VL IB: European Policy Making

Explaining European Integration

What is cultivated spillover?

  • Originally applied to the role of the High Authority / Commission and its 'cultivation' of ties with national elites -> plausible to broaden the notion to the role of supranational institutions more generally:
1. Institutions tend to take on a life of their own; difficult to control by those who created them
2. Institutions become agents of integration, since they are likely to benefit from the progression of this process
3. Institutional structures: effect on how actors understand and form their interests and identities

Diskussion