THE UNITING OF EUROPE AND THE UNITING OF LATIN AMERICA

THE UNITING OF EUROPE AND THE UNITING OF LATIN AMERICA

BY ERNST B. HAAS

I

No scholar can resist the opportunity of seeing his work applied to situations he had not considered at the time of completing his research. I am no exception. My pleasure, however, should not disguise the fact that there can be no simple transposition of the lessons of post-194s West European efforts at unity to the distant soil of Latin America. It is not enough to say that both aim at increasing the welfare of their peoples by means of increased and freer zonal trade. It is not enough to say that modern international experience has given both continents a certain desire to achieve strength through unity. And it is not enough to say that the commitment to economic integration releases certain political processes which must be understood, for the nature of these processes depends on the economies, societies and polities engaged in the search for unity.

Moreover, the history of the European unity movement suggests that the relationship between politics and economics remains somewhat elusive. In 1958, the date on which my study was completed, it appeared as if the commitment to supranational economic integration would inevitably lead, perhaps by alniost imperceptibly small steps, to de fucto political unity, if not to federation. Certainly, the experience of the European Coal and Steel Community, the initiation of the common market negotiations, and the advent of the European Economic Community supported such a belief. However, the tension between the visions of Jean Monnet and Charles de Gaulle goes far beyond personal ideology and differences on desirable policy : the tension suggests that integration and disintegration as two rival social processes are simultaneously at work. In 1967 we know that the social scientist has not yet completely understood them.

My intent is therefore threefold. I wish to revise the theory of integration advanced in The Uniting qf Europe in the light of the lessons the General has taught us. I also wish to demonstrate that economic integration does not lead, always and automatically, to political unity and to apply this lesson to the Latin American Free

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Trade Association. Finally, I hope to show where the fundamental differences between West European and Latin American economic and political situations limit the applicability of the European model to LAFTA, where the Europe of 1953 is not comparable to the Latin America of 1967.

Still, I conclude that, despite the warnings and reservations here announced, there remain common lessons. Even if we cannot transpose processes and blockages discovered in Europe to Latin America unscathed and unamended, we can specify the conditions in Latin America that may provide alternative media toward the end of greater unity. This leads us to the description of the ‘functional equivalents’ present in the socio-economic structures of developing nations. We are on the search for features in Latin America which can perform for regional integration the functions carried out in Europe by effective national bureaucracies, pragmatic interest groups, parliamentary government and a supranational technocracy. And we shall see whether the doctrine of regional economic unity pioneered by ECLA is the equivalent of the ‘European idea’.

What has happened to the political unification of Europe which was to be attained by way of economics? Has de Gaulle killed the Common Market, and with it the notion of a united Europe? If so, de Gaulle will have done more than reverse a continental trend which has been gathering momentum since 1948 ; he will have demonstrated that single personalities can successfully battle the spirit of an era. If de Gaulle has killed the Common Market it proves either that the trend was far less ‘inevitable’ than we thought-i.e. it rested on a much weaker socio-economic and political foundation-or that we neglected to build a theory of integration supple enough to take account of such disintegrative phenomena. I shall argue the case for an improved theory.

Let us start with a discussion of the phenomenon of nationalism. The proud and self-conscious nations of modern times cherish their sovereignty, we are told. They do not voluntarily relinquish it. Hence the notion of a ‘supranational community’ devoted to ends and hopes larger than the nations encompassed by it would seem to be a contra- diction in terms. To the self-conscious nation the preservation of its independence is the minimal and most cherished aim. Politics is the means to keep independence; politics must take precedence over everything, certainly over the economics of a common market, How true is this sketch to the reality of modern Europe?

Following Stanley Hoffmann, we may think of nationalism as the ex licit doctrine or ‘ideology’ of certain elites, suggesting positive va P ues with respect to one’s own nation and less positive ones for

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outsiders, and certainly implying specific policies for the state to follow. Hoffmann contrasts this notion of nationalism with ‘national consciousness’, the feelings of the inhabitants of the state that they ‘belong’ to the community of people living under one government, or wishing to do so. National consciousness covers the feelings of identity and loyalty experienced by the member of a nation. Finally, Hoffmann suggests the existence of a ‘national situation’, a condition in time and space describing the power, freedom of maneuvre and rank of one’s own nation vis-A-vis others. The national ideology produces foreign policy on the basis of the frmness of national consciousness and limited by the nature of the national situati0n.l

Supranational integration becomes explicable, therefore, whenever a certain relationship between these three aspects of nationalism happens to exist. Thus, in 1950 Europeans saw their national situations in very gloomy terms. Moreover, each nation experienced this pessimism. Germans strongly felt the stigma of guilt inherited from the Nazi period and searched for a way to reattain international respectability. Italians shared this sentiment. Both equated an earlier national ideology with their plight, and therefore did not value their own national identities very highly. Frenchmen saw themselves as a defeated power, barely able to control inflation and begin economic reconstruction, living in the protective shadow of the ‘Anglo-Saxons’. The Benelux countries experienced their dependence and weakness more than ever, having seen their neutrality ignored and their foreign trade manipulated by forces beyond their control. Britain and the Scandinavian countries, by contrast, saw their national situations in much more optimistic terms.

National consciousness reflected this reasonably objective picture of the situation. The trauma of the war and of the reconstruction period seemed to make a mockery of the proud national feelings of the pre- war period in the Europe of the Six. National consciousness was prac- tically lacking in Germany and Italy; it was far from people’s minds in France, Belgium and the Netherlands when the tasks of the moment seemed to be hard work, investment, the search for new export markets, nationalization of industry, expanded social security coverage, and a perceived ‘threat of communism which struck all of Europe in approximately equal terms.

The national ideologies of the ruling elites in 1950 were therefore far from ebullient, self-confident, assertive or hostile. On the contrary, national consciousness and the objective national situation combined to make desirable a search for policy alternatives which would guarantee

1 Stanley Hoffmann, ‘Obstinate or Obsolete? The Fate of the Nation-State and the Case of Western Europe’, Daedalirs (Summer 1966), pp. 867-9.

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security and welfare, peace and plenty without repeating the nationalist mistakes of an earlier generation of statesmen. The result was the drive for a United Europe, maximally by way of federal institutions, minimally through a tight network of intergovernmental organizations, and most consistently-after 1952-b~ way of supranational ‘communities’ devoted to specific functional tasks with great indirect political importance.

What does the Europe of the Six look like in 1967? The national situation of each country is vastly different. As the recent history of NATO shows, only Germany is still concerned with a communist threat. Living standards have soared ; industrialization has been pushed to the point where it rivals that of the United States; consumption patterns are those typical of the most highly developed countries; various kinds of economic planning are routine; from a recipient of aid, Europe has become an international donor. France is a small nuclear power; Italy has a labour shortage; Holland is wealthy and self-confident enough to have a peace corps, as do the Scandinavian countries. West Germany is once more one of the leading industrial nations, with a far-flung network of international trade. And so is France.

Does this picture of new vigour imply a rebirth of the older national consciousness? Apparently it does not. Self-satisfaction and a desire to enjoy the fruits of industrialism seem to have taken the place of the older passions. In the Benelux countries there seems to be general agreement that the safeguarding of these boons requires a continental vision and policy, not exclusive loyalty to the nation, especially when the supranational scheme does not call for a conflict of loyalties between the nation and the European Community. Italians still do not seem to be able to rally to the old slogans. While we hear sometimes of a revival of German nationalism, there is little evidence that a set of popular values resembling the earlier experience is developing. Only in France is there a revival of ‘great power thinking’ which reflects the new national situation; but by no means all groups and parties share this feeling, and few of the elite groups of France are willing to follow their leader into scuttling the Common Market for the sake of a pure national French identity.

