Response 1: The European Union seems to be one of the few modern arguments that can be made in favor of liberal IR theory.  Following  WWII realist principles would have dictated that states compete to fill the power vacuum left by the fall of Germany with each state pursuing the sole goal of European hegemony.  Amazingly, this is the opposite of what happened.  Perhaps it was the need to  band together against the powerful Russian threat during the Cold War, which would conform to realist theory, but for whatever reason the European states chose to cooperate and form international institutions instead.  According to our lesson this week the  EU began as an economic IO to regulate trade in certain materials, and later customs.  This should not be surprising, given what we learned two weeks about the link between economic prosperity and the expansion of democracy, but it is still a unique phenomenon  in global politics.  Between NATO and the EU, Europe probably hosts more successful supranational organizations than any other region in the world.  There are other successful supranational organizations, such as ASEAN and the African Union, but they have  had significant troubles and do not enjoy the same level of support from their member nations that the EU does.  Some of the common difficulties we have seen facing supranational political organizations are accountability and enforcement.  Tallberg described  the two solutions to this as enforcement and management.  “Enforcement theorists characteristically stress a coercive strategy of monitoring and sanctions, management theorists embrace a problem-solving approach based on capacity building, rule interpretation,  and transparency.” (2002, 1)  The EU has figured out how to combine these two competing approaches into a political strategy that keeps states in line while not subjugating them or overly imposing on their sovereignty.  This is why I find this enforcement  and management theory most persuasive in analyzing EU policymaking.  The EU’s multi-level governance would not work without the accountability that they obtain through balancing enforcement and management.  As I said at the beginning of this post, realism  is the theoretical approach least persuasive when explaining EU development and effectiveness.  As someone who usually ascribes to the bleak, realist outlook, I find the example set by the EU to be refreshing and hopeful.  If ASEAN and the African Union could  replicate their success, it would greatly increase stability and peace in their respective regions.  The recent secession of Great Britain from the EU (dubbed “Brexit”) may indicate a trending decrease in support for the EU from member nations.  Going forward  the EU will have to carefully balance their enforcement and management mechanisms as states now see leaving the organization as a viable option if they are not happy with the EU’s policies.  Great Britain’s decision to leave the EU comes down to unwillingness  to c.

1. Response 1:
The European Union seems to be one of the few modern
arguments that can be made in favor of liberal IR theory.
Following WWII realist principles would have dictated that
states compete to fill the power vacuum left by the fall of
Germany with each state pursuing the sole goal of European
hegemony. Amazingly, this is the opposite of what happened.
Perhaps it was the need to band together against the powerful
Russian threat during the Cold War, which would conform to
realist theory, but for whatever reason the European states
chose to cooperate and form international institutions instead.
According to our lesson this week the EU began as an
economic IO to regulate trade in certain materials, and later
customs. This should not be surprising, given what we learned
two weeks about the link between economic prosperity and the
expansion of democracy, but it is still a unique phenomenon in
global politics. Between NATO and the EU, Europe probably
hosts more successful supranational organizations than any
other region in the world. There are other successful
supranational organizations, such as ASEAN and the African
Union, but they have had significant troubles and do not enjoy
the same level of support from their member nations that the EU
does. Some of the common difficulties we have seen facing
supranational political organizations are accountability and
enforcement. Tallberg described the two solutions to this as
enforcement and management. “Enforcement theorists
characteristically stress a coercive strategy of monitoring and
sanctions, management theorists embrace a problem-solving
approach based on capacity building, rule interpretation, and
transparency.” (2002, 1) The EU has figured out how to
combine these two competing approaches into a political
strategy that keeps states in line while not subjugating them or
overly imposing on their sovereignty. This is why I find this

