ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 examines the origins of supranationalism in early post-war Europe. It explores the constitution of the earliest supranational institution in world politics, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), tracing its origins to the practices through which French decision-makers represented the idea of Europe when seeking to manage the problem of a defeated Germany. While claims about a shared European heritage played a key role in the creation of many post-war institutions, it was a particular representation of a “future Europe” organized around a process of Franco-German reconciliation and the progressive development of the social welfare state that constituted the institutional rationality of the ECSC and legitimated the supranational authority with which it was invested. Despite the seeming durability of European supranationalism today, the early history of European integration illustrates how contingent and fragile the move to supranationalism was and, in some ways, remains. I follow the uneven history of postwar European supranationalism beyond the Coal and Steel Community, examining how representations of national sovereignty in the French National Assembly undermined the effort to establish another proposed supranational institution, the European Defense Community, and how a different representation of sovereignty enabled the foundation of the European Economic Community a few years later. This uneven history demonstrates the central importance that traditions of administrative governance play in legitimating European integration and the continuing challenge that national sovereignty poses to this project. The conclusion discusses the future of supranational integration in light of the rise of populism in Europe.
