The specific concern of this study is 'politicization' or the relationships between contests in national politics and the capacity for international cooperation.

Progress towards fiscal harmonization in the European Community is selected as the substantive focus for the study, although the object is to learn from the EC rather than about it.

The author argues that common EC policies usually reach fruition as complex compromises, derived from decisions based on the perceived effect on domestic politics and rivalries, rather than transnational neatness. Lack of...