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

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.