Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Europe – Economic integration – 20th century'

Defence date: 13 December 2007
Examining Board: Prof. Wilfried Loth (Universität Duisburg-Essen) ; Prof. Bo Stråth (EUI) ; Prof. Pascaline Winand (EUI and Monash University) ; Prof. Gérard Bossuat (Université de Cergy-Pontoise)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
no abstract available

This dissertation contributes to the long-standing debate between those who argue that the enclosure of the commons was as a precondition to foster economic growth and those who defend common property regimes can be efficient and sustainable. Exploiting historical evidence from 19^th century and early 20^th century Spain, this research shows that the persistence of the commons in some Spanish regions was not detrimental to economic development, at least relative to the institutional arrangements they were replaced with. On the contrary, during the early stages of modern economic growth, the communal regime not only did not limit agricultural productivity growth, but indeed constituted a crucial part of the functioning of the rural economics in a number of ways. On the one hand, these collective resources complemented rural incomes and, subsequently, sustained households' consumption capacity. The reduction in life expectancy and heights in the provinces where privatisation was more intense, as well as the negative effect on literacy levels, strongly supports that the privatisation of the commons deteriorated the living standards of a relatively large part of the population. On the other hand, the communal regime also significantly contributed to financing the municipal budget. Deprived from this important source of revenue, local councils became unable to adequately fund local public goods and ended up increasing local taxes. Lastly, the social networks developed around the use and management of these collective resources facilitated the diffusion of information and the building of mutual knowledge and trust, thus constituting a vital ingredient of the social glue that hold these rural communities together. All things considered, the persistence of the commons in some regions provided peasants with cooperation mechanisms different from the market and made the transition to modern economic growth more socially sustainable.

Many patent law dilemmas arise from a failure to understand technologies as embedded in broader social, economic and political realities and to contextually analyze these legal phenomena. This narrowness leads to poor legal development, of which the modern medical exception from patentability is one example. Judges have difficulty interpreting it, patentees do not understand its purpose and it does not protect the important medical technologies to which the public would like access. This thesis applies a legal pluralist analysis to examine the emergence of the medical methods exception in order to understand why it was created and legislated. It starts by examining the origins of the exception in the caselaw, and the informal, concurrent norm established by the emerging medical profession in the early 20th century. It then proceeds to examine why the medical profession might have sought and enforced a norm prohibiting its members from patenting, and concludes that this arose from the need of the medical profession to distance itself from the patent law. As a result, professionalizing physicians established an internal normative order that mimicked and in many cases replaced the effect of the formal law. The thesis then proceeds to examine how the form of the informal norm evolved in the period between WWI and WWII, finding that the profession’s norm transformed and broke down concurrently with its efforts to achieve external legitimacy through legislation. That breakdown arose from factors which included growing labour mobility, greater understanding of the benefits of patents, and a growing role of science and industry in medicine that threatened the profession’s access to valuable medical innovation. The thesis concludes with a study of a current case (Myriad Genetics) that applies the thesis’ theoretical framework to a present dispute over the role the law should play in regulating genetic diagnostic tests.

The 1990s were characterized by severe turbulence in the global economy. Economic and financial crises occurred in Latin America, Middle and Eastern Europe and Asia. This analysis distinguishes between the two socioeconomic criteria "transitional" and "emerging" region. Transitional countries are former centrally planned socialist economies and emerging countries former agricultural-oriented classical developing economies with mostly a history of military or some other kind of autocratic dictatorship. The resources for the analysis are data sets regarding investment, exchange rate behavior, government finance, international liabilities of monetary authorities and inflation. The study reveals macroeconomic patterns associated with economic development in each socioeconomic region. It is shown that similar patterns are responsible for successful and non-successful performance in each region. A comparison of different regions shows many parallels between emerging economies, but only little similarity between transitional economies.

This thesis investigates the relationship between Fascist Italy and the League of Nations (LoN) during the interwar period, with a particular focus on the years from 1922 to 1935. This relationship was contradictory, shifting from moments of active collaboration to moments of open disagreement. The existing historiography on the Italian membership of the League has not reflected this oscillation in policy, focusing disproportionally on the crises Italy caused at the League. However, Fascist Italy remained in the League for more than 15 years, ranking as the third-largest power, and was fully engaged in the institution's work. This dissertation investigates the dynamics that developed between Fascist Italy and the LoN through a systematic study of the Italians involved. In so doing, it contributes to the historiography of the LoN and of the Italian foreign policy in the interwar period. The thesis argues that there was more to the Italian membership of the LoN than the Ethiopian crisis. It reveals the extent of the Italian presence and activity in the institution from the beginning, and demonstrates that the organization was more important to the Italian government than previously recognized. Membership of the League was essential to guarantee Italy international legitimation and recognition. Through an active appropriation of internationalism, the Italian government hoped to obtain practical benefits in the colonial sphere. The thesis uncovers the depth and variety of interactions between nationalism and internationalism in the case of Italy and the League, establishing that they did not oppose each other but rather interacted. This dissertation illustrates the complexity of being an Italian working in the League, as well as the grey areas between nationalism and internationalism evident within individual experiences. Finally, it shows the continuity of actors and expertise in Italy's international cooperation between the interwar and the post-1945 period.

