Essays in Regionalism
| Date | 01 June 1957 |
| Published date | 01 June 1957 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1957.tb00964.x |
| Author | F. S. Northedge |
| Subject Matter | Notes and Review Articles |
NOTES
AND
REVIEW
ARTICLES
ESSAYS
IN
REGIONALISM
F.
S.
NORTHEDGE
London
School
of
Ecoiioinics and Political Science
RIVALRIES between the ideological and pragmatic approaches
are
familiar in
all
political
life. Whereas the former
seeks
to impose an abstract scheme
of
preferences, the latter is
content
to
pursue intimations as they emerge piecemeal
from
needs and interests. In any one
country there may be a tendcncy
for
this competition to be muted, but where different
countries with separate traditions participate in international organizations the tension is
more overt. In times of revolutionary change and total war it is natural for those who
look
upon politics as deriving from first principles to visualize international institutions primarily
in ideological terms. They demand far-reaching changes in diplomatic goals and methods;
they may aspire to the democratization
of
international politics, the grouping of states
on
the basis
of
ideological likeness, the one-fell-swoop surrender
of
sovereignty. The reply
of
the empiricists is in terms, first,
of
the primacy
of
the international environment, its inac-
cessibility to change solely by the resolution
of
men of goodwill, and, secondly, of the
emotional grip
of
the modern sovereign state. Sovereignty, they contend, will not fall to
any frontal assault
as
this merely arouses
all
the claustrophilia
of
the average patriotic
citizen. It should be left to wither away amid the actual developing integration of states in
one field alter another.
Of the many regional organizations that have emerged in Europe since the war, two, the
Council
of
Europe and the Economic Commission for Europe, may be taken
as
embodying
the ideological and empirical approaches respectively; the former
is
the subject
of
a study
by A.
H.
Robertson, an official
of
the Council. and the latter is described in a reflective
essay by David Wightman.‘ The Council of Europe is almost wholly ‘ideological’ in con-
struction; its purpose, and possibly its misfortune, is less to answer
to
any specific need than
(in the words
of
its Statute) ‘to achieve
a
greater unity between
its
Members for the purpose
of
safeguarding and realising the ideals and principles which are their common heritage’.
It has
for
its object the building of a common Europcan attitude
of
mind among the public
of
its members which will in time inform the policies of their Foreign Offices. It arose from
a
spiritual
or
philosophical postulate, the
mystiqire
of
a
common European culture. Its
most characteristic expression is not the technical
sub-committee
but the chamber of debate.
One
says
‘almost wholly ideological’ because it
is
doubtful whether the Council would have
seen daylight had it not been for the pragmatic nced, after the fall of Czechoslovakia
in
1948,
to
unite the free countries of Europe against external threat, and because it has
acquired technical responsibilities, partly
for
want of something to do and partly to avoid
prestige falling entirely into the hands
of
more practical bodies such
as
O.E.E.C. and the
European Coal and Stecl Community. Nevertheless the ideological note has predominated.
In the rivalry between the Committee
of
Ministers and the Consultative Asscnibly which
began with the first meeting
of
the latter, the Assembly has won more authority to itself,
and the Assembly is essentially concerned with the formulation
of
attitudes rather than
the taking
of
action. It is the Assembly
as
a
Parliamentary body which in
Mr.
Robertson’s
view gives
to
the Council its distinctive
cachet;
by its success
or
failure will the Council
as
a
whole ultimately be judgcd.
THE
COUNCIL
OF
EUROPE.
(Stevens.
Pp. xiii+252. 42s.) ECONOMIC CO-
OPERATION IN EUROPE.
(Stevens
arid
Heinemann.
Pp. xi
+
288.
21s.)
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