유럽공동체의 정치사상적 기원

Abstract

The European Community needs to be analyzed in the historical context, for European have made continuous efforts to build up a federal Europe for many centuries. The origins of federalism can be traced back to the Medieval society which has been mainly characterized by its universalism and pluralism. At that time, federalism was used as an identical concept with pluralism in that the former might be regarded as a general principle of social organization.

The empire that had existed as a form of state in the political history of Europe can be mentioned as another intellectual legacy of the federal Europe. It had a significance as the effective prescription for organizing its multi-national, constituent states and ensuring uniformity among them. Indeed, this fact was proved in the historical realities of the Rome Empire and the Holly Rome Empire.

These intellectual legacies worked positively to form many ideas of the federal Europe. The ideas of the federal Europe that had appeared before the Second World War was fragmentary and unsystematic. They were generally said to carry moral rather political tone.

However, the idea of the federal Europe appeared in diverse forms after the Second World War. For the convenience of analysis, they can be categorized into three theoretical segments; the idea of the resistance movement, J.Monnets idea and the British perspective. They all presented relatively concrete and systematic programs for the united Europe. In particular, J. Monnet proposed that a federal Europe be established on the basis of neo-functionalism and incrementalism. His idea of the federal Europe emphasized anti-statism, the importance of institution building within the E.C. and the collective bargainings among political elites of every state.

These ideas of the federal Europe are subject to the criticisms that they tended to overlook the power politics of international society, the sovereignty of nation？state and leadership of political elites. If the above problems are to be solved satisfactorily in the future, the European Community would attain political unity on a federal basis. Otherwise it should be in an ambiguous state of the international regime that means neither federation nor confederation.