National ideology reflects these conditions. For Italy and the Bene- lux countries the change in the national situation has implied no major change in national consciousness and ideology: their aim is the continuation of the integrative process, albeit by unspectacular and hardly federal means. For West Germany it has implied a certain rebirth of self-confidence which makes itself felt in an effort to secure German aims by alternatively negotiating with and courting France, Britain

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and the United States. From a guilt-struck satellite Germany has become a cautiously independent actor on the international stage, still accepting European unity as an economic and military aim to resolve her conflicts in policy, even if the supranational method has become less important.

France is the deviant case. Here a marked change in the national situation has brought a partial change in national consciousness, which was translated by General de Gaulle into a very major change in national ideology and policy. As the elections of 1965 clearly showed, France is far from united behind the leadership of the nationalist hero. Many elite groups in the economy and in public life, while welcoming some measure of increased national self-confidence, remain committed to integration and the downgrading of the General’s nineteenth-century concept of sovereignty. They do not agree with de Gaulle’s anti- supranational doctrine, as expressed by him on September 9, 1965:

The three treaties setting up the ECSC, Euratom and the Common Market were concluded before the French recovery of 1958. This is why they take account above all of the requests made by the others. . . . Furthermore, the three treaties set up an outline executive-a Commission independent of the States, even though they appointed . . . and paid . . . its members-together with an outline legislature, a European assembly with niembers drawn from the parliaments, but none of them having been given anything but a national mandate by their electors.

This embryonic technocracy, in large part foreign, which was to trample over French democracy and settle problems crucial to our existence, obviously did not suit us when we decided to take our fate firmly in our own hands.

This Community . . . (must be) fair and reasonable. . . . ‘Fair’ means that farm products must be incorporated . . . on terms specific to them. . . . ‘Fair’ means that nothing which is important today in the organization, or tomorrow in the operation of the Common Market, will be decided, let alone done, by anybody but the authori- ties responsible in the s i x states, i.e., the governments controlled by the parliaments2 Nevertheless, it is the change in national situation and consciousness in France which enable de Gaulle, a true nineteenth-century nationalist, to follow the pro-sovereignty policy now whereas he failed in the same attempt in 1950.

If the comparative ingredients of nationalism have changed since 1950, the cross-national comparative social, economic and political features of Western Europe have not. Today, as immediately after World War 11, the thrust toward regional integration was made possible by a pervasive homogeneity among the countries of Western Europe in many of the ranges of social and economic life. I suggest that this homogeneity is of far greater importance in explaining the launching of the integration movement, and its considerable later success, than is any argument stressing linguistic, cultural or religious unity or diversity. Latin Americans should not exaggerate the potential

2Le Mode . September 11, 1965.


for integration on their continent merely because of the existence of linguistic and religious uniformities. Unity in Western Europe is greater among countries with linguistic and religious diversity (the Six) than among those enjoying uniformities (Scandinavia).

Let us summarize the structural homogeneities in Western Europe. All the West European countries were and are characterized by pluralistic social structure; all classes of the population may participate in many aspects of daily public decision-making, as suggested by the plethora of commissions and committees functioning at all levels of society and economy. Upward social mobility has steadily increased. The isolation of rural life has steadily declined. More and more people in all walks of life are somehow affiliated with voluntary groups which represent their interests in public policy-making. In politics, roughly similar political parties seek to represent these interests in parliament; with few exceptions, every national party can easily point to its counterpart in the other countries, ally with it, meet with it, and seek to make common policy. The same is true of the major economic and social interest groups.

This suggests a second major homogeneity, the similarity in feelings and expectations experienced by the major elite groups. A similarity in situation and the opportunity for getting together has triggered a commonality of outlook among socialists, as among Christian democrats, among farmers, among miners, among insurance underwriters as among bottle manufacturers. Complementarity in expectations is furthered by a very high rate of trade, mail, visits, tourism which already existed in 1950 but which increased three- or four-fold since then. The picture may be more accurately summed up under the phrase ‘symmetrical heterogeneity’ : each country is fragmented along the lines of pluralism; but each group or class has its counterpart in the neighbouring country. In other words, no country is internally homogeneous, but the lines of cleavage and interest are regionally homogeneous. Latin America can hardly claim the same.

A final homogeneity must be stressed: the bureaucratization of decision-making. European civil services are very similar to each other. Each stresses high professional competence and a certain peremptory style in the authority of administrative decisions. Each is accustomed to working with voluntary groups, to listen, to persuade, to combine the inducements of the carrot and the stick in obtaining public consent for public policy. No wonder, then, it proved relatively simple to arrive at regional administrative decisions through continuous bargaining and study among national civil servants, aided by supranational officials no different in training and outlook from their national colleagues.

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These structural features, put into the context of the nationalism of the years following World War 11, go a long way in explaining why supranational economic integration went as far as it did go. The explanation can be summed up in the phrase ‘the expansive logic of functionalism’; it provided the bulk of my book The Unititzg cfEttrope; it seemed to provide a complete explanation in 1958. Subject to the amendments to be introduced below it remains valid and useful to others who would use common markets and economic interdependence as a means to promote political unity.

The national situation in each West European country later involved in the European Community was such as to make people look for solutions to their problems in a framework larger than the discredited nation-state. The nation-state seemed unable to guarantee economic welfare, military security, or the enjoyment of democracy and human rights. Each nation possessed many groups which questioned the utility of national autarky, even if each group did so for its own reasons. However, the disenchantment was shared across the frontiers so that the lack of faith in the nation was expressed in the formation of a series of regional voluntary associations-of diverse ideological persuasions- each eager to safeguard the new lease gained on the democratic way of life as a result of the defeat of Fascism. Some wanted merely freer trade and investment; others wanted a full-fledged federation; all shared a sense of frustration. But far from wanting to create a new society, to innovate, to make a new kind of man, each merely sought to safeguard an existing way of life given a new birth through victory in world War 11. Contrary to the Latin American scene, then, regional unification was, in a sense, a conservative impulse: it sought to innovate in order to preserve something already existing.

Federalism was the initial watchword. European unity was hailed with glowing phrases by Winston Churchill, Lion Blum, Alcide de Gasperi, Salvador de Madariaga. A ‘European Movement’ was formed which sought to achieve federation by stressing the cultural unity of Western civilization and which drew heavily on the misery of Europe, overshadowed by the new giants of East and West. The pan-European ideal first enunciated by Count Coudenhove-Kalergi in 1923, extolling Europe to seek survival in a world increasingly dominated by the United States and the Soviet Union, was hailed once more. The result was failure: no federal institutions were created, no uniform enthusiasm for federation could be mobilized in equal measure on the continent, in Britain and in Scandinavia. The record of failure stretched from the creation of the far-from-federal Council of Europe, through

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the defeat of the European Defence Comniunity treaty to the burial of the European Political Community project in 1954.

Something else happened instead which gave rise to the theory of gradual functional integration. Not cultural unity, but economic advantage proved to be an acceptable shared goal among the Six. The failure of the federalist European Movement saw the rise of the ‘functionalist’ school of technocrats led by Jean Monnet, the architect of France’s post-war economic planning structure. Each of the Six, for individual national reasons, and not because of a clear common purpose, found it possible and desirable to embark on the road of economic integration using supranational institutions. Converging practical goals provided the leaven out of which the bread of European unity was baked. It was not the fear of the Soviet Union nor the envy of the United States which did the job. Slogans of the past glories of Charle- magne, of the popes, of western civilization were certainly heard; but they did not launch the Coal and Steel Community, the Atomic Energy Community, the European Parliament, the Court of Justice, or the Economic Community. Converging economic goals, embedded in the bureaucratic, pluralistic and industrial life of modern Europe provided the crucial impetus. The economic technician, the planner, the innovating industrialist and trade unionist advanced the movement, not the politician, the scholar, the poet or the writer.

