Dynamics of Integration and Conflict
From the perspective of European society, the major opposing dynamics of integration and conflict underlie the continuing development of the map of Europe. Integration dynamics encompass historical, economic and political dimensions.
Historically, geography, culture and perception created four European quadrants: a majority Germanic, Protestant northwest; a majority Latin, Catholic southwest; a majority Turkic, Islamic southeast; and a majority Slavonic, Orthodox northeast.
“One can certainly say that the EU has a powerful architecture, with a distinctive ethos, corporate culture and organisational knowledge. It also has a dominant market position, and is even a natural monopoly. This, of course, is a warning about the normal hazards of monopoly, in terms of bureaucratisation and remoteness from consumers.”
Perceptually, the northeast and southeast faced a relatively unified west. Economic integration has revolved around the eastward extension of markets, monetary policy and regional redistribution. Political integration has dealt with the resolution of values, power, and security.
Conflict in Europe
European conflict can be categorized into approximately six areas:
- Nationalist-ethnic conflict – Multiethnic, ethnophobic, separatist and irredentist.
- Redistributive conflict – National, regional or economic.
- Radical opposition conflict – Driven by political ideology or environmentalism.
- Criminality conflict – Corruption, Mafia activity and violence from disaffected groups.
- Anarchy – The breakdown of both government and civil society.
- External threats to civil society – Terrorism and rogue states.
“In the last millennium the map of Europe has been redrawn drastically virtually every century, often with extreme violence. But in the 20th century, this has been more than ever so.”
Four different dynamics shape what will happen in Europe: With “domino dynamics,” integration and conflict tend to spread to peripheral countries once a core group of countries is involved. With “disequilibrium dynamics,” both integration and conflict deepen because any initial step that threatens the equilibrium of the system mandates taking further steps. Positively, “changing attitude dynamics” create deepening integration as trust builds up, particularly across generations. Conflict deepens with the “bloodshed dynamic,” which occurs when revenge or defense of sacred values becomes dominant.
Paradigms of Government
From the perspective of political science, four paradigms, in a two-by-two matrix of power and territory, compete for dominance:
- Federatio – A form of multinational governance exercised over a fixed set of territories, in which functions are executed as standard policies, as represented by the EU’s economic, monetary, foreign and defense policy, justice and home affairs unions.
- Confederatio – A form of decentralized power exercised over a fixed set of territories. While creating broad policies, this model allows for a degree of flexibility in their application by territorial unit, even allowing for some opting-out, but not to the point of undermining the essential unity of the whole. The Council of Europe’s deference to its member states is an example of Confederatio.
- Condominio – A strong set of fixed policies imposed on a flexibly defined territory, as best represented by NATO, the Euro Area and the European Central Bank.
- Consortio – The most flexible form of multinational governance, an application of policy to a flexibly defined territory, as represented by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
“The human costs of conflict in Europe’s 20th-century experience were so colossal that they dwarf the pay-off from all conceivable refinements to west Europe’s further integration. It supports what the founding fathers of post-world war integration felt: We need integration above all to avoid conflict.”
The presence of all four paradigms led one political scientist to call Europe an “unidentified political object.” However, three model paradigms weigh most heavily in the debate about how Europe should develop: federation, cosmopolitan democracy and the management paradigm.
The essential question under the “federalism paradigm” is given a particular territory what is the best “allocation of competences for the rules of policy between the several tiers of government?” The “cosmopolitan democracy paradigm,” instead, takes a decentralized, international scope, asking what overarching rules are needed, and how best to apply them. The “management paradigm” puts politics aside and asks given a set of rules and institutions how can implementation be made as efficient as possible.
Economic Rules
You can discuss the territorial extent and the enforcement allocation of economic and political rules in two contexts: the competing dynamics of integration and conflict, and the competing models of federalism, cosmopolitan democracy and management. One issue to consider in the economic arena is the internal and external integration of the core European Economic Community.
“The post-modern state marks the obsolescence of the old moral frontiers – between the internal governance of morality through law and democracy on the one hand, and the external governance by Realpolitik on the other.”
Economic rules encompass macroeconomic stability, the open market, the labor market and corporate governance. Current rules for macroeconomic stability derive from the criteria for admission to the Euro Area.
The introduction of the euro was intended to resolve the problems of the “inconsistent quartet” made up of free trade, capital mobility, managed exchange rates and national autonomy in monetary policy. In the Euro area, however, another inconsistent quartet threatens to emerge among monetary, budgetary, social and regional policies. Despite the monetary admission standards for the Euro area, monetary, budgetary, social and regional policies are each governed by separate institutions, which show varying degrees of deference to individual countries.
“The federation is one form of the modern state, characterized by a bunching of vital functions at the level of one national jurisdiction – say macro- and micro-economic policies, internal and external security. The US remains the archetypal modern, federal state.”
