As Europe Gets Larger, Will It Disappear?

Abstract

Political theorists from Plato and Aristotle to Machiavelli and Montesquieu have frequently commented on the connection between the size of a political community and its coherence. The dominant strand of thought in Western political theory suggests the importance of restricting the size of a political unit. Small political units more readily maintain solidarity and find common interests among members than larger ones. Large political units, by contrast, have trouble sustaining the affections of the citizenry and quickly become administratively unwieldy. It is important to note, however, that not all classical theorists share the same pessimism about large communities. The founders of the US republic believed, for a number of reasons, that only a territorially large and diverse United States would be viable. Madison's argument in Federalist 10, that only a large United States would succeed in balancing sectional interests off against each other, is the best known but certainly not the only version of the “size increases coherence” strain of US liberal and republican thought. The enlargement of the European Union provides us with yet another opportunity to think through this age-old question. Although increasing the membership of the community may bring the dream of a united Europe one step closer, there are dangers. The issue in this case is fairly straightforward. Will the growing heterogeneity of the European Union's constituent units render it so diverse that it will no longer make sense to speak of a Union at all? Even if we think about the matter in less apocalyptic terms, we may still ask if there is a tradeoff between the “widening” of the European Union and the “deepening” of the integrative project. Or, put in the terms of current debates, does enlargement threaten Europeanization? After the French and Dutch rejection of the Constitutional Treaty in spring of 2005, …