not a requirement for
successful political identification – on the contrary: for a liberal, a demos should not
be based on an ethnos
 a sense of a common purpose, common goals and hopes for the future, and the
realization that we are all in this together.
 Liberals have traditionally been very committed to the European project. We like to
emphasize what it has brought us in terms of peace, prosperity and freedom, and
remain convinced of its ongoing purpose and relevance.
 Moving ‘forward’ with the integration process based on fait accompli thinking is
opposed to the notion of liberal democracy.
 a liberal blueprint for the future of Europe should be based on some forward-looking
notion of what we want to achieve with the eu.
 ‘The next step is to come up with ways to improve the democratic legitimacy of the
integration process
 making the system we have work better where possible, and reforming it where
necessary
 While liberals mostly agree that the accountability of the eu institutions needs to be
improved, they do not agree on the best methods to do so. Most of this disagreement
can be traced back to differing views on the nature of the eu as a polity: those who
favour a more centralised Europe stress the importance of eu-wide elections and the
creation of a European political sphere, whereas those who see more merit in
federalism view Member State involvement in decision-making as inherently valuable
and worth preserving.
Wikipedia

 In general, liberalism in Europe is a political movement that supports a broad

tradition of individual liberties and constitutionally-limited and democratically
accountable government.
 These European derivatives of classical liberalism are found in centrist
movements and parties as well as some parties on the centre-left and the centre-
right.
 Liberalism in Europe is broadly divided into two groups, "social" and
"conservative".[
 Most liberalism in Europe is conservative or classical, whilst European social
liberalism and progressivism is rooted in radicalism, a left-wing classical liberal
idea.)
 the positions of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe faction in
the European Parliament[3] and the Electoral Manifestos of the European Liberal
Democrat and Reform Party.[4]
 the Lisbon Strategy of the European Union, since it is strongly supported by the
liberal parties, and sets out a vision of a future Europe.
 belief in individual development as a motor for society and the state providing
a social safety net. The liberal policies differ from country to country and from
party to party.
 European liberalism is largely divided
into classical (practically economical), social, and conservative–liberalism.[9]
 European liberals usually favor limited government, free trade and adhere
to economic liberalism.[10] In the context of European politics, liberal itself
generally refers to classical liberal (including both centre-left and centre-right),
so classical liberal in European politics means a "centre-right" with a prominent
economically liberal tendency.
 European liberalists tend to support the European Union[17][18][19][20][21][22] such as
Emmanuel Macron, President of France who campaigned against Marine Le
Pen a National Rally candidate a far right nationalist anti EU party.[23][24][25]
 Some European liberalists support Federalisation of the European Union such as
prominent European Liberalist politicians such as Guy Verhofstadt (Prime
Minister of Belgium 1999 to 2008),[26][27] Viviane Reading (Vice-President of the
European Commission),[28] and Matteo Renzi (Prime Minister of Italy 2014 to
2016).[29]
 Among European liberals, "classical liberals" and "social liberals" support cultural
liberalism (ex. LGBT rights issues including same-sex marriage, legalization of
some drugs, opening immigration, etc.), but most "conservative liberals",
including ordoliberals, Christian democrats and some agrarians, take a socially
moderate-to-conservative stance on cultural liberalism.

Social liberalism

Social
liberalism (German: Sozialliberalismus, Spanish: socioliberalismo, Dutch: Socia
alliberalisme), also known as new liberalism in the United Kingdom,[1][2] modern
liberalism in the United States where it is known as liberalism,[3][4] left-
liberalism (German: Linksliberalismus) in Germany,[5][6][7] and progressive
liberalism (Spanish: liberalismo progresista) in Spanish-speaking countries,[8] is
a political philosophy and variety of liberalism that endorses social justice and the
expansion of civil and political rights. It is economically based on the social
market economy and views the common good as harmonious with the individual's
freedom.[9] Social liberals overlap with social democrats in accepting economic
 intervention more than other liberals;[10] its importance is considered auxiliary
compared to social democrats.[11] Ideologies that emphasize its economic policy
include welfare liberalism,[12] New Deal liberalism in the United States,
[13]
 and Keynesian liberalism.[14] Cultural liberalism is an ideology that highlights
its cultural aspects. The world has widely adopted social liberal policies

