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A review by heathward
The European Rescue of the Nation State by Alan Milward
5.0
Milward's classic text aims at explaining why nation-states grew so powerful (e.g. the expansion of the welfare state) post-WWII given that the era was also one of European cooperation. He argues that the West European nation state "rescued itself" in the 40s and 50s by constructing for itself a new political legitimacy, one which included transnational coordination on a number of issues. European integration thus "rescued" the nation state by giving it a new purpose and recourse for its existence.
When it emerged, Milward's text was unique in substituting economic explanations for the development of the EEC for political ones. This allows him to explain, for example, why Germany accepted France's veto of British membership of the union. Whilst her businessmen and economy would have benefited from British membership, the CDU needed harmony with France for domestic political reasons.
On the whole, the key takeaway is that community rhetoric and policies were intended to reinforce, rather than replace, the nation-state, an argument which I find to be very persuasive.
5 Interesting Quotes:
1. “The evolution of the European Community since 1945 has been an integral part of the reassertion of the nation-state as an organizational concept... Without the process of integration, the west European nation state might well not have retained the allegiance and support of its citizens in the way that it has. The European Community has been its buttress, an indispensable part of the nation-state’s post-war construction. Without it, the nation-state could not have offered to its citizens the same measure of security and prosperity which it has provided, and which has justified its survival.” (2)
2. “There has surely never been a period when national government in Europe has exercised more effective power and more extensive control over its citizens than that since the Second World War, nor one in which its ambitions expanded so rapidly. Its laws, officials, policemen, spies, statisticians, revenue collectors, and social workers have penetrated into a far wider range of human activities than they were earlier able or encouraged to do. If the states’ executive power is less arbitrarily exercised than in earlier periods, which some would also dispute, it is still exercised remorselessly, frequently, in finer detail and in more directions than it was.” (15)
3. “The interdependence of European states was, however, by no means purely economic. The single greatest problem within that interdependence was political, the future of Germany, as it had been in 1848, in1864, in 1870, in 1914, and since 1933. No European rescue of the nation-state was of any validity, unless it also offered a solution to this problem. Although therefore the European rescue of the nation-state was necessarily an economic one, it is at the point where that economic rescue intersected with the problem of Germany’s future in Europe that the common policies of the European Community developed. What, after all, was personal security for Europeans in 1945 without personal security against Germany?” (37)
4. “European states were reborn as puny weaklings into the post-war world. They developed particular bundles of domestic policies to satisfy a coalition of political interests. To support those policies they had available an inherited international order which had accepted to a varying degree the traditional system and principles of interdependence. Some of the domestic policies which they chose could be advanced through this inherited interdependent international economic order. Others could not and required something different, integration, involving a limited surrender of areas of national sovereignty. The close similarity between the sets of domestic policies chosen by Western European countries meant that integration was a path which could be chosen with reasonable hopes of success on several occasions. The choice between interdependence and integration was made according to the capacity of either system of international order to best advance and support domestic policy choices” (376)
5. “It seems beside the point to denounce the European Community for an undemocratic and bureaucratic pursuit of policies which were themselves the choice of national democracies. If that however is construed as evidence that the nation-states themselves are not truly democratic, or that in internationalizing policies they are seeking to restrict the force of postwar democratic pressures, there is little in the argument of this book to refute those conclusions. Indeed, there is much to suggest that the post-war role of more democratic political parties in formulating the immediate post-war domestic policy choices on which consensus depended was only a temporary phase and that these parties, especially since 1968, have become increasingly part of the executive.” (383)
When it emerged, Milward's text was unique in substituting economic explanations for the development of the EEC for political ones. This allows him to explain, for example, why Germany accepted France's veto of British membership of the union. Whilst her businessmen and economy would have benefited from British membership, the CDU needed harmony with France for domestic political reasons.
On the whole, the key takeaway is that community rhetoric and policies were intended to reinforce, rather than replace, the nation-state, an argument which I find to be very persuasive.
5 Interesting Quotes:
1. “The evolution of the European Community since 1945 has been an integral part of the reassertion of the nation-state as an organizational concept... Without the process of integration, the west European nation state might well not have retained the allegiance and support of its citizens in the way that it has. The European Community has been its buttress, an indispensable part of the nation-state’s post-war construction. Without it, the nation-state could not have offered to its citizens the same measure of security and prosperity which it has provided, and which has justified its survival.” (2)
2. “There has surely never been a period when national government in Europe has exercised more effective power and more extensive control over its citizens than that since the Second World War, nor one in which its ambitions expanded so rapidly. Its laws, officials, policemen, spies, statisticians, revenue collectors, and social workers have penetrated into a far wider range of human activities than they were earlier able or encouraged to do. If the states’ executive power is less arbitrarily exercised than in earlier periods, which some would also dispute, it is still exercised remorselessly, frequently, in finer detail and in more directions than it was.” (15)
3. “The interdependence of European states was, however, by no means purely economic. The single greatest problem within that interdependence was political, the future of Germany, as it had been in 1848, in1864, in 1870, in 1914, and since 1933. No European rescue of the nation-state was of any validity, unless it also offered a solution to this problem. Although therefore the European rescue of the nation-state was necessarily an economic one, it is at the point where that economic rescue intersected with the problem of Germany’s future in Europe that the common policies of the European Community developed. What, after all, was personal security for Europeans in 1945 without personal security against Germany?” (37)
4. “European states were reborn as puny weaklings into the post-war world. They developed particular bundles of domestic policies to satisfy a coalition of political interests. To support those policies they had available an inherited international order which had accepted to a varying degree the traditional system and principles of interdependence. Some of the domestic policies which they chose could be advanced through this inherited interdependent international economic order. Others could not and required something different, integration, involving a limited surrender of areas of national sovereignty. The close similarity between the sets of domestic policies chosen by Western European countries meant that integration was a path which could be chosen with reasonable hopes of success on several occasions. The choice between interdependence and integration was made according to the capacity of either system of international order to best advance and support domestic policy choices” (376)
5. “It seems beside the point to denounce the European Community for an undemocratic and bureaucratic pursuit of policies which were themselves the choice of national democracies. If that however is construed as evidence that the nation-states themselves are not truly democratic, or that in internationalizing policies they are seeking to restrict the force of postwar democratic pressures, there is little in the argument of this book to refute those conclusions. Indeed, there is much to suggest that the post-war role of more democratic political parties in formulating the immediate post-war domestic policy choices on which consensus depended was only a temporary phase and that these parties, especially since 1968, have become increasingly part of the executive.” (383)