Interest Groups and Political Integration: the 1972 EEC Decisions in Norway and Denmark*

Peter M. Leslie

American Political Science Review, 1975, vol. 69, issue 1, 68-75

Abstract: The article examines four themes of Robert J. Lieber's article in the APSR of March 1972: “Interest Groups and Political Integration: British Entry into Europe,” bringing in new evidence from the Norwegian and Danish EEC decisions of 1972. The conclusions are that:—(a) there is conflicting evidence regarding the applicability of functionalist theories of political integration to the geographical expansion of an existing union;(b) the attempt to link theories of interest group activity and theories of political integration is based on a premature if not unwise generalization about decision-making processes within interest organizations;(c) politicization (as Lieber defines it) is inherently neither favorable nor unfavorable to integration; and(d) in discussing political integration, the distinction between “high” politics (Hoffman) and welfare considerations is best abandoned, provided the observer remembers that there are more dimensions to critical decisions than the economic.The article concludes with the suggestion that there are slim prospects for developing a theory of political integration applicable to the creation or extension of a union, and that the appropriate “vocation” for such a theory is to elucidate the workings of political systems which have two or more “levels” of political authorities.

Date: 1975
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:69:y:1975:i:01:p:68-75_24

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in American Political Science Review from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().