The European Community and devolution in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

Within the context of evolving superpower relations between 1945 and 1990, this dissertation postulates that: The European Community's united external trade policy towards Central and Eastern Europe has weakened the cohesion of, and contributed to the devolution of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance into its national entities.The EC's common policy has inhibited the execution of CMEA's goals of "socialist economic integration." Devolution includes the incapacity of member states, their respective bureaucracies, their political leadership, or the organization itself to formulate, approve and implement policy which is binding upon all members. Thus an inability to enforce a binding policy of socialist economic integration, or any form of integration unique to the relevant organization, and the toleration of foreign economic policy divergences among members, all indicate fragmentation into nation states.By outlining six mechanisms of devolution, this dissertation adds to knowledge about the effect of integrative spheres upon neighboring non-member states. The findings are significant in three areas. Firstly, the theory of devolution and the EC-CMEA case study reveal aspects of a systemic transformation in Europe. Secondly, sovereignty and the role of the state were discussed in the context of supranationalism and the regaining of independence. Finally, this project has implications for integration theory in that existing studies have neglected the effect of integrative spheres upon each other, and have certainly not commented on destructive tendencies.This study demonstrated that between 1958 and 1990, active and passive EC external policies, have encouraged and exploited schisms existing in CMEA. A strictly bilateral, differentiated policy, which did not grant CMEA any powers equivalent to the EC, stimulated CMEA members to seek their own national economic interests through contacts with the EC. From a theoretical perspective, integrative organizations have a devolutionary effect upon other international integrative bodies, in addition to any positive influence commonly cited in integration literature.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio