By contrast with neo-functionalists, the intergovernmentalist image suggested that ‘the bargaining and consensus building techniques which have emerged in the Communities are mere refinements of intergovernmental diplomacy’ (Webb 1977: 18).
And indeed, the early editions of Policy-Making in the European Communities found significant evidence of intergovernmental bargaining as the dominant mode of policy-making in many (but not all) issue areas.
Liberal intergovernmentalism
The period from the mid-1960s through the mid-1980s has been characterized as ‘the doldrums era’, both for the integration process and for scholarship on the EU (Keeler 2004; Jupille 2005). While a dedicated core of EU scholars continued to advance the empirical study of the EU during this period, much of this work either eschewed grand theoretical claims about the integration process or accepted with minor modifications the theoretical language of the neo-functionalist/intergovernmentalist debate. With the ‘relaunching’ of the integration process in the mid-1980s, however, scholarship on the EU exploded, and the theoretical debate was revived. While some of this scholarship viewed the relaunching of the integration process as a vindication of earlier neo-functionalist models (Tranholm-Mikkelsen 1991; Zysman and Sandholtz 1989), Andrew Moravcsik (1993a, 1998) argued influentially that even these steps forward could be accounted for by a revised intergovernmental model emphasizing the power and preferences of EU member states. In other words, Moravcsik’s ‘liberal intergovernmentalism’ is a three-step model, which combines: (1) a liberal theory of national preference formation with; (2) an intergovernmental model of EU-level bargaining; and (3) a model of institutional choice emphasizing the role of international institutions in providing ‘credible commitments’ for member governments. In the first or liberal stage of the model, national chiefs of government (COGs) aggregate the interests of their domestic constituencies, as well as their own interests, and articulate their respective national preferences toward the EU. Thus, national preferences are complex, reflecting the distinctive economics, parties, and institutions of each member state, but they are determined domestically, not shaped by participation in the EU, as some neo-functionalists had proposed.