2. enforcement and management theory most persuasive in
analyzing EU policymaking. The EU’s multi-level governance
would not work without the accountability that they obtain
through balancing enforcement and management. As I said at
the beginning of this post, realism is the theoretical approach
least persuasive when explaining EU development and
effectiveness. As someone who usually ascribes to the bleak,
realist outlook, I find the example set by the EU to be
refreshing and hopeful. If ASEAN and the African Union could
replicate their success, it would greatly increase stability and
peace in their respective regions. The recent secession of Great
Britain from the EU (dubbed “Brexit”) may indicate a trending
decrease in support for the EU from member nations. Going
forward the EU will have to carefully balance their
enforcement and management mechanisms as states now see
leaving the organization as a viable option if they are not happy
with the EU’s policies. Great Britain’s decision to leave the EU
comes down to unwillingness to cooperate with EU policies,
unwillingness to obey a policy they do not agree with, which is
an issue of sovereignty. They are unwilling to compromise
their sovereignty by submitting to the authority (and policies)
of the EU against their will. This is a very realist response to
the EU, and realist theory would indicate that more countries
will follow when they no longer agree with EU policy and
refuse to accept any higher authority than their own. Only time
will tell if the realist perspective or liberal perspective will
prevail, and if the ideals of the EU will continue to spread or if
the organization will collapse.
Response 2:
Before discussing the theoretical perspectives to analyze the
European Union (EU) policymaking, it is important to highlight
that integration cases can develop positively or negatively.
Negative integration refers to the dismantling of restrictions on

3. cross-border exchanges and the distortion of competition, while
positive integration implies common policies that shape the
conditions in which markets operate (Scharpf 1998). This
distinction is significant because the first can be achieved
through intergovernmental procedures, but the second requires
supranational organizations or standards.
When it comes to the theoretic approaches that were least
persuasive, we have one of the oldest federalism, conceived as a
successful model in the United States and, therefore, admired
and emulated elsewhere, including Europe. The federalist
strategy admits two ways to advance integration: through
intergovernmental constitutional negotiation or the call for a
constituent assembly. Both paths lead to the establishment of a
federal state, and both are directed from above. However, when
in 1949 it failed to uphold the Council of Europe as a model for
an integrated continent, many of them opted for a shift to
another type of approach (Burgess 2000).
Functionalism, in contrast to federalism, was created at the end
of WWII as a pragmatic and flexible system to overcome the
problems that nationalism brought and an alternative to the
policy of safeguarding world peace. It is empirically based on
the experience of the US ‘New Deal’, understanding that a
decentralized treatment area by area, and topic by topic, would
curb the capacity of countries while creating non-political
organizations and bodies capable of dealing with administrative
tasks but failed to contain a theory of politics and the inability
to explain why certain options are chosen (Mutiner 1994, 99).
Therefore, the neofunctionalism theory is created, considering
the idea that technological and scientific changes would
produce incentives and pressures for international institutional
innovation (Checkel 2005, 806). “From the beginnings of the
integration process through the early 1990s, the dominant
theoretical traditions in EU studies were neofunctionalism,
which saw European integration as a self-sustaining process

4. driven by sectoral spillovers toward an ever-closer union”
(Pollack 2005,359).
Currently, under the phenomenon of regional integration, the
main contemporary theories that seek to explain it are
intergovernmentalism and supranational governance, a renewed
descendant of neo-functionalism. Intergovernmentalism
conceives of regional integration as the result of the sovereign
decision of a group of neighboring states (Pollack 2005, 360).
According to this approach, the States promote international
cooperation to meet the demands of their relevant national
actors. The expected result is the strengthening of state power,
which maintains the option to withdraw from the association,
and not its dilution in a regional entity (Pollack 2005, 361).
This approach defines economic interdependence as a necessary
condition for integration. As trade liberalization increases the
magnitude of foreign trade, especially at the intra-industrial
level, the demands for greater integration increase. In this
framework, regional institutions are conceived as mechanisms
that facilitate the implementation of agreements, rather than as
autonomous actors or as arenas of collective action (Checkel
2005, 818). Despite the relevance that this approach attaches to
national States, the decision to share or delegate sovereignty is
considered inevitable if it is to achieve and sustain higher levels
of exchange.
For its part, supranational governance conceives of regional
integration as a process that, once started, generates its own
dynamics (Checkel 2005, 801). This approach emphasizes the
importance of supranational actors, which are created by the
regional association but later become its drivers by promoting
certain latent feedback mechanisms (Pollack 2005, 358).
Supranational governance highlights the participation of four
central actors in advancing European integration: nations,
transnational companies, the European Commission and the
Court of Justice (Pollack 2005, 361). The last two are