Does the argument assert the victory of economics over politics, then? To do so would be to oversimplify unforgivably. Politicians were important in the process. Economic reasoning alone was not sufficient. When the Coal and Steel Community ran up against the limits of what integrative action it was permitted under its treaty, it could not simply expand its powers along the lines of economic needs. Unfulfilled economic promise could not simply and painlessly give rise to new supranational economic tasks, pushing the continent closer to political unity. Politics remained imbedded in the functional logic.

How? The decline of the old national consciousness in Europe brought with it the submerging of the traditional notion of ‘high politics’. The new national situation changed the possibilities of strong and independent diplomatic moves on the world stage. Those who tried them-Britain in Greece, France in Indo-China-soon recognized their error. The sharp line between the politics of economic welfare at home and the politics of national self-assertion abroad simply dis- appeared. Men thought in terms of realizing the welfare state, of trimming world commitments and an independent foreign policy to the economic and fiscal demands of domestic welfare. Economics and politics became intermingled, and only a Churchill or a de Gadle could keep the older vision of high politics alive. But, then, the

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Europe of the 1950’s listened to neither. However, the decision to follow the gospel of Jean Monnet rather than that of the Federalists- which was ‘political’ in a pure sense-rested on a political commitment to realize peace and welfare by way of European unification. The statesmen who wrote the treaties of the European Communities, and who guided them through their national parliaments, were committed to the gradual, the indirect, the functional path towards political unity. They knew, or sensed, that the imperfections of one treaty and one policy would give rise to re-evaluations which would lead to new commitments and new policies moving farther along the road to unification. No federal utopia necessarily provided the guiding beacon. But an institutionally vague ‘supranational’ Europe did light the way. The logic of functional integration could move forward, then, because key politicians-Schuman, Adenauer, Spaak, Beyen, de Gasperi, Van Zeeland, Fanfani-had simply decided to leave the game of high politics and devote themselves to the building of Europe, to achieve more modest aims. And thus the economic technician could play his role within the shelter of the politicians’ support.

In my book The Uiiiting ofEtlrope the story stops in 1958. What have been the events in European integration since? Did the functional logic continue to work its way toward greater unity?

With the inauguration of the European Economic Community (EEC) the focus of integrative and disintegrative activity shifted from Luxembourg to Brussels, from coal and steel to tariff cutting, rules of competition and agriculture, from well-defined economic sectors to talk of political unity. The Coal and Steel Community continues to exist, but it is but a shadow of the vital institution described earlier. It has become a technical agency, concerned with improving the quality of steel and the demand for steel products, with negotiating a common European policy for oil, gas, nuclear energy and coal, with adapting a dying coal-mining industry to the demands of a different market for energy. It is no longer concerned with the more politically infused activities of regulating prices, eliminating subsidies and stan- dardizing transport rates. The supreme effort at asserting its powers- in the effort to impose coal production quotas-was rebuffed by three of the six governments in 1959. The European Atomic Energy Com- munity, by contrast, never attained the role played by the Coal and Steel Community. Despite the wide planning and control powers written into its treaty, Euratom has remained a technical and research agency.

The functional logic, however, was long carried further by EEC, whose leading official, President Walter Hallstein, even referred to his Commission as the engine of European integration. Until 1965 EEC


seemed to bear out these brave words. Tariffs and quantitative restrictions in trade among the member states were progressively cut ahead of the schedule laid down in the Treaty, so that by mid 1968 they will be eliminated altogether. The common external tariff was negotiated. Commercial agreements were concluded, on behalf of the Community, with a half dozen foreign countries. The Commission negotiates on behalf of the six member states in GATT. Uniform rules of competition and industrial concentration were introduced in the six countries. A freer market for foreign labour was created. Agriculture, the step- child of the modern industrial state, was subjected to common rules, pricing and protection-even though the financing of agricultural subsidies was the issue on which de Gaulle chose to fight his battle in 1965. More important still, the EEC Bank advances credit to industries in underdeveloped regions within Europe, and its Social Fund finances the retraining of displaced workers. Finally, EEC takes the initiative in regional economic forecasting and in seeking to approach a regional monetary policy by way of continuous discussion among central bankers. Some taxes have been unified and a common transport policy is being studied.

These activities come close to voiding the power of the national state in all realms other than defence, education and foreign policy. In the realm of methods of decision-making and institutions the work of EEC is equally striking. Most major economic decisions are made by the Council of Ministers on the basis of proposals by the Commis- sion and, after negotiations conducted by the Commission, at the level of senior civil servants. While decisions required more and more pro- longed ‘marathon’ negotiations after 1961, agreement was always eventually attained, usually resulting in increased powers for the Com- mission to make possible the implementation of what was decided. This is true particularly in the case of agriculture. In the process, the Commission established and cultivated direct relations with supranational interest groups of farmers, industrialists, merchants and workers; it cemented its relations with national officials; it gave the politicians and political parties represented in the European Parliament the opportunity to study, debate and criticize policy in considerable detail and on a continuing basis. Finally, it took the kinds of crucial decisions which prompted extensive and far-reaching litigation in the European Court of Justice, resulting in the definition, by that Court, of a European doctrine of individual rights uis-A-uis the actions of national courts and administrative agencies, as implied by the Treaty of Rome and enforceable by the Community.

The irony of the functional logic is underscored by the fact that these

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developments had not all been planned or approved by the governments. It is underscored further by the fact that the growth in the power of the Commission occurred in several instances as a result of bargains with the French government. For instance, the defeat of the British effort to scuttle the Common Market with the free trade area scheme discussed in 1958 and 1959 was due to an ad hoc alliance between France and the Commission. The victory of the French-flavoured policy for agriculture, prior to 1965, was mixed with the growing institutional authority of Commission-controlled marketing committees and a policy with respect to a lower external tariff favoured by the Commission. No single government or coalition controlled the decision-making process. The Commission, because of its power of initiative, was able to construct a different coalition of supporting governments on each major issue. In short, the functional logic which may lead, more or less automatically, from a common market to political unification, seemed to be neatly illustrated by the history of EEC.a

How, then, could a single charismatic Frenchman stop the process? Word has it that not even the French negotiators in Brussels, in July of 1965, believed that the sessions then under way would lead to anything other than a last-minute comprehensive compromise agreement of real scope. But the General surprised his own staff, along with the rest of Europe. Has the pragmatic politics of regional negotiation for greater welfare benefits given way once more to high politics?

De Gaulle's sentiments toward supranational institutions-as dis- tinguished from the policies they produce-was made perfectly plain in his statement to the press which we quoted above. In the grand style of high politics it is more important to resist the encroachment of supranational technocrats on the nation than it is to negotiate higher prices and subsidies, even if paid by Germans to the French farmer. We can only surmise the thoughts and calculations which passed through the General's oracular mind. But the results of our surmises add up to a rebirth of nationalism and anti-functional high politics as far as France is concerned. The Commission and the other five governments, while not sharing the sentiments leading to these results, in

3The following works provide the most complete studies of the political significance and methods of the EEC: Leon N. Lindberg, The Political Dynamics OfEuropean Economic Integration (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1963); Stuart A. Scheingold, The Rule ofLaw in European Integration (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1%5); U. W. Kitzinger, The Politics andEconomics ofEuropean Integration (Nes York: Praeger, 1%3); R. Colin Beever, European Unity and the Trade Union Movement (Leyden: Sphoff, 1960); P.-H. J. M. Houben, Les Conseils de Ministrer des Cornmunuut4sEurophennes (Leyden: Sythoff, 1964) ; Gerda Zellentin, Der Wirtschofis- und Sozialaus- schuss der EIVG und Euratom (Leyden: Sphoff, 1962); Henri Manzanarts, Le Parlement Europhn (Nancy: Editions Berger-Levrault, 1964). Much light on the way the Commission saw its duty and role is shed by Walter Hallstein, United Europe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1 962).