 Social liberal ideas and parties tend to be considered centre to centre-left, although

there are deviations from these positions to both the political left or right.[a][10][16]
[17]
 Addressing economic and social issues, such
as poverty, welfare, infrastructure, health care, education, and the climate using
government intervention, while emphasising individual rights and autonomy are
expectations under a social liberal government.[18][19][20]
 In modern political discourse, social liberalism is associated with progressivism,
[21][22][23]
 a left-liberalism contrasted to the right-leaning neoliberalism,[24] and
combines support for a mixed economy with cultural liberalism.[25] Social
liberalism may also refer to American progressive stances on sociocultural issues,
[26]
 such as reproductive rights and same-sex marriage, in contrast with American
social conservatism. 
  In American politics, a social liberal may hold either conservative (economic
liberal) or liberal (economic progressive) views on fiscal policy.[27]
 freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, the separation of
church and state, the right to due process and equality under the law are widely
accepted as a common foundation of liberalism. – EU

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019/03/06/long-read-the-european-union-is-a-
liberal-empire-and-it-is-about-to-fall/
 What is the European Union? The closest concept I can come up with is that of
a liberal empire. – Wolfgang Streeck
 An empire is a hierarchically structured block of states held together by a gradient
of power from a centre to a periphery.
 At the centre of the EU is Germany, trying more or less successfully to hide inside
a “Core Europe” (Kerneuropa) formed together with France.
 free markets and free competition, i.e., economic liberalism
 Even less than other forms of empire, a liberal empire is never in a settled
equilibrium. Rather than a stable state, it is permanently under pressure, from
below as well as from its sides. Lacking the capacity for military intervention, it
cannot in particular use military power to prevent countries exiting from it.
 When the United Kingdom decided to leave the European Union, Germany and
France never considered invading the British Isles to keep them in “Europe”; so
far the EU is indeed a force of peace. 
  Brexit leaves France as the only nuclear power in the EU, and the only one with a
permanent Security Council seat to boot. German objections to French leadership
ambitions in a more tightly integrated EU drawing on German economic strength
will now find less weighty support among the remaining membership. With
Britain outside, France may hope to become the European unifier, trying to
pressure Germany into a French-style European state project (“a sovereign France
in a sovereign Europe” – Macron). 
 Governance of an empire is inevitably also driven by geostrategic in addition to
economic and ideological concerns, in particular on the empire’s territorial
 margins. Stabilizing border states on the extreme periphery is needed not just for
economic expansion, although this is essential for an empire with a capitalist
economy

History

 Enlightenment – liberalism, reason and science

 Voltaire. In Le siècle de Louis XIV (1751), he writes that ‘Christian Europe’ can be
viewed as a large commonwealth of different states, some of them monarchies and
others having a mixed system of government, but all of them interconnected
 Voltaire felt the arts and sciences reinforce one another and provide mutual support
for idea of Europe (Respublica litteraria) and made Europe dominant in the world
 Rousseau argued for the setting up of an organization of European nations based on
the fundamental principles of international law
 Immanuel Kant (German philosopher advocated peace through democracy and
cooperation) - early as 1795 in a theoretical treatise entitled Zum Ewigen Frieden
(Towards Eternal Peace). In this treatise, he stressed the need for the creation of a
league of nations and sketched a federal Europe
 ‘Men are born free and with equal rights, and remain so’, according to the famous
French revolution declaration of 26 August 1789.
 The progressive romanticists found their inspiration in the ideals of the French
Revolution, ideas let loose by the French Revolution. A good example is Giuseppe
Mazzini (1805–72). His ideal was that of an independent (anti-Habsburg), liberal
(anti-clerical) and classless (anti-feudal) united Italy.
 Liberals - François Guizot - What makes Europe superior to all other civilizations is
its diversity. Whereas other civilizations are always dominated by a single principle
and a single form, a construction which leads to tyranny.
 Revolutions of 1848 – extension of democracy, equality anti feudalism but the great
monarchies of Europe survived
 WW- Europe in the grip of nationalism – jingoism Arms race, The race for Empire
 In 1849 Victor Hugo gave his famous speech about his vision for the United States of
Europe. The French writer entered the stage of the Paris Peace Congress, of which he
was president, and outlined an ambitious vision for peace, democracy, and unity in
diversity.
 Great War - economy devastated - cost 200 billion dollars - damage 150 billion

 Reconstruction neglected – laissez-faire economics

 Reconstruction neglected - laissez-faire economics

 A common assumption among many liberal politicians and intellectuals of the time
was that interwar reforms of the international legal order, such as the outlawing of
interstate war and the extension of national sovereignty in Central and Eastern
Europe, were humanizing steps in a process of civilizational progress.

