The EU today seems somewhat analogous to the United States under the Articles of Confederation.
Not all issues are shared, but some, including equal representation for every state under the Articles as being analogous to the veto right of small EU countries, US states being able to conduct their own foreign policy, and debt issued at the US state level. That said, the EU has unique issues of its own, including using the Euro despite not being a single monetary zone (the US is one, for example). That substantially contributed the financial crisis there. Although establishing common debt, direct tax collection at the EU level, and becoming a single nation would fix several of the issues with the Euro (more freedom of movement for economic reasons and fewer language barriers are the others).
I wonder if the EU will have its equivalent of Shay’s rebellion—perhaps that populism is the modern version? As it stands, I don’t think the EU is stable, simultaneously too weak to really resolve issues democratically (and thus bringing legitimacy / consensus), but too strong where it can’t be ignored. In this sense I think both the populists / nationalists and the cosmopolitans / progressives are correct.
That said, I’m not totally sold on this idea of incremental change towards the EU as its own sovereign country. The colonies / states during the ratification of the Articles / US constitution were explicit and transparent about what their intentions were. Those debates have to be done in public to resolve them and develop buy in. Otherwise people will feel like they’re being tricked, and I suspect that will fuel populism and lower support for the overall project. In that sense I think this explainer you’ve written is particularly valuable.
I think that this is a good place to note the joint decision trap, where courts tend to order integration, and the coordination costs of resisting it are large:
It’s a situation where the stakeholders don’t all coordinate (even if that’s short of whole-hearted agreement), and would have to in order for there to be a political choice, rather than a technical one; so whatever bias the technical progress has, will be the direction of travel.
The EU today seems somewhat analogous to the United States under the Articles of Confederation.
Not all issues are shared, but some, including equal representation for every state under the Articles as being analogous to the veto right of small EU countries, US states being able to conduct their own foreign policy, and debt issued at the US state level. That said, the EU has unique issues of its own, including using the Euro despite not being a single monetary zone (the US is one, for example). That substantially contributed the financial crisis there. Although establishing common debt, direct tax collection at the EU level, and becoming a single nation would fix several of the issues with the Euro (more freedom of movement for economic reasons and fewer language barriers are the others).
I wonder if the EU will have its equivalent of Shay’s rebellion—perhaps that populism is the modern version? As it stands, I don’t think the EU is stable, simultaneously too weak to really resolve issues democratically (and thus bringing legitimacy / consensus), but too strong where it can’t be ignored. In this sense I think both the populists / nationalists and the cosmopolitans / progressives are correct.
That said, I’m not totally sold on this idea of incremental change towards the EU as its own sovereign country. The colonies / states during the ratification of the Articles / US constitution were explicit and transparent about what their intentions were. Those debates have to be done in public to resolve them and develop buy in. Otherwise people will feel like they’re being tricked, and I suspect that will fuel populism and lower support for the overall project. In that sense I think this explainer you’ve written is particularly valuable.
I think that this is a good place to note the joint decision trap, where courts tend to order integration, and the coordination costs of resisting it are large:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_decision_trap
Isn’t joined decision trap the situation where not the best policy is chosen, but rather the one that all stakeholders can agree on?
It’s a situation where the stakeholders don’t all coordinate (even if that’s short of whole-hearted agreement), and would have to in order for there to be a political choice, rather than a technical one; so whatever bias the technical progress has, will be the direction of travel.