ABSTRACT
The Choice for Europe The study of regional integration should be both included in and subordinated to the study of changing patterns of interdependence.
-Ernst Haas, The Obsolescence ofRegionalIntegration Theory, 1975
The construction of the European Community (EC) ranks among the most extraordinary achievements in modern world politics, yet there is little agreement about its causes.' EC rules influence most aspects of European political life, from the regulation of the habitat of wild birds to voting within the World Trade Organization. The EC's complex institutions include a semi-autonomous legal system, parliament, and bureaucracy as well as detailed norms, principles, rules, and practices governing direct relations among national governments. These institutions resemble those of a modern nation-state as much as those of a conventional international regime. Today the EC is a unique, multileveled, transnational political system."
