European Integration Essay
After the tragedies of World War II, European leaders have made striving efforts to prevent such a
catastrophic event from occurring on their continent again. The best solution seemed to be highly
mechanized cooperation among the highest European powers to assure that future conflict, and
perhaps war, could not arise between them. If all the states ran themselves in a manner cooperating
with their neighbors, conflict could be avoided. To prevent other nations from not cooperating,
treaties and institutions would have to be designed for each area of international interest such as
trade, communications, security, and so forth. As the century progressed, more organizations,
institutions and associations were...show more content...
If both benefit the most in cooperating, as is the case in the prisoner's dilemma, they will both
cooperate, and peace will be maintained . This basic liberal assumption of the importance of
individual gains is the main support for European integration. If all states cooperate in all arenas,
leading to a collectively sovereign "Europe", the individual gains of each state will be adequate
enough to avoid conflict among themselves making it easier to approach the rest of the international
system together peacefully.
In the event of an integrated Europe, constructivists recognize that to completely avoid conflict, each
state will have to succumb to a "European identity" and all individual identities will have to become
merely "cultural gems" within the European system. This, they argue, can be achieved with the
success of several steps including economic, judicial, and security integration . The first step has
already been attempted with the establishment of the Euro, the common European currency, which
has been outperformed by its monetary competitors. A great amount of trust will have to be secured
between states before a common court or army can be established, and most likely with as little
success as the common currency. So, even by these simplified guidelines the outlook for the creation
of a new "European
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