Defence date: 4 December 2017
Examining Board: Prof Federico Romero, European University Institute; Prof Laura Lee Downs, European University Institute; Prof Eric Bussière, Université Paris-Sorbonne; Prof Lorenzo Mechi, Università degli Studi di Padova
‘Social Europe’ is an elusive concept. Although largely forgotten today, it was a vibrant idea and project in the 1970s. Promulgated mostly by West European socialdemocratic forces, it was basically a European governance reform project. Its fundamental objective was to transform the nature of European cooperation and integration, by using the European Community as a vehicle to realise democratic socialism in Europe. ‘Social Europe’ took shape around the ideas of wealth redistribution, social and economic planning, economic democratisation, improved working and living conditions, regulation and control of economic forces, guarantee of the right to work, upward harmonisation of European social regimes, and access to social protection for all. It also included environmental concerns, democratisation of the European Community’s institutions, and claims to rebalance the international system to favour the development of the rising ‘South’. It made ambitious proposals to empower the Community in the social field and to increase social and economic coordination between its member states. It was, in short, a proposal for a radically different future than the one we actually inhabit today. This work investigates the rise and demise of ‘social Europe’ in the ‘long 1970s’. It highlights the socialist efforts to build a common European project, explores the concrete proposals it contained, traces its evolution and assesses the strategies and alliances envisaged between the different forces of the Left for its realisation. It sheds light on the reasons for the defeat of ‘Social Europe’, which had long-lasting, and arguably dramatic repercussions for the nature of European integration and European societies, for the relations of Western Europe with the rest of the world, for the history of capitalism and its shift to the ‘neoliberal’ paradigm, and for the ‘European Left’ itself.

Defence date: 8 October 2014
Examining Board: Professeur Kiran Patel, Maastricht University; Professeur Federico Romero, European University Institute; Professeur René Leboutte, Université du Luxembourg; Professeur Eric Bussière, Université Paris–Sorbonne
Ce projet cherche à démontrer l’apparition d’une élite monétaire issue d’une coopération transnationale organisée en réseaux et à en déterminer l’influence sur le processus de prise de décision en matière d’intégration économique et monétaire. La volonté d’élaborer cette étude part du constat, formulé notamment par David D. Cameron, qu’en relation avec les origines de l’Union économique et monétaire, l’aspect transnational de la politique mise en oeuvre fut jusqu’à présent négligée par les études sur l’Union européenne. La rareté de la littérature concernant l'intégration économique et monétaire pendant les années soixante, découle de la perception que cette période fut une époque d’échecs, pendant laquelle aucun accomplissement concret en matière d'intégration économique et monétaire ne fut acquis au niveau communautaire. En effet, la chronologie des grandes dates de la mise en place de l’Union économique et monétaire fait apparaître qu'au niveau institutionnel européen, l'essentiel des débats initiaux sur l'identité monétaire, provoqués par le déclin du système de Bretton Woods, se déroula pendant les crises monétaires de 1969 à 1973 et en relation avec l'entrée de la Grande-Bretagne au sein de la CEE. Cependant, ne s'arrêter que sur l'analyse des accomplissements effectués à l'échelle des instances de la Communauté européenne à partir du Sommet de La Haye en 1969, consisterait à occulter la présence, parallèle à l’action des instances officielles, d’un débat et d’une promotion permanente d’idées, ayant trait à l’approfondissement de l’intégration économique et monétaire, idées qui certes ne furent dans leur majorité pas appliquées, mais qui constituèrent néanmoins la base des premières réalisations concrètes. Cette étude portera ainsi en premier lieu sur l’analyse des enceintes communautaires et informelles au sein desquels les débats sur l’intégration économique et monétaire étaient une priorité, ainsi que sur leurs compositions respectives, ce qui permettra l’identification d’une élite monétaire. Ensuite il s’agira non seulement d’étudier les idées formulées au sein de ces instances mais également d’évaluer les liens entre ces enceintes et l’évolution des idées, acquise par le débat permanent, afin de pouvoir en estimer l’influence sur les décisions finales de la Communauté européenne.