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effect fell into a political trap set by de Gaulle and were thus forced to play politics once more.4

De Gadle had been perfectly willing to use the Common Market and the EEC apparatus in a larger game of welding Europe together under a French political umbrella, to make Europe ‘truly independent’ by dislodging the United States from the continent. The game proved a failure: his scheme for a political confederation which would absorb the economic communities was rejected by the other five; his bilateral alliance with Germany brought no results as the government of Ludwig Erliard embraced the American-sponsored Multilateral Nuclear Force and attempted to achieve German security with American rather than French help; his attacks on NATO merely underscored his diplomatic isolation from his five econonlic partners. Continuation of the economic integration process thus seemed to make France more dependent on Europe without making Europe fall into line with French foreign policy. A common foreign and defence policy for Europe was de Gaulle’s aim. The unwillingness of his partners to concede these items must have made de Gaulle wonder what the further advantages of economic unity might be if they entailed the loss of political sovereignty.

And French sovereignty was indeed threatened. According to the timetable of the Treaty of Rome, the Community was to pass into its third transitional stage on January I, 1966. As of that date, positive decisions in the Council of Ministers could be made by majority vote; negative decisions overruling the Commission required unanimity. The powers of the Commission would increase finally and irrevocably. Progress toward ever more politically sensitive economic decisions, possibly over French dissent, would become automatic. De Gaulle struck while he could, sacrificing the benefits accruing to the French farmer. He did so by taking advantage of a political gambit launched by the Commission in the spring of 1965. The EEC technocrats, perhaps fearing that once France had obtained concessions on agricultural policy she would no longer have any interest in further integrative decisions, sought to preempt the political initiative. The Commission urged that the pro-French agricultural measures be accompanied by new powers for the Commission in the financial field. The yield of the common external tariff, up to four billion dollars per year, was to go to the Commission, the distribution of agricultural subsidies was to be handled by Brussels, and the European Parliament was to receive legislative powers in dealing with agriculture. In other words, the

4 My interpretation relies heavily on the excellent studies by Nina Heathcoate, ‘The Crisis of European Supranationality’,JCMS V, 2, and Leon N. Lindberg, ‘Integration as a Source of Stress on the European Community System’, Intertiarional Organization (Spring 1966).


members of the Commission themselves may not have trusted to any indefinite automatic quality in the economic integration process.

And so the Commission fell into the General’s trap. It violated its official technocratic style by making an open political bid. We know the results. The protests and frustrations of the other five governments availed them little. When forced by France to choose between the continued economic benefits of the Common Market and dedication to the supranational method of decision-making, they preferred the former. De Gaulle, apparently relying on the economic instincts of his partners, gave them a brutal choice by saying: ‘France wants the Common Market as much as you; if you really want it, join me in preserving it, but restrain supranationality’. In January of 1966, the Council of Ministers voted to adhere indefinitely to a unanimous voting formula. High politics may not have taken the place of pragmatic economic calculation for all the players in the game; but if onc of them so defines the situation, the others seem compelled to follow suit.

I1

This sequence of events suggests that something is missing in the exploration of the integrative process presented in The Uniting oJEurope. The phenomenon of a de Gaulle is omitted; the superiority of step-by- step economic decisions over crucial political choices is assumed as permanent; the determinism implicit in the picture of the European social and economic structure is almost absolute. Given all these conditions, we said, the progression from a politically inspired common market to an economic union, and finally to a political union among states, is automatic. The inherent logic of the functional process, in a setting such as Western Europe, can push no other way.

De Gaulle has proved us wrong, But how wrong? Is the theory beyond rescue? I suggest that the theory can be amended with the lessons de Gaulle has taught us and still tell us something about the logic of functional integration among nations. The chief item in this lesson is the recognition that pragmatic interest politics, concerned with economic welfare, has its own built-in-limits. Put differently, pragmatic interest politics is its own worst enemy. The politician and the businessman who has abandoned an interest in high politics and devotes himself only to the maximization of his daily welfare is compelled, by virtue of that very concern, to make concessions to another actor who forces him to choose so as to sacrifice welfare. Pragmatic interests, simply because they are pragmatic and not reinforced with deep ideological or philosophical commitment, are ephemeral. Just

B

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because they are weakly held they can be readily scrapped. And a political process which is built and projected from pragmatic interests, therefore, is bound to be a frail process, susceptible to reversal. And so integration can once more develop into disintegration.

With this amendment to our treatment of the logic of functionalism we can once more examine the character of political and economic decisions. Integrative decisions based on high politics and basic commitment are undoubtedly more durable than decisions based on converging pragmatic expectations. A process of integration spurred by the vision, the energy and force of a Bismarck, a Cavour or a Disraeli is clearly more productive of permanence than an indirect process fed by the slow fuel of economic expectations. On that type of scale, a Bismarck and a de Gaulle will always be more effective than a Monnet, a Hallstein, or an Erhard.

But the fact of the matter is that Europe did not have a Bismarck in 1948 or 1950, that Latin America has no Bolivar in 1967. In the absence of the statesman who can weld disparate publics together with the force of his vision, his commitment, and his physical power, we have no alternative, if we wish to integrate a region, but to resort to gradualism, to indirection, to functionalism. Pragmatic interests may be weak, but they are real nonetheless. The reliance on high politics demands either a statesman of this calibre or a widely shared normative consensus. In most actual situations in which regional integration is desired, neither ingredient is present in sufficient quantity.

Now the functionalist who relies on gradualism and indirection in achieving his goal must choose a strategy which will unite many people and alienate few. He can only move in small steps and without a clear logical plan because, if he moved in bold steps and in masterful fashion, he would lose the support of many supporters. He must make decisions ‘incrementally’, step by step, often in a very untidy fashion. The more pluralistic the society in which he labours, the more groups require satisfaction, the more disjointed and incremental the decision-making process will be. Everyone will receive a little, few groups will be deprived, few groups will receive a sudden large gift.6 If nothing happens to interfere with the incremental process the society or region in which this occurs will be transformed eventually into a larger entity. Incrementalism is the decision-making style of successful functionalism, if left undisturbed; in Europe, however, it was disturbed by de Gaulle.

And, true to our frnding above, incremental processes, because they

For a fuaher explanation of the incremental decision-making style see Charles E. Lindblom

In international organizations the process is schematized by Haas, Beyond the Nation-State and D. Braybrook, The Strategy ofDecision (New York: The Free Press, 1%3).

(Stanford Univ. Press, 1964), Ch. 4.

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rest on pragmatic interests, are always subject to reversal. Just as pragmatic interest politics is its own worst enemy, so is the incremental decision-making style. While the Commission’s policy, in the summer of 1965, remained within the incremental approach to political union, it began to stray far enough away from it to offer de Gaulle, given to a more heroic and direct approach, his excuse for bringing incrementalism to a halt.

This discussion of various decision-making styles brings us back to the distinction between frankly political choices and the more covert economic choices with hidden political implications, which stand at the heart of the politics of common markets. Regional integration can go forward smoothly if, as in the case of the heroic statesman-leader, there is a shared political Commitment between him and the major elites in society in favour of union. This is precisely the condition that, in a pluralistic setting, cannot be expected to occur very often. Otherwise integration can go forward gradually and haltingly if both leaders and major elites share an incremental commitment to modest aims and pragmatic steps. The difficulty arises when the consensus between statesmen and major non-governmental elites is more elusive and temporary. An incremental commitment to economic aims among the leaders will not lead to smooth integration if the major elites are committed to dramatic political steps. More commonly, a political commitment to integration by the statesmen will rest on very shaky ground if the interests of the major elites are economic; they rest on an even weaker basis if the statesman’s commitment is to national grandeur and the elites’ to economic gradualism, as in the case of contemporary France. These relationships, then, amend our theses in the book. They can be represented in matrix form:

Dramatic- Political

Aims of Statesmen

Incremental - Economic

Aims of Non-Governmentd Elites

Integration erratic and reversible

but automatic

Integration either direct and smooth; or impossible

Integration erratic and reversible

Dramatic-Political Incremental-Economic

This revision of the dynamics of supranational decision-making has a number of more specific implications. I have shown elsewhere how the incremental style of approaching the major policy choices involved

330 J O U R N A L O F C O M M O N MARKET STUDIES

in common markets and political unions depends on a certain pattern of pluralistic politics at the national level, as well as on a certain type of social and economic structure intimately related to industrialism and rational large-scale organizations.6 Political parties and interest groups avoiding sharp ideological conflict are essential ; social units always able to unite and reunite in ever-changing coalitions are necessary at the national as well as the regional level. And the technical decisions always incorporated in the major choices must be made by technocrats ; indeed, the leading role of the technocrat is indispensable in a process as close to the heart of the industrial economy as is the formation of common markets.

