Binding engagements : explaining European integration from the United Provinces (1579-1795) to the European Communities (1952)

Abstract

The dissertation seeks to offer a broad security-based explanation for regional integration. The central argument is that integration presents a solution to a particular time-consistency problem—known in the security literature as the ‘preventive war dilemma*—which arises from uneven growth rates among states. Conventional international relations theory offers only one solution to the preventive war dilemma: war. I argue that another possibility is for states to create a regional institution that enables credible commitment. If states can create an institution which constrains their actions and disables their future discretion to use force arbitrarily, the time-consistency problem disappears. I label this strategy of integration, 'institutional binding'. Looking at the historical record, we find several instances in which states have managed to solve a preventive war dilemma and avoid war by integrating with a rising challenger instead of balancing against it. The dissertation examines three such cases. The first is the United Provinces of the Netherlands (1579-1795) in which six smaller Dutch provinces chose integration as a way to bind a growing Holland. The second is the German Zollverein (1834- 1871) which—in parallel with the German Bund—provided a framework for peaceful cooperation among the German states, which enabled them, for a few decades, to stave off Prussian domination. The third case is the European Communities (1952-) where integration has been motivated by a desire to contain a potentially resurgent Germany. In all three cases, a primary motivation behind integration is the desire by smaller states to establish binding constraints on a more powerful, rising, power in their midst. By contrast, competing explanations stressing external military threat or economic concerns as key motivating factor for integration perform less well across the three cases. The dissertation concludes that regional preventive conflict is a crucial factor in explaining regional integration.