Did European Construction Contribute to Peace?

Supporters of European integration have always argued that it has brought peace. Yet no scientific study has ever developed a critical approach to such a claim. To remedy this surprising deficiency, the author builds a typology that will help to distinguish the two main opposing approaches to this question: that of the Europeanists and that of the Eurosceptics. The dialectical confrontation between these two approaches is the red thread of the book. Taken up in each of the chapters, it provides a synthetic point of view aimed at overcoming this opposition. The author shows that the contribution of the European construction to peace lies in the nuances, thus distinguishing itself from the irenical slogans of the Europeanists while dismantling the arguments of the Eurosceptics. He concludes that the EU will never be able to prevent extremist and belligerent tendencies among the European states and/or peoples. It can, however, limit the damage those tendencies could cause through the rules and institutions which the Member States have committed to respecting.

René Schwok is Director of the Global Studies Institute and Professor at the Department of Political Science of the University of Geneva. He holds a Monnet Chair in political science. He studied at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva as well as at the Institut für europäische Studien de Mainz and at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University.

Contents: A WELL-TRODDEN, YET NEVER EXAMINED TOPIC - HAS THE REJECTION OF WAR BEEN A KEY FACTOR IN THE LAUNCH OF THE EUROPEAN PROJECT? - THE EU - A GUARANTEE FOR PEACE IN EUROPE? - ENLARGEMENTS, AN ESSENTIAL CONTRIBUTION? - THE EU AND ITS NEIGHBOURS: A PEACE MAKING ACTION? - THE CONTRIBUTION OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION TO PEACE