Ctitique of Conditional Leadership

Critique of Conditional Leadership

Jennifer Wozniak Boyle 's book focused on the dynamic integration of Europe . The author noted that Europe is now enjoying peaceful political and economic atmosphere as well as economic productivity but during the past sixty years , Europe was afflicted with war and economic devastation . Boyle cited that that the European integration was never smooth as it has to hurdle the challenges along the way , nevertheless the integration had affected the lives of the four hundred fifty million Europeans through economic prosperity and peace that the Union enjoy

Gerhard Pohl and Piritta Sorsa (1992 ) stated that the influence of European integration has been mostly positive (p . 10 ) and the European community has gained new momentum towards true economic union has created new interest in membership among other western European countries (p . 10

The book discussed on how the European Union attained an exceptional level of international integration (p . 1 , in which Boyle noted that there was no definite and clear reason how this integration was attained . The author cited that scholars examining the EU integration have used various theories to understand the process of European integration from the beginning of the European Coal and Steel Community in the 1950s (Boyle ,

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Boyle 's conceptual framework of the book encompassed many crucial issues and information which are important towards the understanding of how the EU manages the affairs of the Union to maintain its integration This includes the policies and the role the EU has taken in to facilitate the goal of its integration

One of the reasons for the European integration discussed by the author is the intergovernmentalism that sprang in the early 1970s , which Boyle point out to be central to understanding integration (p . 3 . Though the author did not have personal opinion on this subject yet based on her research , intergovernmentalism provides crucial role in shaping integration through empowering each member states making state leaders the gate keepers of integration , aggregating domestic interests into international agreements , which by satisfying domestic demands , maintain or increase their political support (p . 3 . The author emphasized that for the proponents of intergovernmentalism , integration is the result of the unanimous agreement of member states voting in the European council .While intergovernmentalism seems to provide a clear policy of the integration process , Boyle pointed out its inability to explain the day to day politics of integration and variation across policy areas and preferences . Thus , comes the Supranational institutionalism which Boyle believe has the ability to influence European integration against the preference of member states (p . 6 . Proponents of supranational institutionalism held that institutions such as court and the commission have independent influence in policy-making that cannot be derived from their role as agents of states executives . Despite of all these contribution , Boyle was critical of these two approaches ' regarding their in ability to provide concrete ideas what determines the influence of the commission on integration agreements . Boyle likened proponents of these approaches to the blind men examining the elephant...