Within the rules of open markets, European countries have agreed upon definitions of free trade carried out in the European Free Trade Area (EFTA), a common commercial policy achieved in the form of a customs union shared between the EU and Turkey, and a single market encompassing the European Economic Area (EEA).
“The overarching question of European integration is how far history has conditioned the loyalties of populations, such as to facilitate or impede integration across these four cultural zones.”
Labor market issues include managing the different performances of regional economies. Rules of corporate governance focus on countering the threats posed by corruption and fraud.
Political Rules
Issues in the political arena involve the internal and external integration of core common governing rules and institutions. Political rules encompass the rules of democracy, human rights, minority rights and rules of inter-state behavior. The rules of democracy, while not entirely agreed upon, are defined by the Council of Europe and the EU Commission as encompassing minimal institutional outcomes such as free and fair elections, separation of powers, the rule of law and civilian control over the military.
“Cosmopolitan democracy is, for Europe, the main alternative paradigm to federation, leaving aside old-fashioned nationalism, which is obsolete.”
Human rights encompass such rights as life, liberty, suffrage and due process, as well as freedoms such as religion, expression, association and assembly. Human rights also include prohibitions against slavery, torture and collective expulsion. Human rights rules have been carefully delineated in the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and are clearly enforceable through the European Court of Human Rights. Minority rights encompass the right to maintain a minority culture within a majority culture.
“Federation has the quality of maximizing synergies between its functions and acquiring greater power. Cosmopolitan democracy, however, is less interested in power. It belongs to the post-modern idea, rejecting that great centers of state power have to be concentrated at the level of a unified jurisdiction.”
Minority rights have been delineated in the rules of the OSCE’s (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) Copenhagen document, which spells out the rights of equal protection and the right to maintain a distinct language, as well as educational, cultural and religious institutions; to exercise faith; to have contact with members of one’s ethnic group across national boundaries; and to exercise of minority rights, individually or communally.
“The management paradigm may be brought in to help either the emerging federation or the cosmopolitan democracy. It can be used to lessen the hazards of monopolistic bureaucratic structures.”
The OSCE Moscow Mechanism makes minority rights an international concern. The Council of Europe’s convention for the protection of national minorities spells out broad minority rights. Still, ethnic minority rights remain weaker than human rights.
Security and Defense
Rules of inter-state behavior encompass security, in both policing and defense. Policing has been altered as a result of the EU single market, which liberalized not only the movement of capital, but also the movement of people.
“This Civil Europe would have good chances to embark upon a new golden age. It would assemble unique qualifications: an awareness of a deep common culture, comparable educational standards throughout and a willingness to subscribe to the same basic political and economic values.”
Consequently, the Treaty of Amsterdam strengthened the European Police Office (Europol) and other European policing mechanisms, to help maintain and develop the Union as an area of freedom, security and justice, in which the free movement of persons is assured in conjunction with appropriate measures with respect to external borders, immigration, asylum and the prevention and combatting of crime.
Defense has changed dramatically since the end of the Cold War. The three European security organizations: NATO, the OSCE and the WEU, each represent a particular conception of Europe and the nature of European Security.
NATO encompasses Canada, the United States and Western Europe; the OSCE represents 55 European states; and the WEU is limited to the EU. Future questions involve what alignments may develop or break down, who will lead Europe’s defense and how the three current organizations will work together.
Alignments and Maps
Four future European maps seem possible:
- Two-Block Map – One block is the European Union (EU) plus Mediterranean and the other is Russia/the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)/Central Asia.
- Brussels Europe – A unified EU plus individual, non-aligned countries.
- Security Europe – An all-inclusive map of the OSCE including the US and former USSR, and with a strong NATO core and a weak WEU.
- Civil Europe – Encompassing the Council of Europe, but not the US or Central Asia.
While it is impossible to predict which map will come into being, the seemingly superior one is Civil Europe. This European Civil Society (ECS) is a political entity that does not exist, but which could be a good idea. The vision of ECS entails a confederation encompassing the broadest idea of Europe (including Russia, Ukraine and Turkey), while maintaining the smaller EU.
In policy terms, you could predict increased leverage for political rules and for the ideologies of democracy and human rights, emanating from the prospect of economic suspension of delinquent nations and easement of ethnic conflict.
Economic Agenda
One way of accomplishing this would be to add an economic agenda to the Council of Europe’s priorities and to adjust its political and educational agenda. An economic agenda for ECS could consist of:
- Trade and single-market policies to multi-lateralize European Trade, eventually creating an All-European Free Trade Area with members of the European Union and the Council of Europe.
- Trans-European transport networks, placing roads, railways and pipelines under the Pan-European Conference of Transport Ministers with European Investment Bank funding.
- Macroeconomic policy cooperation, encompassing a European Central Bank monetary policy as well as a model of budget and social policies.
The “new” ECS political agenda would take up the issues of free movement, visas policies, asylum and cross-border criminality. Council of Europe educational activities could include a network of European Schools, a Warsaw branch of the College of Europe, and a European Scholarship Foundation.