Defence date: 23 May 1991
Examining board: Prof. R.T. Griffiths (supervisor) ; Prof. J. Pelkmans (second supervisor) ; Prof. G. Gerbet ; Prof. P. Hertner ; Prof. A.S. Milward
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017

Defence date: 14 July 2017
Examining Board: Prof Federico Romero, European University Institute (Supervisor); Prof Pavel Kolář, European University Institute; Prof Josip Glaurdić, University of Luxembourg; Prof Tvrtko Jakovina, University of Zagreb
This thesis examines the origins and evolution of Yugoslav policy towards Western European integration from the early 1950s until the signing of the first Yugoslav–EEC Trade Agreement in 1970. It examines the emerging role of Western Europe in the Yugoslav foreign and internal politics within the larger context of the Cold War and development of European integration. Increased trade relations with the EEC and the domestic introduction of the 1965 Economic Reform proved vital in persuading Belgrade to become the first socialist country to establish diplomatic and trade relations with the Community in 1968. The thesis argues that these relations became of increasing relevance to the economic and, ultimately, political stability of Yugoslavia. Besides the basic foreign (trade) policy concepts towards the EEC, this study focuses on the perceptions of the Western European integration process among the political elite by addressing the following research questions: How did Yugoslav policymakers react to the Western European integration process? What impact did the success of the EEC have on Yugoslav foreign policy and internal differences among the political elite? In what way did the League of Communists of Yugoslavia rationalize their cooperation with the EEC? What did it mean for the internal coherence of the LCY and for Yugoslavia’s pronounced cooperation with the developing countries? The overarching question is how and why already in the 1960s the EEC became such an important external factor, crucial for the economic development and stability of Yugoslavia. By analysing the complex interaction between the external factors and internal dynamics of Yugoslavia and their impact on Belgrade´s policy towards the EEC, this study provides an explanation of the underlying long-term structural problems of the economy that determined the Yugoslav diplomatic and economic responses to the creation and evolution of the EEC until the breakup of the country.
Chapter ‘Conclusion' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'A troubled relationship : Yugoslavia and the European economic community in détente' (2014) in the journal ‘European review of history’

Defence date: 22 March 2004
Examining board: António Costa Pinto, Instituto de Ciências Sociais de Universidade de Lisboa ; Fernando Guirao, Universitat Pompeu Fabra ; Pascaline Winand, European University Institute ; (Alan S. Milward, European University Institute)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017

Defence date: 20 March 1995
Examining board: Prof. Dr. Werner Abelshauser, Bielefeld (Doktovater) ; Prof. Dr. Richard T. Griffiths, Florenz ; Prof. Dr. Gerd Hardach, Marburg ; Prof. Dr. Peter Hertner, Florenz ; Prof. Dr. Alan S. Milward, London
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017

Defence date: 4 May 1998
Examining board: Prof. Werner Abelshauser, University of Bielefeld (external supervisor) ; Prof. Richard T. Griffiths, University of Leiden (supervisor) ; Prof. Charles S. Maier, Harvard University ; Prof. Alan S. Milward, EUI ; Prof. Raffaele Romanelli, EUI
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017
Sulla base di un'ampia ricognizione degli archivi americani, francesi, italiani e tedeschi, l'autore avanza un'innovativa interpretazione del piano Marshall e ricostruisce per la prima volta gli effetti sulla vita politica ed economica italiana, individuando i complessi fili che legarono la politica di De Gasperi, l'espansione dell'intervento pubblico, la nascita della Cassa per il Mezzogiorno e le origini dell'integrazione europea.

