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Essay Subject: Describes & compares functionalism, neo-functionalism & integration theory & their approach to global problems of change & conflict.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Describes & compares functionalism, neo-functionalism & integration theory & their approach to global problems of change & conflict. Paper Introduction: International relations is an activity in which persons from more than one nation interact individually and in groups. Much of the scholarship of international relations arose between the world wars, as academics sought ways to prevent these tragedies. Several schools of thought emerged on how to prevent war. Three such schools that are still important today are functionalism, neo-functionalism and integration theory. This research analyzes these schools of thought and attempts to draw commonalities between them. Specifically, the relationship between functionalism and integration theory and neo-functionalism and integration theory will be explored, and the conditions likely to aid or hinder an integrated global community will be discussed. International Integration Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. The solution for Mitrany is to decentralize political decisionmakinginto various forms of direct democratic assemblies. 27). (1964). London: Pinter Publishers. This means that the means in which nation-states centralizegovernance can be replicated on the international level. Mitrany lived in England and was associatedwith the Fabians, a socialist society who advocated equality in all socialinstitutions. The fusion of economic interests is seen as later producingpolitical union. (1963). The pluralisticcommunities comprised international systems in which nations did not expectto go to war. From these case studies,they derived a list of conditions necessary for both amalgamated and lessmonolithic security alliances. centralized institutions will respondaccordingly and, hence, become the driving force behind internationalintegration. The boundaries canstymie economic cooperation, undermine cultural harmony and, worse yet,lead to war. Advanced industrial societies contain amyriad of special interest groups, political parties and other politicalactors who participate in the process of governance. The starting point of functionalist theory--the first theory todevelop the idea of "world politics" by linking together national andinternational concerns--is to focus upon the specific, pressing problems ofthe day (i.e. Socialinstitutions would inevitably cross national boundaries and would be basedon mutual economic and social needs. The grant of power to central authorities in a securityalliance was seen as a measure of political consensus between the actorsand was insufficient grounds for creating a permanent alliance, usuallyeroding once the immediate military threat subsided. Mitrany's theories about the functionalist approach tointernational relations have proven instrumental in the development ofthinking about international organization and has served as both a startingpoint and a source of refinement of contemporary integration theory. Nye, J. David Mitrany's seminal work, A Working Peace System, was publishedin the course of World War II. The political dynamics of European economicintegration. In the words of Mitrany,"No form of government, no constitutional or traditional claim is nowimmutably set: in the last resort the form of government and its laws andconstitutions are shaped and re-shaped by the restless flux of thecommunities' social pressures. Nationalism reduces, traps and limits social development,while interdependence following function adds, generates and frees. In terms of international relations, the concept refersto the changing relations among sovereign nations resulting in some form ofnew central authority. Haas, E. There are several key elements to functionalist theory. "A political theory for a new society." Groom, A.& Taylor, P. Depending on the function ineach field, efficient management by the new democratic social institutionscould be best performed at the local level in some cases; others byregional organizations; and still others highly centralized organizations.The need would determine the appropriate decisionmaking structure. London: London University Press. Much of thescholarship of international relations arose between the world wars, asacademics sought ways to prevent these tragedies. References Deutsch, K. In brief, this dictum means that socialinstitutions and social arrangements should be adjusted according to thecurrent functional needs of society. International relations is an activity in which persons from morethan one nation interact individually and in groups. A working peace system. Mitrany became more concerned about the international orderand how to prevent war between nations. Whennation-states develop a political infrastructure suitable for sustainingadvanced industrialism--such as the European countries--it not only becomesfunctionally profitable to fuse economic interests, but also politicallypossible for to produce political unity by incremental economicachievements. Inaddition to spurring the growth of integration theory, Mitrany'sfunctionalist approach to international relations also helped produce neo-functionalist theory, interdependence theory, and linkage politics.Functionalism is an intellectual ancestor to all of these schools ofthought (Groom and Taylor, 199 , p. But these setbacks should not be seen as definitive contradictions tointegration theory. (1957). (1967). Infunctionalism, Mitrany argued that he provided an alternative to the grandtheories of society which was geared toward flexibility and social change. More specifically, the term spill-over describesthe assumption of new powers and tasks to a central institutionalstructure, based on changing demands and expectations on the part of suchpolitical actors as interest groups, political parties and bureaucracies.It describes the process in which one functional