Leadership in the big bangs of European integration

Abstract:

European Union constitutional treaty negotiations are very complex, unpredictable and messy affairs with high bargaining (transaction) costs. Leadership is often necessary in order for the parties to find and agree upon a mutually acceptable outcome. Various types of leadership are demanded in different types of circumstances, and who provides leadership affects the shape of the final outcome.

The use of a common framework throughout this volume allows the authors to provide some tentative answers to the following empirical questions:

- which actors have driven the European integration process in the last two decades?;

- and, more importantly, what factors allowed specific actors to provide leadership in a given context?

These conclusions provide a major step forward in the literature on the history-making bargains in the EU, enabling us to answer with more confidence the question of which actors have guided the 'big bangs' in the European integration process in the past two decades, and why.

Derek Beach is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus, Denmark.

Colette Mazzucelli is Asistant Professor in the Department of History and Political Science at Molloy College, Long Island, New York.