Defence date: 27 September 2017
Examining Board: Professor Marie-Laure Salles-Djelic, Sciences Po; Dr. João Rodrigues, University of Coimbra (external advisor); Professor Youssef Cassis, European Universiy Institute; Professor Lucy Riall, European University Institute (supervisor)
Awarded the 2019 Dorfman Dissertation Prize by the History of Economics Society
The thesis is a close study of a transnational group of intellectuals, mainly economists, who met in Paris in 1938 and at Mont Pèlerin in 1947 with the explicit aim to create a new liberalism for the modern world. At times they would use neoliberalism as a description of the creed they were developing, later they would opt for classical liberalism, in a bid to highlight continuities in their approach to political philosophy. Was their liberalism classical or was it new? The verb to reinvent is used frequently in modern academe, but its meaning is somewhat unclear. In the history of political thought, however, and especially the history of liberalism, the term can become a useful tool for enquiry. One way or the other, all new creeds build on previous ones, but the intellectuals in question were involved in a conscious, explicit attempt to change liberalism. This involved restating certain aspects of what they perceived as “true liberalism” and updating these to a different social and historical context, while also purging liberalism of all they felt was wrong with it. The contextualization of the many layers of interpretation involved in making these arguments is the main topic of this thesis. The intellectuals in question argued that “economic planning” was what had led to the rise of dictatorships in Europe. They included the communist dictatorship in Russia and the fascist dictatorships in Germany and Italy as part of the same phenomenon, totalitarianism, and further claimed that democracies like the USA, Great Britain and France were headed in the same direction. In this way, other, tangential movements to reinvent liberalism under labels such as new liberalism or social liberalism also came under attack, as it was argued that they were taking society in a totalitarian direction through collectivism and economic planning. The latter concept was defined loosely as any government “intervention” in the economy or, more precisely, attempts at subverting the mechanisms of markets in order to improve on their outcomes, redistribute wealth or counter business cycles. This strong criticism of economic planning did not lead these thinkers to advocate a position of “laissez-faire”. On the contrary, the second major plank of their intellectual project was an attack on the ideas of laissez-faire liberalism, a creed they claimed was rigid and outdated. Their internal debates can be seen as an attempt to incorporate a theory of states into right-wing liberalism, and focused on how to use states to spread, protect and foster what they still saw as a largely self-regulating mechanism. The first part of the thesis traces this dual argument to books, articles, lectures and correspondence by and between the intellectuals involved, from the German language socialist calculation debates in the 1920s, to the first meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in 1947. The second part of the thesis uses some of the tools of micro history to conduct an in-depth study of this ten-day meeting in the Swiss alps. In the conclusion I argue that neoliberalism is best understood as a theory of modernity arising out of the historical conjuncture of Europe in the 1920s, 30s and 40s. This theory was based on a novel conceptualization of markets as mediators of modernity, the only mechanism through which order and prosperity could be achieved in a modern mass-society. Neoliberals took this new understanding of markets and combined it with an embrace of state power as legitimate within a theory of liberalism when put to use in concordance with what was believed to be logic of markets. The work may contribute to a deeper understanding of neoliberalism, whether this is seen as a philosophy inspiring a political movement, a political rationality, or some sort of combination of the two.

Defence date: 30 October 2017
Examining Board: Professor Federico Romero, European University Institute (EUI); Doctor N. Piers Ludlow, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE); Professor Kiran Klaus Patel, Maastricht University; Professor Youssef Cassis, European University Institute (EUI).
The thesis traces the rise of Euro-journalism. It argues that the Euro-journalists - a group of influential journalists in Brussels and across Western Europe - were instrumental in shifting the representation of the European Communities in Western European media, from marginal international organisation in the 1950s to sui generis 'European' polity and incarnation of 'Europe' in the 1970s. In the 1950s, Western European media overwhelmingly considered the European Communities as one among many international organisations working for Western European cooperation. The Communities did not stand out among many 'European integration' projects ranging from liberal to Gaullist to communist. However, by the 1970s Western European media largely presented the Communities as a 'European' polity in the making. What explains this astonishing transformation and emergence of the European Communities in Western European media? The thesis puts the Euro-journalists at the centre of its analysis. It argues that the Euro-journalists adopted the sui generis 'European integration' narrative in the 1950s and early 1960s. The narrative presented the European Communities as a 'European' polity in the making, not as a normal international organisation. The thesis shows how the Euro-journalists helped spread the sui generis 'European integration' narrative in Western European media. It also places their advocacy in the changing political and economic context of the postwar decades. By the 1970s, mainstream Western European journalism had adopted Euro-journalism and the sui generis 'European integration' narrative as the standard way to cover the European Communities. Western European journalists, in a joint effort with Western European elites, tried to educate 'European' citizens about the emerging democratic 'European' political system. They mounted repeated campaigns for 'European integration', particularly during the 1979 direct elections to the European Parliament. The thesis provides some evidence that the actual influence of such campaigns on the general public in Western Europe was limited.