need based on economicinterests, often unrelated to other political concerns, expands otherfunctional needs among other economic and political actors, and leads topolitical demands for greater centralized authority to manage the momentumtoward international integration. tribes, organizations, nations)change in such a way to erode their autonomy and transform the units intoan aggregate whole. War would become unimaginablebecause each social institution crosses the barriers that makes warpossible. Conclusion Functionalism, neo-functionalism, and the related theory ofinternational integration, are frequently offered by their advocates as aninevitable process toward building an international community beyond theborders of nation-states. Theanalysis of integration in these older times thus focused onconstitutionalism. Social democraticregimes, such as in England at the time, had grown into large bureaucraciestied to constitutional norms and blindly pursuing the mission of managingpeople's lives. Karl Deutsch and Richard Van Wagenen offered one of thefirst pioneering studies in this field when they examined 1 cases ofregional integration Deutsch and Wagenen, 1957). Princeton: Princeton University Press. (1964). 37-39). Thus, in orderto distinguish integration theory from the violent establishment ofempires, international integration must be achieved by deliberate andvoluntary decisions of the actors involved or even as unintendedconsequences of such voluntary decisions, but not by force. Central American regional integration. These models prescribed anideal society and the exact role of social institutions in maintaining thatideal. His theory reflects some allegiance to Fabian thinking, suchas the desirability of "engineering" social change by deliberate, rationalactions. The study of international integration has bearing on the role ofinternational organizations in nurturing a world order and containing war.The work by Deutsch and Wagenen on pluralistic security alliances, forexample, calls into question the traditional assumption that world ordercan only come into existence through world government. Frameworks for internationalcooperation. Groom, A. Political actors in general, andgovernment in specific, could envision an interdependent society if theywould be willing to give up dogma and nationalism. Historically, international integration has beenachieved through force in which one nation conquers another. Three such schools that are stillimportant today are functionalism, neo-functionalism and integrationtheory. 139-14 ). New York:Carnegie Foundation. & Taylor, P. The theoretical arguments underlying such aconclusion are indeed strong. Stanford: Stanford University Press. In order to establish a form of government capable of comprehendingfunction, it would be necessary according to functionalist theory toincrease government accountability to the public. Haas, E. International Integration In its most general form, the term "integration" refers to a processin which autonomous social units (e.g. But over time, the boundaries are likely to becomeoutdated and counter-productive to the needs of society. 125). When these needs change, so too shouldthe social institutions. Political community and the NorthAtlantic area. The early functional school also tended to focus on political actorsas the forces of change that could comprehend function and adjust socialinstitutions to address this function. These cases ranged fromthe formation of England in the Middle Ages to the collapse of the alliancebetween Ireland and the United Kingdom in 1921. & Wagenen, R. "Spill over" is defined as the process whereby "agiven action, related to a specific goal, creates a situation in which theoriginal goal can be assured only by taking further actions, which in turncreate a further condition and a need for more action, and so forth"(Lindberg, 1963, p.1 ). Functionalism An alternative theory to this grandiose scheme of integration andworld government is provided by functionalism, whose leading advocate wasDavid Mitrany. Mitrany, D. Ernst Haas has carried the theory of integration a step furtherthrough comprehensive research of one international organization at a time.His research of the operations of the European Steel and Coal Community(Haas, 1958) and the International Labor Organization (Haas, 1964) hashelped develop the concept of how the integration of one governmentfunction "spills over" into another area. Several schools ofthought emerged on how to prevent war. the neo-functionalists envision alliances of economic institutions as the force tomove nations toward international integration into a federal system ofgovernance. the present functions of society that need to be addressed),and set aside the possibly irrelevant assumptions of ideology and grandtheories. In addition, their list of conditions for a successfulamalgamated security alliance--mutual predictability of behavior, mutualresponsiveness, and mobility of persons among the political elite--haveencouraged a shift in emphasis from analyzing constitutional norms toempirical research on the necessary conditions for the existence ofinternational government. Oncethe economic groups are caught up in the integration process, they willpush integration forward and sweep the political groups into the momentum. Schmitter, P. But Mitrany soon found himself at odds with other criticalcomponents of Fabian philosophy. Even more troublesome is theinability of Western Europe thus far to implement an efficient and strongEuropean Community. (1956). vii). Specifically, the relationship betweenfunctionalism and integration theory and neo-functionalism and integrationtheory will be explored, and the conditions likely to aid or hinder anintegrated global community will be discussed. Case studies have provided most of the raw material underlyingintegration theory. "Regional integration" refers to the process of internationalintegration on a geographically confined scale below that of globalintegration. The emphasis was on ananalysis and description of the constitutions