Rethinking law in neofunctionalist theory

Abstract:

Haas's original neofunctionalist theory did not give express consideration to the role of law in the integration process. However, neofunctionalism had an intuitive resonance for legal scholars who generally assumed that law played an important part in advancing European integration. Political science scholarship which has addressed the role of law, on the other hand, has usually either (e.g. in neorealist accounts) taken law to be a functional tool serving the political process, or (e.g. in neofunctionalist analyses) examined only a limited dimension of law, focusing primarily on courts and on legal rather than political integration. However, a promising research agenda on the dynamics of European integration - examples of which, building on Haas's work, have recently begun to appear - could develop if legal scholars paid more attention to the empirical methodologies and explanatory theories of political science, and if political scientists adopted a less reductionist and more nuanced account of law.