 In this new international order, under the influence of internationalist institutions and
ideas, states would learn to coexist in a more peaceful and friendly environment of
mutual prosperity, regulated by law (League of Nations – Woodrow Wilson)
 Emphasis on Free Trade

 ■Adam Smith – invisible hand

 ■Economic Darwinism

 ■Interconnections and unity

 ■ Peace

 Kellogg-Briand Pact, also called Pact of Paris, (August 27, 1928), multilateral
agreement attempting to eliminate war as an instrument of national policy.

Federal European Union

 ■Equal rights of states no domination
 Briand as Moses leading
 Europe to the promised ■European Conference – representatives of all land
 states via the League of Nations
 ■Executive – Standing Political Committee
 ■rotating president for above
 ■Secretariat
 ■Reduce tariffs
 ■Customs Union – no internal borders and single market
 ■Notion of European citizenship – complement to national
 ■Large public works
 Similarities with EU
 ■ Custom Union and single market – free trade – Treaty of Rome
 ■ Equal rights of states
 ■ Rotating presidencies
 ■ Standing Political Committee – like commission
 ■ European Conference – Council of Ministers
 ■ Citizenship
 ■ Public works – structural funds

Failure
■ Only 2 states accepted proposal
■ 3 detailed reservations
■ Other 22 including Germany, Italy and Britain raised significant objections
■ Stresemann and Briand died
■ Britain looked to Empire
■ USSR hostile – war machine – legacy of war of intervention
■ Protectionism in vogue

League of Nations
 1920
 First world inter-governmental organisation
 Peace and arbitration
 US did not join (isolationism)
 USSR joined late – expelled (Finland)
 Could not stem the ambitions of the axis powers - appeasement
 No military force

Tooze’s view, the liberal realist project that represented a ‘paradigm shift’ in
international politics - 1928 Kellogg- Briand Pact, with its resolute outlawing of
interstate aggression and hence traditional wars, as particularly emblematic of an
emerging world order that would ultimately survive the insurgency against it that
ended in World War II.
■ Thus, outlasting the challenges of dissident intellectuals like Schmitt and
ideological programmes like National Socialism, interwar liberal realism laid the
foundations of a new world order in which interstate war became antiquated

Theory
■ Liberal internationalism emphasized the importance of democracy and international
organizations such as LoN to establish
an enduring peace among once belligerent states, particularly European ones.
■ Liberal internationalism received harsh criticism especially by
the classical realist school, which conceived the international system as inherently
anarchic. The absence of a global government left the international arena at the mercy
of states and their pursuit of self-interest.
■ In interwar years no meaningful geopolitical pressure exerted by outside powers
that would push European countries together during the interwar years. USSR
considered weak (war of intervention, purges). Rise of America did not alarm
Europeans enough
■ European Movement ‘Congress of Europe’ 1948 – Churchill keynote speaker
■ Agreed to general goal of European Union
■ Commitment to democracy, justice and human rights
■ Federalists wanted a constitution but anti federalists merely a consultative forum
■ Britain obstructive
■ Churchill pro union but not for Britain – United States of Europe speech
■ Britain agreed to a consultative assembly
Council of Europe

US pushed for customs union

OEEC Organization for European Economic Union – interested in a customs union
Marshall Plan and OEEC reduced tariffs
Robert Schuman – French Foreign Minister from Lorraine – proposed a supranational
coal and steel organisation – Monnet involved in design
Adenauer wanted reapproachment with France
European Coal and Steel Community = turning point

