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Interest Groups and Political Integration: the 1972 EEC Decisions in Norway and Denmark*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Peter M. Leslie
Peter M. Leslie*
Affiliation:
Queen's University at Kingston
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Abstract

The article examines four themes of Robert J. Lieber's article in the APSR of March 1972: “Interest Groups and Political Integration: British Entry into Europe,” bringing in new evidence from the Norwegian and Danish EEC decisions of 1972. The conclusions are that:—

(a) there is conflicting evidence regarding the applicability of functionalist theories of political integration to the geographical expansion of an existing union;

(b) the attempt to link theories of interest group activity and theories of political integration is based on a premature if not unwise generalization about decision-making processes within interest organizations;

(c) politicization (as Lieber defines it) is inherently neither favorable nor unfavorable to integration; and

(d) in discussing political integration, the distinction between “high” politics (Hoffman) and welfare considerations is best abandoned, provided the observer remembers that there are more dimensions to critical decisions than the economic.

The article concludes with the suggestion that there are slim prospects for developing a theory of political integration applicable to the creation or extension of a union, and that the appropriate “vocation” for such a theory is to elucidate the workings of political systems which have two or more “levels” of political authorities.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 69 , Issue 1 , March 1975 , pp. 68 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1975

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Footnotes

*

Data for the article were collected from government reports, publications of interest organizations, newspapers and 20 interviews with spokesmen for interest organizations in Denmark and Norway. I am grateful to Queen's University for grant of sabbatical leave in 1972–73, and to the Canada Council for a Leave Fellowship.

References

1 American Political Science Review, 66 (March 1972), 53–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Page references in the present article, unless otherwise indicated, are to the Lieber article.

2 Mitrany, David, A Working Peace System: An Argument for Functional Development of International Organization (London: Oxford University Press, For the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1943)Google Scholar; Haas, Ernst B., The Uniting of Europe: Political, Social, and Economic Forces, 1950–57 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958)Google Scholar.

3 Beer, Samuel H., British Politics in the Collectivist Age (New York: Knopf, 1965)Google Scholar; Eckstein, Harry, Pressure Group Politics: The Case of the British Medical Association (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1960)Google Scholar; Bauer, Raymond A., Pool, Ithiel de Sola, and Dexter, Lewis A., American Business and Public Policy: The Politics of Foreign Trade (New York: Atherton, 1963)Google Scholar.

4 Lieber's usage of the term “politicization” is discussed below, section entitled Politicization and Integration.

5 “High,” in the sense used by Stanley Hoffman. See below, section entitled High Politics and Integration.

6 “International Integration: Regional Integration,” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 7, 523Google Scholar.

7 Haas, , The Uniting of Europe, p. xiiiGoogle Scholar.

8 Ibid., p. 317.

9 In both cases the alternative to membership was taken to be the negotiation of a trade agreement which by 1980 would eliminate tariffs on industrial products. The probable terms of any such agreement were known with fair precision, in view of the extant agreements between the EEC and other EFTA countries such as Switzerland and Sweden. In Denmark such an agreement would occasion serious difficulties for the export of farm products to the important British market. In Norway disruption of EFTA trade patterns would not be as great, although fears were expressed regarding paper and fish and also for the shipping industry (the last-mentioned accounting for forty per cent of Norway's foreign exchange earnings in 1970).

10 The position taken by interest organizations was not difficult to identify, as in both countries the EEC decision was the subject of a referendum. In the campaigns, most organizations publicly identified themselves with one side or the other. In subsequent references to interest organizations, those with an official English version of their names are referred to in English; others in the original (Danish or Norwegian).

11 In Denmark, the wholesalers' association (Grosserer Societet); in Norway, the Federation of Norwegian Commercial Associations. The latter is a composite organization, representing the political interests of wholesale and retail traders as well as commercial agents and forwarding agents. The absence of any parallel organization in Denmark meant that the representation of commercial interests devolved upon more specialized organizations, with the wholesalers (as the most-concerned group) playing the leading role.

12 Norwegian Employers' Confederation and Danish Employers' Confederation. The function of these organizations is the conduct of negotiations with trade unions for a countrywide collective wage agreement covering most sectors of the economy. Although their activities also include political representation of employers' interests, the task of representing industry in issues not relating to the labor market is primarily in the hands of the respective federations of industries.

13 In Norway, the marketing cooperatives (Land-brukets Sentralforbund), The Norwegian Farmers' Union, and the fishermen's union (Norges Fiskarlag); in Denmark, the agricultural council (Land-brugsrå;det, an organization which undertakes the political representation of a large variety of agricultural producer groups and farmers' unions).

14 I have argued this thesis in “Norway Out, Denmark In: Scandinavia and the European Economic Community,” Queen's Quarterly, 80 (Summer 1973), 194–209Google Scholar.

15 In Norway, as in Denmark, the EEC negotiations had been initiated by a center-right coalition government, and concluded by labor or socialist governments. But whereas in Denmark the change of government (1971) resulted from electoral losses and was apparently unrelated to the EEC issue, in Norway it was the common market controversy which caused the government's collapse. The declared policy of the coalition government was to seek entry provided it could obtain certain concessions in agricultural and fisheries policy. As it became evident that not all these concessions could be obtained, the coalition became increasingly strained. When the prime minister, whose position as leader of the Center (agrarian) Party was particularly delicate, was discovered to have leaked a secret document on the Brussels negotiations to a prominent opponent of membership, his coalition partners forced his resignation and the break-up of the government.

16 Lieber's portrayal of interest group attitudes is more negative than Brenner's, Michael J. in his Technocratic Politics and the Functionalist Theory of European Integration (Ithaca: Center for International Studies, Cornell University, 1969), pp. 45–63Google Scholar. Brenner, covering the 1961–2 application only, suggests that the Federation of British Industries and the trade unions were publicly hesitant or ambivalent while several of their most influential leaders privately urged the government to opt for membership. The National Farmers' Union was described as neutral during the prenegotiations stage.

17 Bauer, et al., American Business and Public Policy, p. 339Google Scholar.

18 Ibid., p. 338.

19 On the subject of selective incentives, see Olson, Mancur Jr., The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965), pp. 51, 132ff.Google Scholar

20 See below, section entitled “High Politics and Integration.”

21 “The Uniting of Europe and the Uniting of Latin America,” Journal of Common Market Studies, 5 (June 1967), 328Google Scholar.

22 See above, note 15.

23 Brenner, , Technocratic Politics and the Functionalist Theory of European Integration, p. 14Google Scholar. The concept that there exists a distinctly political function, and a “high” politics concerned with the exercise of that function, is adumbrated by Hoffman in various articles, including, “Discord in Community: The North Atlantic Area as a Partial International System,” International Organization, 17, (Summer 1963), 521–549CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “The European Process at Altantic Crosspurposes,” Journal of Common Market Studies, 3 (February 1965), 85–101Google Scholar; and “Obstinate or Obsolete, The Fate of the Nation-State and the Case of Western Europe,” Daedalus, 95 (Summer 1966), 862–915Google Scholar.

24 Hoffman, , “Discord in Community,” p. 531Google Scholar.

25 Haas seems to have changed his mind; see his article entitled “International Integration: Regional Integration,” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 7, 522–528Google Scholar.

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