The Community in Perspective: Public Policy and Political Structure

Abstract

It is now clear that the original integrative goals are beyond the reach of the European Community. At the same time it is equally clear that the Community has been playing an increasingly important part in relations among the member states and has been functioning as a bloc in an imposing range of international negotiations. The Community's policy role varies, however, within and among sectors in ways which resist generalization and explanation. This article traces patterns in the Community's policy record and relates those patterns to discontinuities in the political structure of the European Community—in particular, to weak linkages between Community institutions and grass roots and elite politics at the national level. The result is a Community which can be expected to play a prominent but decidedly derivative role in the political, economic, and social problems facing Western Europe in the years immediately ahead.