POL S370 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: David Mitrany, European Political Community, Supranational Union

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POL S370
• Professor: Lori Thorlakson

Document Summary

Supranational: the level of decision-making above the state. Institutions include: the commission, the european court of justice, the european parliament, pooling of sovereignty: sharing of decision-making power in an international system with rules departing from unanimous voting. Interdependence and peace could be achieved through assigning technical and functional tasks to supranational agencies interdependence leads to peace. Idea behind creating functional bodies combats nationalism because it shifts power away from the state and towards more technical, depoliticised agencies. Jean monnet: technocratic leadership (architect of the european coal and. Interdependence - pluralist, interest-based politics -> creation of supranational institutions (functional spillover, political spillover, upgrading of common interest. [or cultivated spillover]: mainly concerned with the process of integration and had little to say about end goals. Interdependence -> creation of supranational institutions: one of the hardest steps to achieve, but a crucially important step, but once this is created, it leads to spillovers (3 basic types mentioned above, functional spillover.