5. supranational institutions that do not involve in other regional
matters. Hence, outside the European Union, the interaction
between national states and transnational companies is only to
be expected. Furthermore, in the European case, the actors
involved preferably demand general rules rather than specific
decisions, which has generated a unique institutional
construction dynamic of its kind (Checkel 2005, 809).
As to the governance of the European Union, both the powers of
national governments and the European institutions and the
relationship between the latter are vague and ambiguous.
National executives play a key role, and most lobbying is done
through them; but also the Commission and the European
Parliament (and, in some cases, the Court of Justice) are
selected targets of pressure from sub-national governments and
sectoral groups seeking to promote their interests through all
available channels, leading to a process that has been called
multi-level governance (Hooghe and Marks 2001). These
approaches consider society as a starting point for integration.
Increasing in transnational transactions generate an increase in
interdependence that, in the long run, leads the protagonists of
the exchange to request the national or transnational authorities
to adopt regulations and policies to the new needs generated
during the process.
Response 3:
Good day everyone! This week’s readings were on the amazing
story of the European Union (EU) with 28 nations represented.
After two World Wars, it is fitting that the 2 primary objectives
of the EU is Peace and Prosperity for their members, and I think
they have done a excellent job in both these endeavors. I found
that term Europe’s “sui generis” meaning of it’s own kind or in
a class by itself quite fitting to “Europe’s degree of integration,
level of political community, and pooling of sovereignty far

6. outstrip those seen anywhere else” (Checkel, p 801). I noted
that the word sovereignty was constantly brought up and I saw
the contrast between supranationalism (having the power or
influence that transcends national boundaries or governments)
and intergovernmentalism, which allows states to cooperate in
specific fields while retaining their self-interest/ sovereignty.
The EU has been extremely successful in their
supranationalism (Euro monetary currency, EU Schengen Zone,
NATO) to benefit all members even though some state
sovereignty rights have been taken away. This could be
countered by the recent BREXIT where the United Kingdom do
not want their sovereign rights decided by the EU.
The EU does have many checks and balances much like the US
Government. The EU has three branches of government
(legislative, executive and judicial). The legislative branch
consists European Parliament (EP) and Council of Ministers.
The Members of the EP (MEP) are elected by the citizens of
the EU, and the Council of Ministers has 28 national ministers
from each country, which operates under a intergovernmentalist
approach and the states’ interests are emphasized. The EP is
able to pass laws through “co-decisions” which shows power
sharing between intergovernmentalism by either approving,
rejecting (veto player theory will be discussed later) or
amending the legislation. Next, the executive branch consists
of the European Commission and the European Council, which
ultimately operates on the principles of supranationalism. Their
role is primarily drafting proposals, managing EU policies and
budgets.
Although the EU has been extremely successful it does come at
a price. One criticism of the EU does not provide a direct
democratic right for citizens such as a petition for an EU wide
referendum. This deficiency is seen in the EP where the
citizens elect the MEPs but the people have no say in the
European Council/ Commission.

7. The best example of theoretical perspective for policy making is
the Enforcement and Management Theory as it induces rule-
conforming behavior. The E&M theory permeates domestic as
well as international jurisprudence. The E&M theory can
operate under a central, active and direct “police patrol”
supervision conducted by EU’s supranational institutions, and
it can also operate in a decentralized, reactive, and indirect “fire
alarm” supervision where national courts and societal
watchdogs are engaged to induce state compliance (Tallberg, p
610).
The less effective method is the veto-player theory, which
posits that the more actors that are required to agree in order
for change to occur (i.e. the veto player), the less likely) policy
change becomes and the more stability results. Although new
policies are difficult to repeal, the result is a policy
environment characterized by a slow but stable deepening of
economic and political integration.
Lastly, I have to mention the topic of Turkey and the EU. The
EU has long been courting favor for Turkey to join the EU,
however, it seems that many EU member states see Turkey as an
outsider with respect to their history (unable to forget),
religious (aversion to Islam), political (disapproval of human
rights violations in Syria, Kurdistan, Libya) and culture. As a
result the EU has only offered partial membership of which
Turkey flatly rejects. Surprisingly, the UK has been requesting
partial membership during their BREXIT. Turkey is not
blameless in their endeavor to join the EU as their have failed
to meet many of their commitments to the EU as well. It will be
interesting to see the future of the EU and Turkey play out.