ABSTRACT
Research on business networks in European integration in historical perspective1
lags behind that by political scientists and sociologists.2 The neo-functionalist work of Ernst B. Haas3 encouraged social scientists to focus on spill-over from sectoral to horizontal and from economic to political integration. Transnational business actors and interest groups were regarded as prominent drivers of such spill-over. More recently, sociologists and political scientists have modified the earlier neo-functionalist view of the role of transnational business actors in integration, which appears too determinist and teleological.4 In contrast, historians of European integration have traditionally focused on national political elites and governmental actors, with at the most a secondary role for interest group politics in interpretations, which have remained very state-centric. Searching for the domestic roots of European integration policies, they have paid little attention to transnational networks. Instead, they have privileged the study of national business actors within member-states, especially general business associations such as the French Conseil National du Patronat Français (CNPF),5 the German Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie,6 the Italian Confindustria,7 the Belgian Fédération des Industries de Belgique,8 the Dutch Hoofdgroep Industrie,9 the Federation of British Industries,10 and the business confederations of Nordic countries.11