European Political Community

■ Aim to provide political umbrella for ECSC and army

■ Community institutions would have been replaced or superseded by a bicameral
parliament – directly elected with indirect elected senate
■ Italian PM Gasperi – driving force but died
■ As a consequence focus on economic issues in Europe and idea of common market
■ Too ambitious – too soon – could have backfired
■ Lost opportunity for federalists
■ Saar referendum – no ill will
■ Messina 1955 foreign ministers – plans for integration
■ Atomic Energy Community and custom union
■ Free trade or custom union?
■ Hallstein (FM Germany) – CU would bring economic benefits of market liberalisation
and political benefits of deeper integration
■ 1956 pro Europe Guy Mollet elected in France
■ Britain did not attend Messina – mistake? Preferred free trade area (What is the
difference?)
■ Six nations wanted something more cohesive than a free trade area
■ US pro custom union
■ Suez increased French support for integration
■ Hungarian uprising bolstered support
■ A free-trade area arises when a group of countries come together and agree not to
impose tariffs or quotas on trade in goods between them. ... In a customs union (a
more advanced form of free trade area), the members also agree to impose a common
tariff on imports coming from the outside world.
■ France feared its welfarist social model would put them at disadvantage competitively
■ Social harmonisation – treaty included provisions on equal pay
■ Treaty signed in Roma 1957 – preamble – part of a process of ever closer union
■ Custom Union – common commercial and transport policy – limited cooperation on
monetary policy and coordination of macro policy
■ European Social Fund to retrain workers
■ European Investment Bank – cheap loans for regional development
■ Tentative provisions on free movement of persons, services and capital – aim 12 years
■ Decisions unanimity – simple and qualified majority
■ Hallstein - president
■ The European and Economic Community
■ Hallstein – commission in Brussels
■ Civil service cosmopolitan elite – drivers for supranationalism
■ Notion of out of touch bureaucracy - trope
■ Hayek – planned economy – protectionism – anti invisible hand
■ UK EFTA European Free Trade Area – wanted to include EEC
■ De Gaulle surprised people by sticking with EEC and opposed EFTA. US wanted
EEC
■ Adenaeur sided with De Gaulle – Franco German axis
■ EFTA formed but not a big help to UK given size of its economy and small size of
others Austria – Denmark – Norway – Portugal – Sweden – Switzerland
■ Common Agricultural Policy
■ France pushed for this – already subsidized agriculture not competitive
■ Wanted guaranteed high prices and subsidies through budget and export subsidies
■ German could not feed nation – France wanted to fill gap
■ US farmers nervous about CAP
■ EEC choice of free market or intervention/price fixing – France pressure for latter –
threatened to block second stage of Custom Union unless CAP agreed
■ Germany agreed as wanted to maintain Franco- German alliance
■ US agreed as political goals more important than economic but poultry war and
GATT
■ European Court of Justice
■ Established 1952
■ Arbiter and annul unlawful laws
■ 2 landmark cases
■ Van Gend en Loos – Dutch trucking firm took case against Dutch customs for raising
duty in breach of Treaty of Roma
■ Costa v ENEL Italy’s electricity supplier – argued nationalisation violated Treaty of
Rome
■ Supremacy of EU law
■ Rule of Law
■ Infringement
■ Counter-Culture and Social Change
■ 1968
■ Social revolution
■ Hippies
■ Feminism – women’s liberation (liberal, radical and Marxist)
■ Foucault, Said, Freire
■ Multiculturalism
■ Identity politics – Nancy Fraser – recognition or redistribution
■ Europe and America – consumerism/liberal democracy – silent majority
■ USA – civil rights – social movement and non violent direct action – peace movement
– grassroots change
■ Legal protection for a minority and affirmative action

Progress

■ Regional Development Fund

■ Close gap between rich and poor regions – Italy lone voice now joined by UK and
Ireland (regional disparity)
■ Fund 75 – 77 Italy 40 percent – UK 28 percent – France 15 percent – pittance
■ Social Action programme – better working conditions – gender equal pay
■ European Court – womens’ rights at work
First environmental measures

Key Figures – Francois Mitterand

■ Vichy/resistance
■ Assumes power 1981
■ Keynsian – nationalisation and welfare increase
■ Trade balance – inflation – European Monetary System problems
■ Austerity
■ New idea – European integration

Key Figures - Jacques Delors

■ Created European Economic Area – seen as stepping stone to entry (Iceland,

Liechtenstein, and Norway) – access to SM no voting rights

The Single Market

 ■ Lord Cockfield commissioner with internal market portfolio – Thatcher ‘went native’
■ White Paper 1985 – plan to abolish border posts and customs formalities and
harmonisation of regulations (removal of non tariff barriers) – deadline 1992
■ The Cecchini Report of 1988, estimated the likely gain to GDP of 4.5 %
■ Facilitated competitivity and anti monopoly – move production
■ 4 freedoms of goods, services, people and money