Defence date: 21 June 2010
Examining Board: Prof. Harold James (Princeton University - EUI) – supervisor; Prof. N. Piers Ludlow (LSE); Prof. Kiran Patel (EUI); Prof. Éric Bussière (Paris IV-Sorbonne)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
The creation of the European Monetary System (EMS) represents one of the landmarks of post-war European economic and political history, and constitutes a fascinating case-study of the formation of an incipient trans- and supranational polity, namely the European Economic Community (EEC). This thesis is the first detailed archivally-based study of European monetary cooperation from the mid- to late 1970s. It is based on an extensive multi-archival and multinational research, including archives of the French, British and German governments, as well as of EEC institutions (Commission, Council of Ministers, Monetary Committee, Committee of Central Bank Governors). This thesis analyses the complex interaction between the numerous actors involved in the process (Finance Ministers, heads of government, central bankers, economic advisors, academic economists) at various levels (domestic, EEC, international), and explains why and how the attention shifts from one level to another. In order to explain the reasons, modes and the extent to which Western European governments were willing to further their monetary cooperation through the EEC, it is essential to go beyond a strictly intergovernmental approach based on 'material interests.' Instead, this thesis delves into a more sophisticated and refined understanding of the process, looking at different modes of governance (transnational, international, supranational), as well as the interplay between different policy areas (transatlantic relations, trade, common agricultural policy) and various connected issues (political, political-psychological, economic, institutional, financial). Contrary to the conventional account of the EMS negotiations, which focuses primarily on the year 1978, this thesis presents a different way of understanding the creation of the EMS by highlighting two longer-term processes: a transnational learning process among a transnational monetary elite, and the impact of the emergence of the European Council on the monetary discussions in the EEC. The interaction of these two features explains why the EMS fundamentally was a fairly trivial technical step, but a tremendously important political one. This thesis therefore shows that more profound trends considerably influenced the inception of the EMS, which remain crucial to a thorough understanding of today's economic and financial world.

Defence date: 7 July 2004
Examining board: Prof. Walter Mattli (St. John's College, Oxford) ; Prof. Gerard Schneider (University Konstanz) ; Prof. Daniel Verdier (Ohio State University, supervisor) ; Prof. Colin Crouch (EUI)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017
The liberalization of transatlantic trade relations since the Great Depression is one of the key developments in the global political economy of the last hundred years. This period has seen the negotiated reduction of both tariffs and nontariff barriers among developed countries, which allowed for the rapid expansion of trade flows, a driving force of economic globalization. In Protection for Exporters, Andreas Dür provides a novel explanation for this phenomenon that stresses the role of societal interests in shaping trade politics. He argues that exporters lobby more in reaction to losses of foreign market access than in pursuit of opportunities, thus providing a rationale for periods of acceleration and slowdown in the pace of liberalization. Dür also presents hypotheses about the form in which protection for exporters is provided (preferential or nonpreferential) and the balance of concessions that is exchanged in trade negotiations. Protection for Exporters includes case studies of major developments in international trade relations, such as the passage of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act in the 1930s, the creation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in the 1940s, the Kennedy Round in the 1960s, the debate over Fortress Europe in the 1980s, and U.S.-European competition over access to emerging markets in the early 2000s. Dür's rigorous argument and systematic empirical analyses not only explain transatlantic trade relations but also allow for a better understanding of the dynamics of international economic relations.

Defence date: 28 May 2007
Examining board: Prof. Friedrich Kratochwil, European University Institute (Supervisor) ; Prof. Daniel Deudney, Johns Hopkins University ; Prof. Sergio Fabbrini, Università degli Studi di Trento ; Prof. Alexander H. Trechsel, European University Institute
As a novel and complex polity, also subject to endless proposals for institutional reform, the viability of the EU is an open but under-theorized question. This thesis conceptualizes EU viability from an internal perspective, that is, the viability of the process of integration rather than Europe as a viable actor in international politics. Adopting the concept of a compound polity to understand the tensions inherent in the EU, viability is defined in relation to the -rules of the game- of this compound system. This gambit has a twofold purpose. Firstly, it permits an analogy with another historical case of a compound system, the antebellum US republic. Secondly, it enables the specification of two scenarios of viability in a compound polity: dynamic equilibrium and voluntary centralization. Four aspects of the rules of the game (institutions, expectations, competence allocation and representative functions) are analysed to determine which scenario the EU follows. The analogy with the early US and its own conflicts over these four elements of the rules of the game is then contrasted with the EU experience. Five differences in how these disputes arise and the means for trying to settle them are singled out to explain the differing problems of viability in both compound polities. The results of this analogical analysis are then used to explore the appropriateness of certain proposed changes to the rules of the game in the EU, notably in the area of political representation. In a system accustomed to dynamic equilibrium, enhancing the representation of individuals is often seen as a condition for favouring more voluntary centralization. However, the analysis of conflicts over the rules of the game in two compound systems suggests a more cautious approach is required in the interests of viability. Hence this study presents itself as a significant, if incomplete, initial step in the process of identifying what makes the EU viable.