The liberalization and reregulation of air transport

Abstract

We seek to explain the transfer of competence to govern, from national to supranational authorities, in air transport. We ask two questions. First, how and why did air transport come on to the European legislative agenda? Second, why did member state governments agree to divest themselves of control at the national level? In responding to these questions, we at times focus on the Council of Ministers, and therefore on intergovernmental stages of the legislative process. Such a focus, however, need not entail adopting inter governmentalist theories of integration. On the contrary, our case study broadly supports theoretical arguments developed by Stone Sweet and Sandholtz (1997), and corroborates recent research on the origins and evolution of supranational governance. We find that the intensity of transnational exchange and the pro-integrative behaviour of the European Community’s (EC’s) supranational organizations not only generated the context in which intergovernmental bargaining took place, but provoked the emergence of supranational governance. © 1998 Routledge.