Single Market II

■ Milan Summit – agreed to allow majority voting on two thirds of measures in white
paper
■ EP had second reading powers on certain SM measures
■ European Court of Justice cassis de Dijon case
■ Thatcher pleased because she stalled majority voting on tax harmonisation but overall
victory for Delors
■ Denmark – concerns about majority voting – 56 percent pro in referendum
■ Ireland – legal challenge on sovereignty – referendum 70 percent
■ Captured public imagination – and mine
■ Achieved 1992 – laid foundation for Maastricht Treaty and EMU – Delors
‘irreversible momentum’

■ Social Charter 1961 revitalised under Delors

■ in a range of areas covering health and safety, gender equality, collective bargaining,
social security, social exclusion and the right of workers to play a role in managing
the companies they work for.

Amsterdam Treaty 1999

■ European Parliament – ceiling of 700 and centre activity more in Strasbourg
■ Transfer of powers from national governments to EP
■ Weighting of votes by MS
■ Sanctions if MS deviate
■  Common foreign and security policy (CFSP)
■ EU and migration
■ High representative on EU foreign policy

Treaty of Nice 2001

Constitutional Matters

■ 2002 Valéry Giscard d'Estaing presided over constitutional convention

■  Plan to replace European Union treaties with a single text
■ Include the Charter of Fundamental Rights
■ Constitution – democratic deficit – bill of rights
■ More majority voting
■ Federalism? Little media and public interest

Security and Migration

European Security and Defence Policy 1999 – intergovernmental military capability – Bosnia
– Macedonia – Cong

Euro Zone Crisis – Timeline

n 1992 Maastricht Treaty - EMU

n 1995 UK drops out off Exchange Rate Mechanism – Soros
n 1999 Euro launched
n Housing bubbles in Europe
n 2008/9 Problems – PIIGS (not a nice term) – Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain
n Interconnection
n Monetary union but not economic – members still controlled tax and spending
n Greece had not been honest (claim)
n Countries like Greece could borrow easily because in euro – debt then credit crunch
n Meltdown?

Liberal theory and European integration

Frank Schimmelfennig

 A liberal international community is a community of liberal states governed by

liberal norms such as peace, multilateralism, and democracy and based on a
post-national, civic identity.
 It argues that liberal norms shape the constitutional developments of liberal
community organizations and override economic interests and material
bargaining power. Eastern enlargement, parliamentarization, and differentiated
monetary integration are cases in point.
 LI is based on “neoliberal institutionalism” in IR
 In line with the liberal component of this IR theory, LI assumes that the
foreign policy of the state results from a domestic policy process and reflects
the issue-specific interests of the dominant domestic groups.
 LI follows a liberal theory of foreign policy preference formation.
 Liberalism as a theory of foreign policy assumes that governmental
preferences vary between policy issues and reflect the interests and power of
societal groups (intermediated by domestic political institutions)
 Because European integration has focused on economic policies, state
preferences have also been predominantly economic.
 While general demand for European integration results from interdependence,
the pressure to cooperate for mutual benefit in an expanding and “globalizing”
international economy
 As a liberal theory, LI also theorizes the effects of domestic politics on
intergovernmental negotiations (Moravcsik 1993: 514-17). These are captured
by the metaphor of the “two-level game”
 The main liberal element in this theory consists in explaining state preferences
and bargaining power by the economic interests of powerful domestic groups.
Among the three variants of liberalism that Moravcsik distinguished elsewhere
– ideational, commercial, and republican liberalism – LI relies almost
exclusively on the commercial variant
 “Identity-based preferences” highlighted by ideational liberalism, which
pertain to ideas about the “scope of the ‘nation’”, “particular institutions”, or
the “nature of legitimate socioeconomic regulation and redistribution”, only
come up as a residual category in LI.
 They are irrelevant unless economic interests are too weak, or economic
consequences to uncertain, to shape state preferences.

