“Explaining European Aviation Integration”

Travis, Robin. (1999) “Explaining European Aviation Integration”. In: UNSPECIFIED, Pittsburgh, PA. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

According to Moravcsik liberalisation in aviation should have been the result of changes in preferences amongst the larger member states. However, in the mid-eighties, only the United Kingdom favored liberalisation. Whereas the Netherlands had a pragmatic attitude, the other member states adopted attitudes ranging from sceptic to firmly opposed. My point is not to test intergovernmentalism as formulated by Moravscik, which would be rather unfair since Moravcsik explicitly points out that his focus is on ground-breaking treaty revisions, but stretch the logic of intergovernmental theory in order to see if it can be applied to aviation. According to the same logic, it should be difficult for a single large state. Moravscik’s claim that states are the main actors in integration on all the same logic, it should be difficult for a single large state to impose integration on all other member-states. Moravscik’s claim that states are the main actors in integration, presents a crucial question: can it be shown that the UK and the Netherlands were able to “impose” (or push through) integration on the reluctant others, and if so, why were they able to achieve such an outcome? What is the mechanism behind asserting that particular influence?

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