Hence integration is most nearly automatic when these forces are given maximal play, as is the case when both statesmen and elites entertain converging incremental-economic objectives. Until the French veto of 1963, with respect to the entry of Britain into EEC, the supranational European decision-making style was as described by Lindberg :

The members of the Community do not confront each other only or chiefly as diplomatic gladiators; they encounter each other at almost every level of organized society through constant interaction in the joint policy-making contexts of officials, parliamentarians, interest group leaders, businessmen, farmers, and trade unionists. Conflicts of interest and purpose are inevitable. There is no paradox between the progress of economic integration in the Community and sharpening political disagreement; indeed, the success of economic integration can be a cause of political disagreement. The member states are engaged in the enterprise for widely different reasons, and their actions have been supported or instigated by elites seeking their own particular goals. Therefore, conflicts would seem endemic as the results ofjoint activity come to be felt and as the pro-integration consensus shifts.’

As more and more difficult choices become necessary, as the community moves from a mere customs union to an economic union and a political entity, the propensity for conflict increases. Hence it becomes impera- tive that the bargaining include the possibility of mutual concessions of roughly equal value, linked to a style of pragmatic moderation. Charisma and national self-assertion are clearly the worst enemies of this process. Benefits from concessions may have to involve calculated risks and gambles with respect to the future; a concession in the realm of agriculture may have to be reciprocated in the field of transport, or even in the form of a new institutional arrangement. The reintroduc- tion of a dramatic political objective, even if only by one important member state, exposes the frailty of this process.

See my ‘Technocracy, Pluralism and the New Europe’, in S. R. Graubard (ed.). A New

7 Leon N. Lindberg, ‘Decision-Making and Integration in the European Community’, h e r - Europe! (Boston: Houghton MiWh, 1964), pp. 62-88.

riational Organization, Vol. XIX, No. 1 (Winter 1965), p. 80.


The strong political leader possesses an additional advantage over the functionalist when he can continue to hold out the possibility of rewards to non-government elites and the people at large while reject- ing the supranational method of regional economic decision-making. This de Gaulle did in 1965 and 1966 when he gave his partners the choice between no common market and a common market without supranational powers. The very fact that the attachment of many elites to a United Europe is pragmatic and rests on incremental processes makes the supranational method dispensable. As long as the benefits of the common market are more important in people’s minds than the means used to achieve these benefits, institutions and pro- cedures can be sacrificed. The very success of thc incremental method becomes self-defeating as important elites recognize that welfare can be safeguarded without a strong Commission and overt political unity. And the fact of the matter is that very fcw important European interest groups had enibraccd supranationality as a principle in itself, even though they had easily accommodated themselves to it in order to safeguard specific group aims. My book describes the process of accommodation, but it failed to spell out the limits here discovered.

This brings us back to the national situation. The functional logic which leads from national frustration to economic unity, and eventually, to political unification, presupposes that national consciousness is weak and that the national situation is perceived as gloomy. To be sure, the situation may improve. If integration has gone very far by then, no harm is done to the union; but in Europe it had not gone far enough before the national situation improved once more, before self-confidence rose, thus making the political healing power of union once more questionable.

I11

These, then, are revisions and amendments to the thesis of The Uniting of Europe. Still, regional integration did go farther in Europe than anywhere else in the world. How close is the Latin American experience, its objective situation and its hopes, to the European model?

First and foremost, the evolution of nationalism in Latin America appears to be very different from that in Europe. In the one, the curve of intensity is rising steeply, whereas in the other it declined sharply in 1945 and only rose gradually to a new-but lower-plateau. Not that the national situation in Latin America is seen as being strong and positive. Dependence on the industrial world is the watchword. Inability to develop along preferred lines is attributed, in part, to this


dependence. The present and the immediate past provide opportunities for sharp and bitter criticism, even though a more distant past is sometimes seen as a golden age of vigour and prosperity. The national situation in almost every Latin American country includes elements of dissatisfaction with the present, resentment of the external world, and fear that the aspirations of Latin America will go unheeded and unaided.

Moreover, national consciousness in each country grows stronger every year. In some, as in Argentina, Chile and Brazil, national consciousness has a long history and shows little sign of diminishing. In others, perhaps in Peru, Colombia and Venezuela, where large-scale participation in politics is just beginning, the intensity of national consciousness is now being shared, for the first time, by the urban working class and portions of the peasantry. In Europe, the events of world War I1 caused a reversal of this process.

Intellectuals in Latin America play a role very different from their European counterparts. While in nineteenth-century Europe it was the intellectual who contributed greatly to the articulation of a nationalist consciousness, his twentieth-century successor is far less inclined in that direction. Further, with the changes in European class and group structure it becomes more and more difficult to identify the 'intellectual' ; instead, educated and articulate individuals tend to identify with the larger occupational and functional groups with which they are professionally associated, as illustrated sharply by the decline of politically active student groups in Europe.

In Latin America, however, the intellectual is now coming into his own as the shaper of ideas and the leader of men. In some countries these energies are channelled into arousing national consciousness ; in others the effort is poured into creating a regional consciousness. But the North American observer may, I hope, be pardoned for noting that the regional consciousness which is growing up is more articulate in the negative content of its ideas, in asserting a defensive posture against the outside, rather than in developing a positive set of objectives. This is no idle finding; the progress of the European idea owed very little to the fear of the United States and the Soviet Union. This was at best one of several idbes-forces in the European Movement, an idea which lost out rapidly to the more mundane objectives of economic advantage; further, European integration was not perceived as codict- ing with intensified economic ties across the Atlantic. Fear of the outsider is weak cement for a regional consciousness because it depends on the behaviour of the outsider.

National ideology, therefore, can be seen as following two streams. On the one hand we find the maturing of strong doctrinal identification


with the existing states, making them ‘nations’, in effect, for the first time in their history. Political parties of the Left, in particular, increasingly espouse the nationalist position. On the other hand there is the intellectual elite closely identified with the regional approach to the industrialization and modernization of Latin America, as symbolized by the work of ECLA and the pens of Ra61 Prebisch, Felipe Herrera, Romulo Almeida, Victor L. Urquidi, JosC Antonio Mayobre, among many others. These two streams are far from mutually exclusive; they merely differ in emphasis with respect to specific policies and invest their intellectual energies at different levels.

Whether, however, they are ultimately in unison is far from clear. It is not impossible that a change in national situation and consciousness in Argentina, Chile or Brazil may not entail an extensive emphasis on the national road to industrialization and modernity, sacrificing the Latin American Free Trade Area on the way. In a sense, it would require a continuous series of frustrations at the national level to keep the two national doctrines in harmony. So far, the renaissance of national consciousness and the advocacy of strong national ideologies by the intellectual elite has brought with it a thrust toward regional integration, because regional measures have been regarded as comple- menting national energies. The European example should make us cautious about assuming the indefinite continuation of this convergence.

