International institutions are extremely complex, networked bureucracies that reflect negotiated settlments between diverse groups. So I came into studying them with an open mind. I have been studying the EU for some time now. I am far from an expert, but I am trying to build expertise. I was somewhat surprised that the underpinnings of the intellectual history of the EU have such a common an unlikely origin. In a way, the history starts around the 12th Century, in Tudor England, when our modern legal conceptions of individual property rights were being formed--because this set the foundation for markets. Another part of the history starts when the Westphalian system of sovereign nation-states first emerged in the 17th Century. The history of the great wars of Europe (WWI and WWII) also has its part. But the modern intellectual history of the European community as a political entity began in a prison camp on the island of Ventotene, when a group of men, most notably Altiero Spinelli, used bits of paper to smuggle out a manifesto which laid the groudwork for a federalist framework. That the international institutions of Europe in their contemporary form and their politics reflect the tensions between individualism and communalism, nationalism and cosmopolitanism, and technocracy and democracy was anticipated in the first half of the 20th Century by the leading federalist intellectuals of the time.
Europe is made up of IOs, and so is the world community (e.g. NATO, the UN, &c.). But these IOs are leading to greater integration, and are becoming independent legal entities and may become sovereign collective powers in their own right someday. What is striking about this is a possibility of a reversal of the current of history. In the past, sub-national organizations of people metastasized into larger and more complex social organisms, namely nations. This happened for strategic military, political, and economic reasons in many cases and was based on negotiations, treaties, and commitments. In other cases it was just some empire-builder who expanded his territory using force and domination. What is happening now is the opposite, a network of formal organizations and epistemic communities of the elite are breaking down into less global complexity--smaller, more concentrated groups that have a larger mandate and a broader area of legitimate power and authority. The same well-connected individuals snake their way through multiple institutions over time and space (and I do not mean to use "snake" in a pejorative sense here). This is not necessarily a more democratic process. But it has been a more peaceful and rapid process.
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