ABSTRACT
Belief in the ultimate value of a united Europe appears in the hypothesis merely as one possible element in national policy formulation. It establishes an interest group in each country which the nation-state can mobilize behind any policy choice which seems better advanced by means of integration. The modernization of France as conceived by the national bureaucracy involved an attempt to overcome the vested interests which had secured agricultural protection since the 1890s. The relatively low rates of growth of national income, which could well have had as one of their causes the inability to construct a coherent long-run national policy, exacerbated the problem. The clear policy positions taken by political parties and governments which in the theory propel nations towards integration or interdependence, or even away from both, actually rest on divided and inconclusive opinions in many, perhaps most, of the groups for whose political loyalty parties and governments bid.
