Ernst B. Haas

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Ernst Bernard Haas (* 1924 in Frankfurt am Main ; † March 6, 2003 ) was an American political scientist. He published numerous papers and essays in the field of international relations . He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1962), as a consultant to many international organizations and is considered a theoretical developer of neofunctionalism .

Life

Ernst Haas was born in Frankfurt am Main in Germany in 1924 and emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1938. He studied at the University of Chicago , but left the university to work in the secret service from 1943 to 1946. He then took up studies at Columbia University , which he completed in 1952 with a doctorate ( PhD ) in law and political science.

Haas was married to his wife Hildegarde Vogel Haas for 57 years. They have a son, Peter M. Haas, who is Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst .

academic career

Haas began his academic career at UC Berkeley in 1951 and remained with the university until his death. From 1969 to 1973 Haas was director of the chair for international relations, after which he continued to teach as professor for government research at the Department of Political Science. After Haas resigned his professorship in 1999, he continued to work as a researcher.

theory

Haas researched mainly on the topic of international integration . In his opinion, there was a possibility of a profound change in the politics and relationship of the European states to one another through the relocation of political competences to a new, supranational center. In this respect, he pleaded for a single market, but did not justify this according to the arguments of classic liberalism .

The guiding idea of ​​the neofunctionalism he founded, an approach to explaining integration, was rather: Form follows function. As long as the supranational center can perform certain political tasks better than the nation-states, the nation-states will further strengthen the supranational center and assign it additional powers. In this respect, Haas considers states to be influential in the international system. However, he expects interest groups and other national actors to recognize the problem-solving skills of the bureaucratic administration of regional organizations. As a result, the national actors develop new identities and shift their actions towards the supranational center. The consequences are, for example, changes in the behavior of actors in the event of a conflict of interest. If the actors recognize that they can implement their interests supranationally more effectively, they shift more and more decision-making power to supranational organizations, which from now on, sometimes with binding decision-making power, take care of problem solutions and implementation in more and more specific subject areas.

Haas' work was widely used as an explanatory approach to the rapid development and historic success of the European Union. However, the simplistic-mechanistic explanatory pattern on which it is based was criticized. In his later years, Haas tried to reinterpret neo-functionalism as a rational choice approach or theory of rational decision .

plant

  • 1952. The reconciliation of conflicting colonial policy aims: acceptance of the League of Nations mandate system. Int. Organ. 6 (4): 521-36
  • 1953. The balance of power as a guide to policy-making. J. Polit. 15 (3): 370-98
  • 1958. The Uniting of Europe. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press
  • 1961. International integration: the European and the universal process. Int. Organ. 15 (3): 366-92
  • 1964. Beyond the Nation State. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press
  • 1970. Human Rights and International Action. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press
  • 1978. Global Evangelism Rides Again: How to Protect Human Rights Without Really Trying. Univ. Calif. Policy Pap. 5, Berkeley, CA
  • 1990. When Knowledge is Power: Three Models of Change in International Organizations. Berkeley: Univ. Calif. Press
  • 1993. Beware the Slippery Slope: Notes Toward the Definition of Justifiable Intervention. Univ. Calif., Inst. Int. Stud. Policy Pap. 42, Berkeley, CA
  • 1997. Nationalism, Liberalism and Progress. Vol. 1. The Rise and Decline of Nationalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press
  • 2000. Nationalism, Liberalism and Progress. Vol. 2. The Dismal Fate of New Nations. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press
  • 2004. The Uniting of Europe. University of Notre Dame Press, New edition of the book with a foreword v. EB Haas (= PDF download of the full text in the "100 books" edition of the European Parliament)

Web link

Individual evidence

  1. ^ René Mono: One political space, many languages, what public. : Questions about the potential and restrictions of the public in transnational political areas using the example of the European Union. Münster, 2008.
personal data
SURNAME Haas, Ernst B.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Haas, Ernst Bernard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American political scientist
DATE OF BIRTH 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH March 6, 2003