INTERNATIONAL INTEGRATION

• The term “integration” refers to a process whereby the quality

of relations among autonomous social units (kinship groups,
tribes, cities, trade unions, trade associations, political parties)
changes in such a way as to erode the autonomy of each and
make it part of a larger aggregate. In specifically political
discussions the term is reserved for the analysis of such
changes among more or less “sovereign” political units, and in
the study of international relations the term is confined to the
analysis of cumulatively changing relations among states,
resulting in their acceptance of some new central authority.
• Historically, such authority has most commonly been imposed
by military force—by a conquering group upon the
vanquished. In order to distinguish “integration” from the
forcible establishment of empires we must specify that the
erosion of local autonomy may be based on deliberate and
voluntary decisions by actors or result from unintended
consequences of such decisions, but it may never rest on force
• Specifically, “regional” integration refers to that process among two or
more states on a geographically confined scale, at a level below that of
global integration, which sums up such world-wide phenomena
as international law, the United Nations, and world trade or population
movements. So defined, “regional integration” is an identifiable process
in ancient Greece, eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century North
America, and nineteenth-century Germany, to cite some obvious
instances. Regional integration since 1945 has been an observable
phenomenon in both eastern and western Europe, in the “Atlantic area,”
the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and in the Western Hemisphere
as a whole. At the same time, “regional disintegration” has been
apparent in the weakening of ties among the heirs of former colonial
empires, the British Commonwealth, and the French Community.
• “Integration” is sometimes also used to specify the result of a
process of erosion of autonomy—the condition which obtains
at the termination of the process; but we shall confine the
meaning to the process. The term is important as an analytical
tool in the hands of scholars and observers generalizing about
the ideas and motives of political actors who are likely to
describe their actions with such terms as “unification,”
“federation,” “rapprochement” “establishing peaceful
relations,” or “bringing prosperity to all.” Integration,
therefore, is also an objective concept for summing up and
projecting the possibly subjective aims of political actors.
REGIONAL INTEGRATION AS A CONCEPT

• Considered as an analytical concept, regional integration sums

up a number of separate but related concerns appropriate to the
study and—within limits —prediction of regional integration
processes under way in various places. It groups behavioral and
institutional forces describable by the term “spill-over,” which
in turn draws on the notion of “functionalism” and “functional
integration.” Regional integration concepts also rely on certain
tendencies inherent in bureaucratic organizations. In particular
they rely on the tendency of international organizations to
expand along functional lines, with the help of functional legal
ideas responding to new perceptions of need by the actors.
• Specifically, the term “spill-over” describes the accretion of
new powers and tasks to a central institutional structure, based
on changing demands and expectations on the part of such
political actors as interest groups, political parties, and
bureaucracies. It refers to the specific process which originates
in one functional context, initially separate from other political
concerns, and then expands into related activities as it
becomes clear to the chief political actors that the achievement
of the initial aims cannot take place without such expansion.
• Demands and expectations for further centralized spheres of
activity develop from perceptions of inadequate performance
on the part of existing institutions. The inadequacy of the
performance is attributed to an insufficient grant of powers or
timid policy on the part of the central authorities; hence the
claim for new central powers to achieve better performance is
a direct outgrowth of the earlier institutional system and the
realignment of group expectations produced through it.
• By means of the spill-over concept we can analyze broad
movements of integration without having to posit identity of
aims or perfect agreement among the actors. Integration may
proceed merely on the basis of a series of parallel and
mutually complementary realignments of expectations and
demands, with each actor merely seeking “to get the most out
of” the initially centralized functional context. Application of
the concept thus permits the projection of integrative trends
without having to assume profound consensus among the
states.
• The extent to which the actors perceive the probable results of their
demands on the over-all system is a crucial component of the concept. One
type of “learning” is conducive to the progressive adoption of behavior
patterns further reinforcing spill-over tendencies; but another type of
“learning” may well stop the trend dead in its tracks: there is nothing
inevitable in it. One type of “learning” rests on the reasoning associated
with the concept of “unintended consequences.” Actors striving for the
better achievement of some aims dear to them will commit themselves to
modes of behavior which have the unintended result of strengthening
certain central institutions, or result in the creation of such institutions. The
aims motivating the actors are —to them—manifest and overt, but the
logic of events transforms the consciously expected results into something
not wholly anticipated in terms of dependence on new central authorities.
• Now two things can happen: the actor, having learned that unintended
consequences can follow from his initial desires, may consciously
make the unintended a manifest desire and thereby deliberately
contribute to the process of centralization; but he may also draw the
conclusion from the trend of spill-over events that his initial aims were
to blame for the unintended and unwanted consequences, thereby
compelling a reformulation of initial aims. The second case would
produce an adaptation with disintegrative results. In that event the
chain of events associated with the spill-over concept would come to a
halt. There is little ground for believing that this outcome is less likely
than integrative consequences. The positive spill-over concept
summarizes adaptive tendencies of extreme fragility—tendencies
which have been reversed in many well-known historical situations.