What do you say now Deutsch
Deutsch – Substantive
Well, me being in a hurry to read Deutsch, I never happened to look at the publishing date of this book (stack of papers on my part) but book nonetheless. I finally did look at the publishing date when I began to write up this little inquisition into The Political Community and the North Atlantic and it was 1957. Wow, I was taken aback, albeit some of Deutsch’s ideas are out of date, especially the parts directed toward the Soviet Union, but that doesn’t make this work any less relevant. The question I want to ask to the group/class is: if Deutsch were writing this today, what would he write about and what would he change about his analysis? It seems surprising but he is the first author that we have approached that has attempted to quantitatively operationalize part of his study. But doesn’t it seem odd that when studying integration theory you would use mail as one of your variables? But this idea kept making spontaneous appearances throughout the text, a common postal service throughout the North Atlantic. But let me remind you that this was 1957 and the mail was still an important way of communication. That leads me to another question about what would Deutsch write about today. Aren’t we living in the digital age of communication, i.e. the internet? Could you ask for a better, faster, easier way of communication? Albeit, one has to take information from the internet with a grain of salt, but it does serve a function. It serves to bring people, their ideas, and their cultures closer together.
Also, would Deutsch change his focus away from a North-Atlantic integration, essentially a strengthening of NATO, toward the blossoming Euro zone? He does mention the European Coal and Steel community in a few instances but this “experiment” has proved successful with leaps and bounds. Meanwhile NATO, not so much. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, like Deutsch had predicted, NATO was an organization without purpose, an organization in peril. NATO never made any movement toward further integration. It staunchly remained a military organization for determent. The EU was not created for military purposes and through functionalism it has gained greater and greater authority in the socio-political realm.
Well, me being in a hurry to read Deutsch, I never happened to look at the publishing date of this book (stack of papers on my part) but book nonetheless. I finally did look at the publishing date when I began to write up this little inquisition into The Political Community and the North Atlantic and it was 1957. Wow, I was taken aback, albeit some of Deutsch’s ideas are out of date, especially the parts directed toward the Soviet Union, but that doesn’t make this work any less relevant. The question I want to ask to the group/class is: if Deutsch were writing this today, what would he write about and what would he change about his analysis? It seems surprising but he is the first author that we have approached that has attempted to quantitatively operationalize part of his study. But doesn’t it seem odd that when studying integration theory you would use mail as one of your variables? But this idea kept making spontaneous appearances throughout the text, a common postal service throughout the North Atlantic. But let me remind you that this was 1957 and the mail was still an important way of communication. That leads me to another question about what would Deutsch write about today. Aren’t we living in the digital age of communication, i.e. the internet? Could you ask for a better, faster, easier way of communication? Albeit, one has to take information from the internet with a grain of salt, but it does serve a function. It serves to bring people, their ideas, and their cultures closer together.
Also, would Deutsch change his focus away from a North-Atlantic integration, essentially a strengthening of NATO, toward the blossoming Euro zone? He does mention the European Coal and Steel community in a few instances but this “experiment” has proved successful with leaps and bounds. Meanwhile NATO, not so much. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, like Deutsch had predicted, NATO was an organization without purpose, an organization in peril. NATO never made any movement toward further integration. It staunchly remained a military organization for determent. The EU was not created for military purposes and through functionalism it has gained greater and greater authority in the socio-political realm.
posted by Holly at 8:49 AM
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