“The European Union Enlargement: A Rational Approach”

Dardanelli, Paolo. (1999) “The European Union Enlargement: A Rational Approach” . In European Union Studies Association (EUSA) > Biennial Conference > 1999 (6th), June 2-5, 1999, pages 20, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Abstract

The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces a model for conceptualising the optimal size of a political unit by reference to two broad criteria: legitimacy and performance. The model has been constructed with elements drawn from both the traditional political science literature and the recent economic literature on the number and size of nations. Section 3 tests the hypothesis that the EU has tended through successive enlargements to a maximisation of its utility. Section 4 applies the model to the analysis of the forthcoming eastward enlargement in order to identify costs and benefits involved in the process and to assess what form of enlargement, if any, is likely to maximise the utility of the EU and thus of its citizens. Section 5 concludes by demonstrating the fallacy of the prevailing justification of enlargement as a way of increasing stability and security and by arguing that only a limited increase in the size of the EU is likely to increase the Union’s utility.