Towards a Realist-Constructivist Theory of European Integration: Explaining Social Policy Cooperation from the Single European Act to the Maastricht Treaty.

In this paper, I develop a realist-constructivist theory to explain the limited nature of European social policy when significant efficiencies could be achieved through a significant transfer from the national to the European level. To explain how European social policy has been institutionalized in this way, the re-launch of social policy by interstate negotiations in Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty. I seek to combine rational and sociological approaches by synthesizing realist intergovernmentalism and social constructivism. The initial genesis of the Single European Act and Maastricht Treaty can be explained by an intergovernmental explanation. Because of their favorable balance of power within the European Council, the most powerful member states determine the direction of the integration process. Additionally, the integration process has been marked by relative gains concerns. The intergovernmental nature of the integration process, with states calculating the relative gains, has becomes a reified, unquestioned part of the European integration. The state interests for social policy integration were socially constructed through phenomenological and symbolic interactions. Intersubjective structural processes have generated both European and national identities, which promote interests for continued cooperation that allows for national autonomy. The routinized, habitual interactions among the national elites, as agents, reproduce the European social policy as an intersubjective structure. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]