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Integration and Disintegration in Franco-German Relations, 1954–1965

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Donald J. Puchala
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Extract

The object of this study is to determine how close to, or how far from, international integration France and the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) moved between 1954 and 1965. Results presented here are revealing though probably not astonishing: While some indices of international integration suggest growing assimilation between Frenchmen and West Germans at the societal level, others, paradoxically, show marked deterioration in French and West German coordination and amalgamation at the intergovernmental level. What is important about these findings is that they follow predictably from some theories of international integration and raise questions about others.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , Spring 1970 , pp. 183 - 208
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1970

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References

1 In this regard see especially Joseph S. Nyc's thoughtful and stimulating, “Comparative Regional Integration: Concept and Measurement,” International Organization, Autumn 1968 (Vol. 22, No. 4), pp. 855–880CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I am in agreement widi Nye's three-dimensional conceptualization of the integration phenomenon (economic integration, political integration, and social integration) as well as with his analytical refinement of each dimension. The reader will note that the conceptualization in two dimensions diat I present here in no way contradicts Nye's presentation. I believe that we agree upon the variety of component phenomena and processes involved in international integration. Hence, my two-dimensional conceptualization amounts really to an alternative way of aggregating phenomena which becomes conceptually and empirically quite similar when Nye and I disaggregate in order to analyze. For yet another attempt to inventory and organize “all that is involved” in regional integration see Lindberg, Leon N., “The European Community as a Political System: Notes toward the Construction of a Model,” Journal of Common Market Studies, 06 1967 (Vol. 5, No. 4), pp. 344—387CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Nye, , International Organization, Vol. 22, No. 4, p. 858Google Scholar.

3 Deutsch, Karl W., and others, Political Community and the North Atlantic Area: International Organization in the Light of Historical Experience (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1957), PP. 3–9Google Scholar. I substitute the term “international community formation” for Deutsch's term “integration” to avoid semantic confusion. “Integration” as used here means both “integration” (i.e., community formation) and “amalgamation” in the Deutschian sense.

4 Ibid., pp. 6–7. The “amalgamated security community” may be confederal, federal, or unitary in governmental structure and process.

5 For theoretical and empirical treatments of international community formation and its subprocebses see Deutsch, Karl W., Political Community at the International Level (Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday 8t Co. 1954), passimGoogle Scholar; Russett, Bruce M., Community and Contention (Cambridge, Mass: M.I.T. Press, 1963), pp. 26–48, 196–222Google Scholar; Jacob, Philip E. and Toscano, James V. (ed.), The Integration of Political Communities (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1964), passimGoogle Scholar; Etzioni, Amitai, Political Unification: A Comparative Study of Leaders and Forces (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965), pp. 3–96Google Scholar; Etzioni, Amitai, “The Epigenesis of Political Communities at the International Level,” American Journal of Sociology, 01 1963 (Vol. 68, No. 4), pp. 407–421CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Puchala, Donald J., “The Pattern of Contemporary Regional Integration,” International Studies Quarterly, 1968 (Vol. 12, No. 1), pp. 38–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Theoretical and empirical treatments of international political amalgamation include Haas, Ernst B., The Uniting of Europe: Political, Social and Economic Forces, 1950–1957 (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1958), passimGoogle Scholar; Hass, Ernst B., Beyond the Nation-State: Functionalism and International Organization (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1964), passimGoogle Scholar; Haas, Ernst B. and Schmitter, Philippe C., “Economics and Differential Patterns of Political Integration: Projections about Unity in Latin America,” in International Political Communities: An Anthology (Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday & Co., 1966), pp. 259–300Google Scholar; Lindberg, Leon N., The Political Dynamics of European Economic Integration (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1963), passimGoogle Scholar; Lindberg, Leon N., “Decision Making and Integration in the European Community,” International Organization, Winter 1965 (Vol. 19, No. 1), pp. 56–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Deutsch, and others, Political Community and the North Atlantic Area, passim.

7 For an interesting counterstatement of this point stressing the need for a composite “dependent variable” see Haas, Ernst B., “The Study of Regional Integration: Some Somber Reflections on the Joy and Anguish of Pretheorizing,” International Organization, Autumn 1970 (Vol. 24, No. 4)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, forthcoming.

8 Let it be noted that it is not my intention to generalize any of the substantive findings recorded here concerning Franco-German international integration to the broader and more complex phenomenon of European integration. Hence, this is not a study of the European Economic Community (EEC).

9 For further discussion of indices of economic integration see Nye, , International Organization, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 861ffGoogle Scholar.

10 For a derivation of the relative acceptance measure and an explanation of its analytical usefulness see Savage, I. Richard and Deutsch, Karl W., “A Statistical Model of the Gross Analysis of Transaction Flows,” Econometrica, 07 1960 (Vol. 28, No. 3), pp. 551–572CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 For a much more detailed analysis of who was moving toward or away from whom in economic distance see Alker, Hayward Jr, and Puchala, Donald J., “Trends in Economic Partnership: The North Atlantic Area, 1928–1963,” in Singer, J. David (ed.), Quantitative International Politics: Insights and Evidence (New York: The Free Press, Collier-Macmillan, 1968), pp. 287–316Google Scholar.

12 Krause, Lawrence B. (ed.), The Common Market: Progress and Controversy (Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 1964)Google Scholar, passim. See especially Lamfalussy, Alexander, “Europe's Progress: Due to the Common Market?” pp. 90–107 in this volumeGoogle Scholar.

13 “Mutual trust” is functionally equivalent to Deutsch's index of community labeled “mutual predictability of behavior.” That is, to “trust” is to predict beneficial behavior. Cf. Deutsch, , Political Community at the International Level, pp. 53–54Google Scholar.