 In the perspective of ideational liberalism, international and regional

organizations like the EU are not simply functional institutions for managing
interdependence and stabilizing cooperation. They represent international
communities with distinct identities, values, and norms.
 Liberal international communities are defined by two core characteristics.
They are made up of liberal states, and they establish a liberal order among
these liberal states
 In other words, a liberal international community is both a community of
liberal states and a liberal community of states.
 Liberal human rights are the core values of a liberal international community
 They are the “constitutive values that define legitimate statehood and rightful
state action” in the domestic as well as in the international realm
 In the domestic realm, the liberal principles of social and political order —
social pluralism, the rule of law, democratic political participation and
representation, private property, and a market-based economy — are derived
from, and justified by, these liberal human rights.
 Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union embodies the value foundation of
the EU as a liberal community.:
 The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom,
democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including
the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the
Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance,
justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail
 In addition, liberal states transfer their domestic political norms to the
international realm (Risse-Kappen 1995a: 33). The “democratic peace” is
rooted in those domestic norms of liberal-democratic states that require
political conflicts to be managed and resolved without violence and on the
basis of constitutional procedures
 Multilateralism, i.e. the coordination of “relations among three or more states
on the basis of generalized principles of conduct” (Ruggie 1993: 11)
corresponds to the basic liberal idea of procedural justice, “the legislative
codification of formal, reciprocally binding social rules” among the members
of society
 It also follows the “principle that social rules should be authored by those
subject to them”
 Multilateral organizations in the Western international order have the effect of
security and economic “co-binding”. Liberal states “attempt to tie another
down by locking each other into institutions that mutually constrain one
another”
 by the separation of powers and systems of checks and balances. Finally, to
the extent that international organizations acquire policy-making authority that
 limits and constrains the sovereignty of the state they come under pressure to
introduce the same institutions of vertical and horizontal accountability that
characterize the liberal state.
 In the course of European integration, the community members have not only
established a stable democratic peace among themselves but also a unique
multilateral and legal order.
 European law is enforced by an independent supranational court, the European
Court of Justice, whose decisions are binding upon the member governments.
 Finally, the collective identity of a liberal international community is
postnational or civic
 It is based on shared values and norms but does not possess any primordial
quality rooted in natural or “naturalized” cultural characteristics.
 In the words of Jürgen Habermas, it “dissolves the historical symbiosis of
republicanism and nationalism” and is not dependent on “a mental rootedness
in the ‘nation’ as a pre-political community of fate”
 Its cultural content is limited to political culture; ethnic nationalism is replaced
with “constitutional patriotism”.
 It respects the “rich cultural and linguistic diversity” of the EU (Art. 3 TEU)
and the member states’ “national identities” (Art. 4 TEU).
 At the same time, Article 1 of the Treaty on European Union commits the
member states to “ever closer union among the peoples of Europe” and to
conferring competences to the union to attain common objectives. Thus,
whereas the EU does not stipulate a European identity that ought to replace the
national identities of its member states and societies, these national identities
need to be both liberal and non-exclusive.
 Commercial liberalism versus ideational liberalism
 First, non-liberal states are excluded from membership in the EU. Conversely,
all liberal European states are entitled to membership in the EU if they so
desire. In contrast to commercial liberalism, ideational liberalism claims that it
is sufficient for states to be liberal (and to be part of the defined region) to
become a member of a liberal regional organization. This holds even if their
admission produces net costs for the organization or individual old member
states. In cases of conflict between material (economic) interests and liberal
community norms, the norm of liberal membership overrides the economic
interests and the superior bargaining power of member states (Schimmelfennig
2001).
 the theory of liberal community argues that ideational factors trump economic
interests or material bargaining power when community identities, values, and
norms are at stake. There is no assumption that such ideational factors produce
invariably more integration than economic factors. At times, liberal norms
may bring about a larger or more deeply integrated EU than economic
interests or bargaining power. On the other hand, however, identities and
norms may also prevent integration steps that appears functionally efficient.

Eastern enlargement
 According to the EU treaty and in line with the expectations of liberal
community, any European state that subscribes to the liberal values of the EU
may apply to become a member state (Article 49 TEU).
 The CEECs and their supporters in the EU invoked this membership norm to
overcome the reluctance of those member states that feared the costs of
enlargement and to commit the EU formally to Eastern enlargement.
 They framed enlargement as an issue of community identity and argued that
it ought not to be seen and decided from the vantage point of national
interests and material cost-benefit calculations. They invoked the principles of
liberal community, pointed to their achievements in adopting these
principles, and predicted dire consequences for the democratic consolidation
of Eastern Europe should membership be denied.
 In addition, they demanded that the community organizations stick to their
past promises and practices of enlargement to democratic European
countries and accused reticent member states of acting inconsistently and
betraying the fundamental values and norms of their own community
 This framing and shaming made it very difficult for the member states to
reject enlargement on legitimate grounds. Together with their main
supporters – the European Commission,
 Germany, and Britain – the Eastern European countries were thus able to
commit the EC to offering membership to liberal Eastern European countries
at the Copenhagen European Council of 1993 under conditions (the
“Copenhagen criteria”) that were predominantly based on liberal norms of
Community membership – rather than economic cost-benefit criteria