of nations in an alliancerather than non-legalistic forms of international cooperation. Neo-functionalists tend to view politics in the international arenaas quite similar to politics in the domestic arena (Haas and Whiting, 1956,p. Integration of social functions andsocial institutions would be the result. (1975). Lindberg, L. Neo-Functionalism While functionalism serves as the core of integration theory, neo-functionalism serves to refine many of the elements of integration theory(Schmitter, 1964, pp. After all, the European Community has served as aprimary model in support of the theory of international integration. Thus, Mitrany;s theory of functionalism came to serve as the rootof the idea of "global politics" and the basis of integration theory. England had more governmental management, and governmentbecame pervasive in the lives of the public, but this bureaucraticmanagement escaped accountability to new and evolving needs of the public. Society was changing so quickly in Mitrany's viewpoint thatthe institutionalization of an "ideal" model of governance could itselfmake the solution of immediate, pressing problems more difficult. Usually known as "federations" or "alliances,"nation-states would integrate in order to fend off threats of conquest. As regional integrated institutions assume moreand more authority to manage these new tasks, the expectations andloyalties of the many different economic and political groups grow morecomfortable with a regional centralized governmental authority, accordingto the neo-functionalists. Economic integration would eventually bring about new and expandedfunctions for the alliance. This research analyzes these schools of thought and attempts todraw commonalities between them. Government [in a functional system] is nolonger a guarantor of a set social order, but the servant and instrument ofchange" (Mitrany, 1975, p. Fabianism, for example, tended to be verynationalistic, focusing on equalizing wealth and economic opportunitywithin England. Regional integration has been a common social phenomena sincethe end of World War II throughout Europe, the Middle East, Latin Americaand the Pacific Rim. The greateremphasis of neo-functionalist theorists is on "federation" rather than"community" (Groom and Taylor, 199 , pp. 3-6). Mexican and Latin American economicintegration. Clearly over time, however, functionalism would lead to regional andinternational integration--perhaps, eventually, on the global scale. The disintegration of regional alliances in theMiddle East and Eastern Europe, for example, cast doubts on theinevitability of international integration. This concept is largely derivedfrom functionalist theory, discussed below. (Eds.), Functionalism: Theory and practice in internationalrelations. Nationalism, bydefinition, isolates societies according to geographic, cultural, economicand political boundaries. Neo-functionalist theory is clearly functionalin conception. Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press. This driving force toward international integration is known as the"spill-over" effect. However, recent historical experiences highlight the fragility of the"spill-over" process. One suchelement is its pragmatism. As such, the models were fixed and rigid, and incapable of changingwith the times. Functionalism assumes that social phenomena can be understood asa type of "relations between actual things," which may well be differentfrom the imagined or hypothetical relations constructed by ideologicalparadigms--hence, the famous functionalist dictum: "form follows function"(Mitrany, 1943, pp. Asdomestic governments evolve into efficient management structures, so toowill an international government. & Whiting, A. Sometimes, perhaps, these boundaries could havebeen justified, such as to protect security interests during the foundingof the boundaries. One key form of ideology that creates artificial social institutionsunresponsive to genuine social needs is nationalism. (1943). Beyond the nation state. London: Royal Instituteof International Affairs. 46). These popular assemblieswould be more knowledgeable about what needs to be done, better understandfunction, and create alliances and international integrations whennecessary to deal with these social needs. Historically, integration came about by theneed for national security. 72-73). However, it is functionalism with a twist. Dynamics of international relations.New York: McGraw-Hill. Berkeley: University of California Press. As it becomes evident that economic union is functionallyworthwhile, the political players will eventually be eased into forming apolitical union as well in order to manage society more efficiently. He sought to bring nations togetherin a fruitful partnership, and thus eliminate war altogether. Regional integration is as old as recorded history, although theprocess is more frequent today. Instead, as in accordance to the premises of theoriginal functionalist school, international development should be seenmore pragmatically as a slow and fragile process, not to be as quicklyrealized as some may have hoped. One of the key studies supporting this argument scrutinized thegrowth and operation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). Mitrany believed that models of social changewere too grandiose and imposing to be useful. Popular assembliesshould be established to address the various pressing issues of the day:health, energy or transport needs, for example. While Mitrany hypothesized that political actors and governmentscould integrate into loose international alliances based on differentfunctional needs, the neo-functionalists focus on the role of economicinstitutions in forming an international federation with at least somecentralized administration (Nye, 1967, pp. Mitrany, D. Economic specialinterest groups "almost universally seem to be in the forefront of thosewho clamor for the recognition of common needs" (Haas, 1964, p. (199 ). If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.

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