14 Merritt, Richard L. and Puchala, Donald J. (ed.), Western European Perspectives on International Affairs (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1968), pp. 226–227Google Scholar.

15 Ibid., p.230.

16 See, for example, Nye, , International Organization, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 865ffGoogle Scholar; Lindberg, , Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 357ffGoogle Scholar; Barrera, Mario and Haas, Ernst B., “The Operationalization of Some Variables Related to Regional Integration: A Research Note,” International Organization, Winter 1969 (Vol. 23, No. 1), pp. 150–160CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schmitter, Philippe C., “Further Notes on Operationalizing Some Variables Related to Regional Integration,” International Organization, Spring 1969 (Vol. 23, No. 2), pp. 327–336CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It should be noted here that one important shortcoming of the measurement scheme for institutionalization used in this present article is that none of the scales record “task expansion” (or contraction) in the functioning of established institutions. My measures miss “spillover” and its variants and hence produce no readings on an important dimension of international institutionalization. Work currently in progress will hopefully rectify this shortcoming.

17 Information on Franco-German organizations was collected from the Yearbook, of International Organizations (Brussels: Union of International Associations), annual editions 1950–1967Google Scholar; Robertson, A. H., European Institutions: Co-operation, Integration, Unification (New York: Frederick A. Praeger [under the auspices of the London Institute of World Affairs], 1958)Google Scholar, especially the appendix and chapter bibliographies; and The New York Times Index.

18 For operational definitions and coding rules concerning all varieties of interaction considered here see the appendix to this article and Donald J. Puchala, “Recording Diplomatic Interaction,” a paper prepared for the workshop on event/interaction analysis at the September 1969 meeting of the American Political Science Association. (Mimeographed.)

19 Issues were weighted in two ways. First they were weighted according to my own subjective judgment of their importance. Then, they were weighted according to the attention allocated to them by the French and West German governments. Issues that received a great deal of attention were judged more salient than issues that received less attention. For this analysis the second weighting system is used. (See appendix.)

20 Application of a Chi Squared statistical test showed that the disproportion of intensely negative interaction in the 1963—1965 period was systematic rather than random. There is less than one chance in 10,000 that this distribution is random.

21 Cf., for example, Deutsch, Karl W., and others, France, Germany and the Western Alliance: A study of Elite Attitudes on European Integration and World Politics (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1967), PP. 213–264Google Scholar; and Haas, Ernst B., “The Challenge of Regionalism,” International Organization, Autumn 1958 (Vol. 12, No. 4), pp. 440–458CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 In this regard see Inglehart, Ronald, “An End to European Integration,” American Political Science Review, 03 1967 (Vol. 61, No. 1), pp. 91–105CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Here the author rightfully criticizes the authors of France, Germany and the Western Alliance for their attempts to infer trends in amalgamation from evidence of community formation. But then Inglehart proceeds, from a different data base, to also infer amalgamation from community formation.

23 Deutsch, , Political Community at the International Level, pp. 42–45Google Scholar; Russett, pp. 26–48 and passim; Lindberg, Leon N. and Scheingold, Stuart, Europe's Would-Bc Polity (forthcoming, 1970)Google Scholar. See also Lind, berg, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 5, No. 4Google Scholar.

24 Deutsch, Karl W., The Nerves of Government: Models of Political Communication and Control (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, Collier-Macmillan, 1963), pp. 75–97ffGoogle Scholar, especially pp. 161–162.

25 For an alternative, and differing, interpretation of the impacts of conflict, crisis, and strain upon amalgamation processes see Lindberg, Leon N., “Integration as a Source of Stress on the European Community System,” International Organization, Spring 1966 (Vol. 20, No. 2), pp. 233–265CrossRefGoogle Scholar. If Lindberg stands by die Eastonian postulate he cites (p. 237):

Persistence [of a system] signalizes die importance of considering, not only particular structure or pattern, but rather the very life processes of a 'system themselves. In this sense a system may persist even though everything else associated widi it changes…,

I surely agree diat die strain in Franco-German relations in the early 1960's did not destroy die European community system. I do not believe, however, diat these crises bolstered international amalgamation in die system, especially since one marked outcome of the French boycott was a retreat from supra-nationality. It must also be borne in mind that issues straining Franco-German relations in the early 1960's ranged well beyond Common Market concerns (which to de Gaulle were relatively minor concerns pushed to a corner of the world chess board diat he played upon). When extracommunity as well as community concerns are summed up for die early 1960's, die disruptive jolt to Franco-German relations of several overlapping disputes turns out much greater dian Lindberg implies.

26 Notice for example the high inverse correlation between the increase in “load” and decline in institutionalization.

27 I am indebted to one of my prepublication reviewers for expressing dismay that “an article employing such rigorous techniques of analysis should end with a discussion of ‘will’.” The reviewer's “dismay” requires a response. My injection of the concept of political “will” into the conclusion of this article was quite deliberate, and this injection was not intended to contradict the systematic tone of the study. I am convinced first that concepts such as “will,” “motivation,” “desire,” “goal,” etc., have been largely underemphasized in the international integration literature, with the result that many of our paradigms and models have become unrealistically mechanistic. When we theoretically eject politicians, their constituencies and their goals from our considerations about political integration, we lose realism. Second, the reason that we have avoided the “softer” concepts such as “will” is because we have found these exceptionally difficult to operationalize and test systematically. I am convinced that mis operational problem can be overcome. Political “will” to integrate is a central endogenous variable in international integration. To understand integration better we must isolate the variable, operationalize it, and study its variation as both an independent and a dependent variable. Hence, the conclusion to this study is an introduction to further study—further study which need be no less systematic than this one was.