Functionalism, Federalism and Transnational and Polycentric Governance

David Mitrany is best known as the pioneer and main theorist of the functionalist perspective in international relations. But while articulating the functionalist approach, Mitrany discussed extensively the main alternative approach to functionalism, federalism, while at the same time, opened up an entire new perspective on the problem of trans-national governance and on the problem of organizing collective action and institutionalizing it in order to deal with the production and management of collective goods and services.

The twentieth century has brought to the fore, according to Mitrany, a series of political, social, scientific and technological transformations that pose unprecedented challenges for international political organization. These rapid transformations have made, on the one hand, the old models of international political organization obsolete and, on the other hand, have profoundly altered the standards that the new international political arrangements must meet: “Our present historical task is to bring the nations actively together, not to keep them peacefully apart; and to find ways for the common government of the new critical global issues”. At the core of his vision was the notion that the international community needs to develop novel forms of governance, in accordance with the evolution of the social, economic and technological systems of contemporary societies.

Mitrany was skeptical regarding the standard approaches to governance based exclusively on federalism: We should consider the possibility that federalism, beyond all its merits, instead of bringing nations together, may create new problems of governance, while amplifying others. For example, if in the new political, social, economic, and technological context, bringing nations together is our main political task, then we must ask ourselves whether creating asymmetries between “club members” (states that are part of a federation) and those outside the club is not in fact just a mere form of rearranging old problems in new configurations and thus of postponing engaging with real solutions.  Moreover “we are presented with a choice of proposals for international federation, advocating variously and vaguely European federation or Western federation or democratic federation or, more ambitiously, world federation. The fact that there are so many differing proposals show that they do not rest on any inherent element of kinship or close relationship.”

The functional approach, Mitrany believed, is much more appropriate to bring nations together, through a type of cooperation that starts from the operational economic, technical, social etc. interests of each organizational or governance unit. Building from there new forms of governance, of a polycentric nature, may be possible. Once the focus shifts on a functionalist and polycentric approach, with its multiple layers of problems and solutions, the institutional imagination may get liberated, and pragmatic and ingenious forms of governance arrangements may be envisioned, designed and experimented.

An important research direction of our project aims to revisit the foundational insights and conceptual apparatus created by Mitrany and reengage with a series of themes and issues associated or associable with them. Moreover, we would like to do that while integrating the theoretical developments taking place in the relevant literatures, in the last decades, after Mitrany has made his mark. Of special interest, for instance, are the developments in contemporary institutional theory and political economy that have created a theoretical apparatus able to bolster and advance Mitrany’s organizational and governance perspective.

Another area of special interest is related to the contemporary developments in transnational governance. Obviously, the European Union project has a huge relevance for our research agenda: Is there a way to contribute to the solution of current governance problems of the European Union by reviving and reframing the functionalist perspective? How should we reconcile in a fruitful way the functionalist and the federalist approaches? Are they mutually incompatible or is there a constructive possibility to accommodate a federalist and a functionalist project? Does the governance system of Europe -be it functionalist or federalist- require the existence of a cultural, ideological or values set of preconditions in order to be operational?

The issues of European governance are part of a larger set of questions related to the organization and administration of trans-national governance. Some of these are general and foundational, like, for instance, those related to the general principles of legitimacy, resilience or efficacy of trans-national organizations and institutions. Others are more specific and applied-level: What are the organizational and institutional solutions of the polycentric governance and administration of the Danube corridor? How should the transnational governance of specific natural resources that have the feature of common pool resources, be organized? What are the best ways to encourage regional cooperation in regions such as the Black Sea area? What is the relationship between the resilience of national governance systems in relationship to trans-national functionalist structures and arrangements? How should the transnational governance of the new technologies and global IT corporations be organized? What are the sources of legitimacy for the new forms of organizations and enterprises emerging in the conditions created by functionalism and polycentricity? These are only some of the themes and questions defining this dimension of the Center’s research agenda.