History 5: TUESDAY 6 May 03
Lecture Outline 28
United States of Europe?
Introduction
• Consensual integration not on political agenda until 1945:French
foreign minister Briand’s Plan for a united Europe in 1929 a
non-starter
• A post-Nationalist Europe? Nationalism mutates
• Integration rescues the nation-state; an elite top-down movement.
I Forces making for unity
• Impact of World War II: destruction and loss of life foster
unity moves
• Ideas of wartime Resistance movements >federalism
• Cold War: USA pressurizes Europeans to unite in order to defeat
Communism internally and externally
• German problem: French fear German economic and military revival>Schuman
Plan designed to Gulliverise Germany
• Economics: state-citizen relationship evolves: citizen expects
welfare and prosperity > state opts for greater economic interdependence
in order to survive.
• Role of individuals and pressure groups: Jean Monnet , Action
Group for a United Europe.
II Integration initiatives, 1945-1959
• Churchill’s call for United States of Europe, Zurich
1946>Congress of Europe>Council of Europe 1948 (intergovernmental
consultative body)
• Economic integration: French foreign minister Robert Schuman
proposes in 1950 (Monnet real author) a European Coal and Steel Community
(ECSC) for pooling of heavy industry of six states: France, Italy,
West Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg
• Treaty of Rome 1957: 6 of ECSC > European Economic Community
(EEC) establishing a single external tariff: institutions: European
Commission, council of ministers, parliament and court of justice.
• Britain launches rival European Free Trade Area (EFTA) of
7 states. (1959)
• Military integration: North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
1949
III Stagnation, 1960-1985
• Only two major changes in over 20 years: enlargement of EEC
1973: Britain, Ireland, Denmark 6>9+Greece in 1979; some limited
political and foreign policy consultation machinery ; reasons for
relative stagnation: General de Gaulle ,French president(1958-1969),
opposes supranationalism; post-1973 downturn of European and world
economy.
IV “Ever closer union” (Treaty of Rome), 1986-2003
* Further enlargement: 1986 Spain and Portugal; 10>12
• Single European Act (SEA) 1986 : goal of single internal market
by 1993+institutional reform
• Treaty on the European Union signed at Maastricht (Netherlands)
1992: goal of full economic and monetary union; EC becomes EU 1994
• Common currency Euro adopted by 11 EU states in 1999 ; implemented
from January 2001.
• 2003 entry of 10 central and east European states agreed 15>25
Conclusion
• European “miracle”. Down and out in 1945 Europe
successfully reinvents itself ; becomes economic superpower, rivaling
USA.
• EU entirely new creation, unparalleled in history.; cocktail
of supranational and intergovernmental institutions plus nation states;
member states responsible for most areas of domestic policy, including
defence and foreign relations
• Weaknesses: democratic deficit; absence of mobilizing vision;
dangers of enlargement >destablishing forces; lack of integrated
defense and foreign policy decision-making.
• A completely integrated United States of Europe unlikely.for
foreseeable future. Current enlargement and deepening will absorb
energies for another decade or so. Strategy of a multi-speed Europe
maintains European diversity.
• Model for the world? No armed conflict between member states
since 1945; success of regional cooperation and interdependency based
on democratic norms
History 5: Thursday 8May 03
Lecture Outline 29
European Trajectories, 1950s-1990s
Introduction
• Two landmarks: 1968, 1989; sixties cultural revolution in
Western Europe; political revolutions of 1989 in communist Europe.
I Western Europe in the 1950s
• Decade of prosperity ; new industrialization
• Baby boom: West Eur pop> 380 to 421 m (1940-59)
• Socio-economic consequences of prosperity and demographics>employment;
social welfare; expansion of higher education>mass upward social
mobility
• Changing political culture: crisis of international communism
post-Stalin (1953); appearance of independent “New Left”;
Marxist-based critique of Western capitalism: Herbert Marcuse (Frankfurt
School), Eros and Civilization (1955)
• Colonial independence movements as models (Fanon); new themes:
identity, alienation, feminism
II Features of sixties cultural revolution
• Formation of new subcultures and movements, generally critical
of, or in opposition to, one or more aspects of established society:
New Left, civil rights, anti-war, feminist and gay rights movements,
Child Poverty, Help for the Homeless and environmental protection
groups
• Unprecedented influence of young people, with youth culture
having increasing impact on rest of society, dictating taste and fashion
• Important advances in technology: television (Telstar, 1962)
transistor radios, electronic synthesizers, modern telephone systems,
cheap mass jet travel, contraceptive pill (USA 1961, UK 1962).
• Permissiveness: general sexual liberation, new openness
• Massive improvements in material life-expansion of consumer
society
III Paris, 1968
• Student movements for a more democratic, less alienated society;
end of cold war “military industrial complex” and its
manifestations e.g. Vietnam War
• New alienating brutalist architecture : cement block campuses
of sixties e.g. Nanterre
• Student strike March –May 1968 (Daniel Cohn-Bendit),
March 22nd movement, barricades in the Latin Quarter
• Non-communist workers strike, May 13-4; 300,000 people; May
17: 10 million on strike, France at a standstill.
• June elections>big majority for De Gaulle; wage increases;
not a revolutionary situation in 1968
IV Collapse of Communism 1989
• Political stagnation: under and after Stalin repressive dictatorship;
no rethinking of Communism; Khrushchev’s destalinisation does
not change nature of regime.
• Rise of dissent and protest: east European states communist
only by conquest and keep strong national identities: protest in East
Germany 1953; Hungarian uprising 1956; Charter 77 movement in Czechoslovakia
(Vaclav Havel); Poland: Pope John Paul II (1979); Solidarity strike
(1980-1), Lech Walesa.
• The Prague Spring 1968: Slovak autonomy movement; reform communism;
Jan 1968: Alexander Dubcek’s coup; “Socialism with a Human
Face”; Prague Spring, April-August 1968, revolt of the intellectuals:
Two Thousand Words Manifesto; Soviet repression, August 1968; Brezhnev
doctrine
• Economic failure; command economy unsuited to third industrial
revolution of 1970s and 80s- Information revolution.
• Military overstretch: cost of Afghanistan war 1979-1989, intensifying
armaments race (response to Reagan’s SDI), and helping allies,
overloads Soviet economy.
• Gorbachev factor; Mikhail Gorbachev 1985> attempts reform
(perestroika); too much, too late .De Tocqueville: most dangerous
moment for a bad regime is when it attempts reform.
• 1989: collapse of Communist regimes across eastern Europe;
“velvet revolutions”; mass protests succeed without serious
violence because Gorbachev decides against using Soviet troops to
keep satellites in power.
Conclusion
• Very different responses of liberal capitalism and Soviet
communism to growing complexity of late twentieth century post-industrial
society explain 1989. Stalinist model fitted well with steel and coal,
incompatible with computers.
• Western liberal capitalism in crisis in 1970s and early 80s
because of global economic downturn but survives for 2 reasons: 1960s
cultural revolution made Western society >more pluralistic, entrepreneurial,
participatory>stronger civil society; capitalism, unlike socialism,
not committed to full employment / welfare>downsizes ruthlessly;
Communism prisoner of its own ideals. Failure of Prague Spring >
lack of significant social/ political change in eastern Europe >hollows
out Communist regimes.