Parliamentarization - EP
 of the Luxembourg Compromise that ended France’s boycott against a
proposed move towards qualified majority voting (QMV) in 1966.
 Yet QMV implied the possibility of overruling individual national governments
and parliaments. It thus undermined the indirect democratic legitimacy of the
Community, which was based on the principle that each member “demos”
was represented at the European level by a democratically elected and
controlled government and could not be forced to implement laws to which
its government had not consented
 This democracy deficit was criticized by members of parliament in national
parliaments as well as in the EP who demanded that the loss of indirect
democratic legitimacy needed to be compensated by expanding the legislative
competences of an organization invested with direct democratic legitimacy:
the EP
 Whereas the majority of (integration-friendly) governments acquiesced to the
demands of the parliamentarians, Denmark and the UK, the member states
with the most Euro-sceptic populations, opposed the empowerment of the EP
as a solution to the legitimacy deficit
 , a compromise was reached: the “cooperation procedure”.
 This case shows how the efficiency-based deepening of supranational
integration undermined liberal political norms at the national level and
generated (successful) demand for compensation in order to uphold the liberal-
democratic legitimacy of regional integration. After all, democratic
 accountability (including the parliamentary accountability of governments) is
a shared norm in the community. It also shows, however, how variation in
national identity leads to conflicting preferences on whether the compensation
should be located at the national or the supranational level.
 In the two decades following the Single European Act, the norm that QMV in
the Council must be complemented by codecision has become firmly
institutionalized (Goetze and Rittberger 2010). The Constitutional Convention
that prepared the current Treaty on European Union stipulated that the
functioning of the EU should be founded on “representative democracy”

The Future of Multilateralism: Governing the World in a

Post-Hegemonic Era
G. JOHN IKENBERRY

 The notion of ‘global governance’ is relatively recent, emerging as a term of

art after the Cold War to describe the complex of multilateral institutions
established to manage global relations.
 The term itself was made popular 20 years ago in a book by James Rosenau,
Governance without Government
 The argument was that while a ‘world government’ capable of ordering the
relations among states had never evolved, the modern global system had
developed more decentralized forms of governance.
 A worldwide system of multilateral institutions and regulatory mechanisms
had emerged that were helping to give international relations order and
stability.
 The post-1815 Concert of Europe was arguably the first organized multilateral
system of global governance. An institutional structure was created to manage
great power relations
 The Concert of Europe involved multilateral rules and commitments to
establish European geopolitical stability.
 the post-Napoleonic period as the first case of states concerting their power for
public interests is the combination of their commitment to keep the peace
together and their institutional innovation of states meeting in forums to
manage crises
 A multilateral security order took hold.
 In the late nineteenth century and before World War I, the European powers
and other states negotiated a variety of multilateral institutions and agreements
in various areas – trade, finance, shipping, communications, and so forth.
 international organizations in the late nineteenth century played an important
role in establishing networks and common standards in the area of trade,
communication, and transport, laying the ground work for twentieth-century
multilateralism.
 The first half of the twentieth century was cruel to liberal international visions
of global order
 The world wars, the Great Depression, and the rise of fascist and communist
alternatives to liberal democracy – these were the upheavals that triggered the
breakdown of the multilateral organization of global order. But, of course, the
greatest upheavals in the global system also brought forth in their wake the
 most ambitious schemes for new and far-reaching forms of multilateral
cooperation.
 In 1919, it was pushed forward by Woodrow Wilson in efforts to establish the
League of Nations. The League was part of a larger vision of postwar order
that Wilson advanced – one built around collective security, open trade, and
international law
 The League was the largest and most encompassing international organization
ever to exist at the time, with 58 members at its peak in 1934.
 The political and intellectual foundations of liberal internationalism were
called into question. This was the great debate of that era, framed initially in
the sweeping critique of ‘liberal idealism’ by E.H. Carr and others. It was Carr
who argued that the ideas behind Woodrow Wilson’s vision of a postwar
liberal international order – organized around collective security and
international law – were exposed as a dangerous illusion.14 Carr and other
realists raised the fundamental question: can the world be governed?