Nationalism does not provide the only contrast between Europe and Latin America. There is little symmetrical heterogeneity in the western hemisphere, and no homogeneous structural relations between countries. It is unnecessary to cite lengthy statistics to suggest that the institutions of Argentine society have little in common with those of Ecuador, that the national income of Venezuela is very different from that of Bolivia, that the political life of Chde differs greatly from that of Brazil. Europe is divided by language and religion, but united by regionally similar social and economic conditions and institutions ; Latin America is united merely by language and religion. For automatic integration this is not enough, as the history of the continent since 1810 seems to emphasize.

The implications of this diversity are very great. We cannot assume, in Latin America, that the articulate trade unionists of Argentina can easily establish rapport with their opposite numbers in Brazil or Uruguay. We know that the industrialists of Chile see their role differently from those of Mexico or Brazil. The establishment of a trade association uniting these groups would thus not be enough to make us confident that they will arrive at a common policy of economic development and modernization. Economic historians in Latin America


recognize an important distinction between the aims and actions of established merchants and processers of primary products on the one hand, and the hopes of newer innovating industrialists on the other. However, we cannot say that the innovating industrialist in Colombia can easily make comnion cause with his colleague in Uruguay because their national situations differ greatly. Therefore, the absence of regional homogeneities in social and economic structure work against some of the very crucial trends which are involved in economic and political integration.

Two of the major preconditions for the working of the functional logic are thus not met in Latin America. There is a third difference to which we must point: the supremacy of politics over economics in the Latin American style of decision-making. The mere fact that in Europe so many decisions could be taken on the basis of incremental bargaining among diverse unj ts, often involving non-governmental elites, suggests the dedication to pragmatic pursuits. But society must possess groups and individuals motivated to act in this fashion before the appropriate processes develop. The intensity of demands, buttressed by passionate ideological conviction, must already have subsided. The slogans of socialism and of capitalism, of working class and of aristoc- racy, of the military and the civilian, of church and state, must already be a matter of relative indifference to people. Latin America has not reached ‘the end of ideology’.

Hence politics, of necessity, dominates people’s concerns. Solutions to problems remain total, and the solutions continue to be summed for public discussion in the form of slogans and pronouncements. To be sure, the technocrats of Latin America do excellent technical work at levels short of total solutions, as the work of ECLA and of many national planners suggests. However, in order to translate plans into active policy, the methods of politics-and its ideologies-remain in the forefront of life. Non-governmental elites with pragmatic objectives and technocrats with excellent plans catering to them do not exist in sufficient number in Latin America to generate an automatic integration process. Integration, for the moment, must proceed-if it proceeds at all-in that section of our matrix in which statesmen and elites share a commitment to dramatic and heroic action.

I hope the North American observer may be forgiven once more if he draws a comparison between Europe and Latin America which appears strong to him, writing from his secluded study in California, even though it may appear very differently to his readers: the work of ECLA is to be seen as political and ideological rather than functional and incremental. Dr. Gustavo Lagos puts the case very well when he suggests that regional integration gives us the weapon to achieve

U N I T I N G OF E U R O P E A N D U N I T I N G OF L A T I N A M E R I C A 335

victory over atimia.8 By working together on national modernization through the creation of a larger continental market for modern industry, Latin America can make up for lost time, can gain strength and dignity vis-d-vis Europe and the United States, can assert itself in world politics, and can give its population the benefits of an industrial living standard. It can also develop the military power, eventually, which is regarded as a membership card in the club of modern high statecraft. This reminds me of the arguments of the Pan-Europeans between the two world wars. They also saw unity as a means of over- coming an atiriiia they then diagnosed for a Europe squeezed between East and West. It reminds me also of the arguments used by the more passionate European federalists in the years before 1954. And despite the existence of many objective factors favouring their course these appeals led to little.

Does it follow that the same appeals niust fail in Latin America? My own argument which stresses the differences between Latin America and Europe would suggest that it does not. Failure in onc context does not imply failure in the other. However, it suggests caution just the same. The political-ideological appeal of the ECLA Doctrine is un- deniable, just as a functional-pragmatic appeal would surely fail in Latin America. But more than appeal is required to translate a dramatic political message into regional policy. The existence of a dramatic doctrine alone is not enough. Integration also demands an infrastructure of skills, patience and detailed plans in order to demonstrate the advantages of unity, to persuade the more reluctant politicians on which matters depend. The history of LAFTA suggests that the knot between doctrine and detailed policy has yet to be tied.

This history may now be briefly stated, as seen through the vision of our amendments to the theory of integration developed in The Uniting ofEurope. To put it succinctly: incrementalism has failed. The Treaty of Montevideo, the institutions it created and the obligations it established, fall well within the incremental style of economic decision- making, possibly leading to political unity. However, the pace and type of tariff reduction featured here has simply not resulted in a sharp increase in zonal trade. Hence it has failed to create the larger markets on which industrialization was thought to rest. The excellent formula of reciprocity and complementarity has not led to the kinds of regional agreements under which planned industrialization could go forward ; the less developed countries have sought refuge under that formula to shield themselves from new enterprises rather than use it for their advancement. Lack of supranational powers has kept the work of the

a See his ‘La integraci6n de AmCrica Latina y su influencia en el sistenia internacional’, in INTAL, La Jnfeprion Lafinoamericana (Buenos Aires, 1965), pp. 157-68.


Permanent Executive Committee modest. Efforts at induoing a continental approach to economic planning have been slow to materialize. Co-operation among central banks is only now developing. A common agricultural development policy-always a very difficult matter-is just being discussed. Certainly, within the scope of its competence, the Permanent Executive Committee and its Advisory Commissions have attempted to make use of the incremental style in order to accelerate the process of integration. The governments, as well as many of the industrialists, however, have shown little enthusiasm to take up the opportunities offered them.

The politics of creating freer trade, therefore, are unsuccessful. Each government is preoccupied with its own national development and with the problems it faces at home. Only Mexico and Chile have consistently looked to LAFTA and the ECLA Doctrine as an answer to the questions of rapid modernization. Political commitment of the kind which existed in Europe after 194s has been absent at the highest levels of government. The politics of the ECLA Doctrine have not sufficed to create such a commitment. Therefore, the successive incremental recommendations adopted by the conferences of LAFTA -which would accelerate integration if implemented-have been largely pronouncements which the participating governments were unwilling to enact into p0licy.9 If anything, the style has been too incremental: the quality of the dramatic has been lacking and no charismatic person has come forward to take the process in hand.

The t h n i o s did not disguise their dependence on a political leadership. They had called for the convoking of a high-level conference to take action on the many projective resolutions and schemes discussed pre- viously. They had advocated the creation of larger networks of industrialists and experts in the member countries to work on detailed new policies. They realized that the demands for a common market, heard more and more frequently, required a major political commitment. The Meeting of Foreign Ministers in Montevideo, in November of 1965, was the answer to their demands.

It is doubtful, however, that the decisions of the ministers have provided the political leadership expected. Neither the technocratic nor the political styles have scored a breakthrough. The Montevideo meeting followed a series of unimplemented resolutions of LAFTA. In addition, Latin America faced a decision on whether to implement the ambitious design of a ‘Latin American Community’, complete with a common market and a regional development policy, which

* For examples of attempts at accelerating the impact of integration see Resolutions 75 (110, 77 (III), 78 (111) and especially 100 (N), of the LAFTA Annual Conference. See also the Report of the Special Commission, September 1964.

U N I T I N G OF EUROPE A N D U N I T I N G OF LATIN AMERICA 337

had been put before the governments in January of 1965. This proposal had been prepared by the most respected ticrzicos and endorsed by President Frei.lo At Montevideo neither the earlier LAFTA resolutions nor the Frei proposals were taken up with energy.

