The Nation-State in the European Communities: Superficial Realities and Underlying Uncertainties

Abstract

One of the differences between students of history and students of international relations is that the former tend to think that the present should be explained in terms of the past, whilst the latter often reinterpret the past in the context of what they perceive to be the present. In studying the European Communities these tendencies may be illustrated by the way in which some scholars assert that earlier attempts to develop an overarching integration theory were inevitably mistaken while others contend that the state is an immutable underlying reality which functionalists or neo-functionalists and the like were foolish to discount. To explore these points is to take up a more profound set of problems about the claims of social theory. Suffice it to say here that it is also arguable that in the history of the European Communities there are 'realities' which are not immutable but confined to particular periods and that the supposed errors of the past cannot be exposed in terms of what, after all, may equally come to be judged as the myths of the present. In this article I evaluate the extent to which nation-states in the European Communities are now constrained by their membership, and how far international integration in Europe has challenged national sovereignty.