number 1 - Centre d'études et de recherches européennes Robert ...

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Book reviews – Comptes rendus – Buchbesprechungen
Yet whilst historical analysis reveals much about the true origins of integration, the detailed
empirical style employed ruins the book for me. History is not simply about providing information,
yet this is what the empirical chapters do, with the result that they are far too dense and
impenetrable. No indication is given at the beginning of each of these chapters as to how their
individual arguments are put together, or indeed as to what they are. Even given the laying-out
of the overall argument in Chapter One, it remains difficult to piece together the threads of that
argument in the empirical material that follows. In many instances, detail is provided apparently
for its own sake, a mistake not uncommon in student theses, but one which has no place
in a published work. Who really cares, for instance, that Pleven was a keen angler? This is
especially disappointing given Milward's expressed wish to put an end to the falsehoods perpetrated
about integration in the public domain: even specialists will struggle to read this book,
and it is a pity that the author's Herculean efforts in carrying out his research are spoiled by his
failure to make his empirical case in a comprehensible and, above all, interesting way. Chapters
two, four, five and seven confuse and bore as much as they clarify. All this stands in stark
contrast to the clarity of the persuasively presented argument in the more "theoretical"
sections. It is ironic that although he claims historical research conquers theoretical myths (p.
18), within the European Rescue theory triumphs over history.
The weaknesses of the book, however, are not merely stylistic, these being symptomatic
of more deep-seated problems. Whilst it is undeniable that the detailed negotiations, leading
to the first institutional expression of integration, were economic and social in character, it
must surely also be the case that diplomatic and political considerations of a wider nature
also played their part. Milward, somewhat disingenuously, concentrates on small countries
such as the Netherlands and Belgium in much of his analysis, countries which had no hope
of defending themselves, and for whom military security was an issue that had to be left to
others (hence the Dutch, for instance, could concentrate on notions of economic security).
Yet, West European statesmen were more at liberty to discuss the finer details of economic
and social issues precisely because the central issue of the time -guaranteeing security
against possible Soviet aggression – had been taken care of by the Americans. This explains
the ability of states such as France (which were, after all, obsessed by military security), to
participate in integration. The importance of the broader foreign policy and security debate,
relative to questions of pure economics, is hinted at in the Chapter on Britain, when Milward
states, that sections of the British government complained that broad foreign priorities
were taking precedence over considerations of future economic welfare in defining policy
towards Germany (p. 403). Yet, this is a minor concession: one finds within his index not a
single mention of neither the Cold War nor the Soviet Union. This weakness (one which is
all the more surprising given the author's relative sensitivity to the importance of political
and military questions in The Reconstruction of Western Europe) exposes the limitations of
Milward's incipient economic determinism.
Turning finally to the central argument of the book, that integration was an integral part of
the "rescue" of the West European nation-state, there is much to commend this claim. Yet, two
major reservations can be advanced. First, the argument is not as original as Milward seems to
think. Stanley Hoffmann, writing in 1982 (indeed, in an article that Milward refers to in another
context), had already made this very assertion, and thereby helped to redirect the attention
of serious scholars of integration away from the "integration versus sovereignty" debate.
Second, it seems paradoxical, at the very least, to assert, on the one hand, that the nationstate
was successfully "rescued" whilst, on the other hand, admitting that "irreversible"
commitments based on "enforceable" law were entered into by those same states (p. 439).
The book does provide evidence that the internal autonomy of the nation-state was enhanced
by the integration process, allowing national governments to impose decisions on
powerful national interests which otherwise would have proved costly to make. In external
terms, however, nothing of the sort occurred. The nation-state lost the capacity to act alone