Intra-Regional Balance of Power and Economic Integration: The Origins of the European Community

Abstract

What made possible the voluntary formation of the European Community? The answer to this question lies in the distribution of capabilities in Europe after the end of World War II. Centralized integration took place because three conditions occurred at the same time. First, the emergence of the Soviet Union as an overwhelming symmetrical common threat to France, West Germany, Italy, and the Benelux gave them incentive to cooperate. Second, the aggregate power of the threatened states was sufficient to counter the threat. Third, no single state within the balancing coalition was more powerful than all the others taken together. This allowed them to surrender decision-making authority over important economic sectors to supranational institutions without concern that these would be dominated by a single state.