Paper Titles & Abstracts

The paper scrutinises what European integration experience tells us about the conditions conducive to furthering integration in an uncertain situation and compares this to the experience of another regional organisation, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).I employ two key notions of historical institutionalism, critical junctures and path-dependency to interpret what European integration experience tells us about the effects of crises on regional integration. I look into two crucial periods, (1950s and late 1980s-early 1990s) that witnessed momentous changes at the political, economic and societal architecture of Europe. In both cases integration between the EC member states was furthered. This allows me to spell out some crucial impacts of crises on regional organisations by analysing the effects on the institutions created. With these in mind, I next look into the experience of the GCC. I analyse the protests in Bahrain in early 2011 (as part of the crisis triggered by the 'Arab spring') in terms of its potential effects on integration within the GCC and examine the similarity of the circumstances in 2011 to the situation in the late 1970s-early 1980s when the Council was established. Hence, I identify factors conducive to furthering integration in conditions of uncertainty. However, the examination of the two organisations also shows a crucial difference when the substance of their integration, exemplified by the characteristics identifying their institutions, is taken into account. Thus, the paper highlights substance of integration as a crucial difference between regional organisations, which has not been given sufficient attention in current scholarly literature. Nevertheless, I argue that taking this factor into account is paramount if we are to get a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of crises on regional organisations.