On the substantive matter of accelerating the rate of economic integration the Ministers merely decided to recommend to the Fifth Annual Conference that ‘they recognize the necessity of establishing an automatic mechanism which assures a faster process of reducing tariffs and all other restrictions’. The Permanent Executive Committee was charged with developing this mechanism, including the possibility of different rates of tariff reduction for specific sectors and simultaneous development of a common external commercial policy.ll All other substantive resolutions merely reasserted earlier decisions which had not been fully implemented.

A breakthrough, however, may have been scored on the institutional front. The meeting decided on the creation of a permanent Council of Ministers, to meet at least once a year. It called for the creation of permanent parliamentary commissions in each member nation to debate issues of integration. A standing regional consultative commission for labour and industry is to be set up. Means for resolving differences between member governments are to be found, going beyond the silence of the Treaty of Montevideo on this vital subject. And a Technical Commission of four individuals was to be set up, with the power to make appropriate proposals to the organization with respect to any aspect of Latin American economic and social integration. This Commission was to report to the Permanent Executive Commit- tee. The Committee is enjoined to forward the proposals to the Council of Ministers even if it does not wish to act on them.’*

The possible institutional significance of these resolutions must be stressed. By creating additional organs allowing for the representation of interest groups further opportunities for the creation of all-LAFTA groups of industrialists and workers are provided. If there is an impulse at the national level to push for a regional policy in specific economic sectors LAFTA will at least make it possible for this impulse to translate itself into a regional dynamics at the non-governmental level. Interest groups so far have been slow to take up such opportunities. The many sector meetings called by LAFTA have resulted in little activity on the part of private groups, with the exception of the maritime industry.

‘OJCMS v, 1, pp. 83-110. 11 Resoluci6n 8, ‘Programa de Liberacih’, Comercio Exterior (Nov. 1965), Suplemento, p. 20. . -

Peru, Ecuador and p a r ~ & ~ ~ reserved their agreement to this resolution. 19 Resolutions 1.2, 3, 4 and 19. Ibid., pp. 17-18.23.

338 JOURNAL OF C O M M O N MARKET STUDIES

Binding methods of settling intergovernmental differences are certainly needed in order to make economic integration a reality. Even if arbitration and forceful conciliation do not emerge as recognized techniques, the mere institutionalization of a Council of Ministers may go a long way to provide a permanent diplomatic setting for resolving differences through a unique style of negotiation. Prior to 1965 the European Council of Ministers did serve this function and developed a style of negotiation all its own. While the standing LAFTA organs have not developed in this manner the new Council still holds this promise, provided it is staffed with a permanent body of ticnicos who know and trust each other, and provided the Ministers delegate much of their actual power to these experts.

IV

For the immediate future we cannot count on an incremental style of making decisions in Latin American integration efforts. The best that can be expected is some room for incremental bargaining within an overall setting of political commitment. The European experience provides no exact lessons here. It does suggest, however, certain typical processes for which equivalents may be found in Latin America after we allow for the sharp differences in social structure, national consciousness and political style.

These functional equivalents include, first of all, the role of the ECLA Doctrine in the place of Jean Monnet’s pragmatic-functional approach, if that doctrine is amended to suggest the specific economic sectors and activities in which integrative work will go forward, reach its limits, and then be redefined to approximate the ‘spill-over’ process. In Europe coal and steel served that function; in Latin America it may be automobiles, road building equipment or glass.

Second, the uniquely Latin American ‘reciprocity’ formula may well serve as an equivalent for the EEC bargaining process. It allows the larger and wealthier nations to make tolerable special concessions to the less developed countries, to accept ‘repayment’ in one sector for concessions in another. When private enterprise proves unwilling to make use of the complementarity agreements, through which the reciprocity formula can be realized, public enterprises must fill the need.

Third, technocrats must increasingly take the lead in establishing the links with non-governmental groups which developed spontaneously in Europe. The Mexican experience illustrates how this can be done. Technocrats must take the place of the middle-level parliamentarians and politicians who fulfilled the roles of brokers in Europe. Political parties and parliaments are not sufficiently central to the political

U N I T I N G OF EUROPE A N D U N I T I N G OF LATIN AiMERICA 339

process in some Latin American countries to serve the function their counterparts played in Europe. Only the Christian Democrats come close to providing an equivalent; thcy must do at the regional level what they are now attempting in chile.13

Fourth, since the tkccnicos caniiot assume direct political leadership, and continue to play a discreet role, they must form long-term alliances with politicians, as Monnet did with the Socialists, Christian-Democrats and Liberals in Europe. These possible equivalents must now be illustrated furthcr.14

References to reciprocity occur with repetitious insistence in the text of the Treaty, the resolutions of the Conference and the statements of the delegates. The formula occupies the position of a shared development ideology in Latin America, a sloganized recognition of ECLA’s argument that mere free trade among unequally developed countries will not result in the automatic enrichment of each. Reciprocity, therefore, has meant a special responsiveness on the part of the more developed LAFTA members to the expressed needs of the less developed -as illustrated in the special tariff benefits given to Ecuador, Paraguay and (to a lesser extent) Uruguay. It has also given LAFTA a formula for justifying a series of arrangements at odds with the Western Euro- pean notion of economic integration. The complementarity formula, especially as revised at Bogota and made ‘unequal’ in its incidence, is the chief administrative technique for arranging reciprocal benefits when trade alone does not suffice. The very principle of three types of members, with the least developed enjoying mostly rights and bound by few obligations, illustrates the norm in action.

If we view the behaviour of the member states analytically we must come to the conclusion that the ideology and the instruments summed up under the ‘reciprocity’ label act as an adaptive device for satisfying asymmetrical demands inconsistent with the pure economic theory of common markets. Possibly uneconomic projects and policies are endorsed nonetheless as a means of showing ‘understanding’, of satisfying skittish elites. New bonds of interdependence and new asymmetrical expectations are created which re-enforce the organization even though it has not succeeded in any of its major objectives.

la For a detailed examination how in Mexico the fhc~iicor stimulated and involved the business community in the affairs of LAFTA see Philippe C. Schniitter and Ernst B. Haas, Mexico and Latin American ~ c o t l o J n i c Intrgration, Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, Research Series H5, 1964. For evidence on the role played by the Christian-Democrats, especially at their 6th Congress (1964). and on the need for permanent alliances between thcrricor and integrationist political leaders, see the excellent study of Horacio Godoy, ‘Actitudes frente a la integracion’ in La irrfegracion lotinoonrericorra, op. cit., pp. 148-50, 155-6.

14 The following argiinient is illustrated more extensively in Ernst B. Haas and Philippe C. Schmitter, The Politics ofJ3ownic.r in Latirr Amerimr RPgiattalisni (Denver: Social Science Founda- tion, University of Denver, 1965).


The reciprocity formula, therefore, is nothing less than the particular style of seeking mutual accommodation best suited to the perceptions of elites in transitional societies.

We must, therefore, inquire into the way experience with LAFTA has shaped the attitudes of the member governments. Has commitment to reciprocity implied the kind of mutual responsiveness through which divergent experiences and demands can be reformulated to result in a stronger LAFTA? The adaptation pattern of the member states falls into four groups : (I) the completely dissatisfied (Uruguay, Argentina) ; (2) the dissatisfied eager to benefit from the reciprocity of others (Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Paraguay) ; (3) the satisfied willing and able to grant this reciprocity (Brazil, Mexico) ; (4) the dissatisfied eager to use lack of success as the occasion for creative revaluation (Chile). Interestingly enough, there is no instance of a ‘satisfied’ country which has proved unwilling to be responsive to the complaints of the dissatisfied.

Finally, let us turn once more to the crucial role of the technocrats. Asymmetrical social and political pressures prevented their full success in 1960 and asymmetrical disappointments now give them their second chance. In Western Europe a superficially similar process occurred between 1955 and 1957. Disappointment with the slow progress of political unification resulted in a decision, at the Messina Conference of 1955, to approach unity obliquely by way of a politicized common market. The political leaders agreed on general-and very vague- principles and left the drafting of the appropriate detailed rules to the leading economic civil servants of their respective ministries. These were joined, as in Latin America through the services of ECLA, by the recognized specialists in the politics and economics of regional integration, the ‘European technocrats’ associated with Jean Monnet and the European Coal and Steel Community.

The process used in the drafting of the Treaties of Rome became known as the ‘Messina method’. Does it depend merely on the services of leading national and supranational technicians loosely instructed by their governments? The Messina method worked because it combined three attributes : the recognized expertise of the technicians and their secure civil service status, the existence of an institutionalized communi- cations pattern between national ministries and interest groups deeply concerned with their policies, and the presidency of a respected, resourceful and committed advocate of European political unity over the committees which did the drafting. This advocate was Paul-Henri Spaak, a leading national politician and not a tkcnico. Spaak’s participation assured that the work of the technicians did not evolve in a

U N I T I N G OF EUROPE A N D U N I T I N G OF LATIN AMERICA 341

vacuum and that constant contact with political decision-makers was retained.

We have argued that economic integration in the Latin American setting can obey the same dynamic as the European prototype only if certain functional equivalents can be discovered. One of these is the principle of reciprocity, of temporarily unequal sacrifice, to be com- pensated for by eventual-and very ambiguous-repayment. Nothing need be added to assert the reality of this principle in LAFTA. The other possible functional equivalent is the capacity for creative adaptation displayed by the thcnicos. Unlike the Messina method, these men cannot clearly rely on a complex and manipulable network of relationships with private interest groups. Until President Frei made his proposal they had no counterpart in a Spaak and in support from national politicians. We must now re-examine the thcnicos in order to assess the probabilities that we are really on the threshold of politicized economic integration in Latin America.

The potential for a creative adaptation exists. The convergence of ‘learned’ attitudes on the part of the more-developed, coupled with their demonstrated responsiveness to the special demands of the lesser and middle-developed, set the stage for transcendence-a fundamental redefinition of norms and goals which would undoubtedly involve LAFTA members and institutions in new tasks, new delegations of authority and greater interdependence. Two ingredients have been lacking: an integrative strategy and the common political will to carry it out.

Leadership in Latin American regional integration demands, not the sort of technocratic competence and anonymity characteristic of Western Europe, but a self-conscious political strategy for exploiting the interdependence hidden behind short-term contradictions. The tkcnicos understand this interdependence well, and are now aware that they cannot expect it to assert itself automatically. This means they cannot leave the setting of integrative priorities exclusively to national politicos. To date, however, their leadership effort has been too diffuse institutionally and too concerned with reinforcing their own values to have had a broader impact. As Prebisch himself notes: ‘. . . sufficient progress has been made to work out a system of ideas, a dynamic view of economic and social development leading to practical action. Now the task is to promote public discussion and, above all, to gain the ear of political and trade-union leaders.’l5 The future of LAFTA as the

l6 Prebisch, Toward a Dynamic Developtnenf Policyfor Latin America (New York, United Nations C/EN, 12/68O/Rev 1, 1964), p. 14. The strategy of ‘reform-mongering’ we suggest here for giving political leverage to the thcnicos is developed in detail by A. 0. Hirschman,]ourneys into Progress (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1963).

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focus of regional integration will depend not only upon this announced effort ‘to gain the ear’ of key decision-makers and win them over to the ECLA doctrine, but to present them with a series of immediate projects which exploit the growing, but limited, convergence of the major powers and the special fears and hopes of the smaller ones. A full-scale attempt to build immediate automaticity into LAFTA is bound to fail. A more modest effort to reach agreement initially in a limited ‘priority’ sector would be a better ‘reform-mongering’ strategy. One could then rely on the imbalances generated by this admittedly imperfect solution to cause a spill-over into areas in which agreement at present seems impossible.

Latin American ticnicos have not fully succeeded in devising such an integration strategy. It may well be, as Miguel S . Wionczek suggests, that there exists among experts ‘a surprising degree of agreement . . . despite certain doctrinal and procedural discrepancies, regarding what must be accomplished in order to make LAFTA an efficient integration instrument‘.le These experts, however, have not been able to transform this consensus into viable decisional structures. Partly this is because they belong to a wide variety of institutions, national and international, each with its separate loyalties and vested interests. They have failed to concentrate their efforts in an attempt to make LAFTA an exclusive and efficient instrument of integration.

More importantly-and this is certainly a reflection of their fragmented loyalties as well as doctrinal discrepancies-they have long been unable to agree on a common programme, an order of priority. Their original hopes that trade liberalization and voluntary complementarity would set off an automatic integration process-‘that the LAFTA, once in movement, would advance firmly and would convert itself into an important instrument of regional economic development”7 -were frustrated. A much more realistic conception of the integration process has since developed in which ‘the advance toward the common market will entail a continuous series of co-ordination efforts, twhicli will not be syoizturzeous2ygenerutell, but will grow out of carefully devised measures adopted at the national or international level, as the case may be’.l* No adaptive democratic forces can be expected to come to the automatic assistance of the integration process. This is, indeed, a very important theoretical lesson which the first five years of LAFTA have taught the ticnicos; but its operational corollary is the need for a much greater, much better co-ordinated effort on their part at devising

l6 M. S. Wionczek (ed.), Latin American Integmfiorr, Praeger 1966, pp. 15-16. 1’ Plkido Garcia Reynoso, ‘Perspectivas para la industria quimica en la ALALC‘, Civnercio

1s Ra61 Prebisch, op. cit., p. 102 (our emphasis). E.uferior, Enero de 1964, p. 25.


and programming integrative measures. The fact that the lesson has not yet been learned by top political leaders is clearly demonstrated by the failure of the Foreign Ministers Conference of 1966 and of LAFTA to translate into action the earlier recommendation that a high-level Technical Committee be set up to advise the LAFTA Council.

Even if the ticnicos could agree on such a plan of action, it is unlikely that it would be enacted into binding commitments. The primary weakness in the Latin American integrative process has always been a lack of articulation between ticnicos on the one hand and national decision-makers on the other. There are essentially two tactics by which the former can attempt to bridge the gap and insure that the latter, heretofore absorbed in stop-gap responses to crises or short-term satisfaction of favoured clientele groups, will in some predictable way be responsive to their more long-term projects and demands.

The ticnicor can encourage the formation of political groups favour- ably disposed to their efforts, whose operation, in Wionczek‘s apt phrase, ‘countervails the vested political and economic interests’.ls This frfh column approach is particularly evident in the promotion of regional pressure groups through sector meetings. There is much less evidence that they have tried to create new, or ‘infiltrate’ existing, political parties. Christian Democratic victories in several countries would certainly increase integrucionistu hopes, as in Chile.

Will all this suffice to make LAFTA follow the design worked out by Eduardo Frei and the Committee of Four? Will these functional equivalents do for Latin America what the logic of a pluralistic-technocratic and post-nationalist setting did for Europe? Enough doubt has been cast on the finality, though not the reality, of the processes to make us modest in our predictions. Not only must Latin America rely on a different political style than did Western Europe; not only must it substitute political leadership for incremental bargaining; the political leaders must find constant ways to feed the flame of integrationist sentiment, to make it attractive to the poor and induce the wealthy to make the major sacrifices in the meantime. This is a task of statesmanship rather than of political science.

Wionczek (ed.), op. cit., p. 17. For an argument that this is possible only through the medium of newer ‘national’ interest groups, and not in reliance on established forces depending on trade contacts with industrialized countries, see Wionczek, Inrcrnarional Conciliation (No. 551, Jan. 1965). pp. 60-2.

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THE UNITING OF EUROPE AND THE UNITING OF LATIN AMERICA