The most dramatic developments in international institution-building took place soon after World War II. Institutions for European integration were part of this. The major turning points in European integration history throw light on how we understand the process: from the creation of NATO, on to the Schuman Plan of 1950, enlargement, the end of the Cold War, the introduction of the euro, new security policies. The current dilemmas for the EU and its member states show we must now re-examine what scholars and peoples understood by integration then, and now. Was the process driven by strategy, domestic politics, economics, ideology, sovereignty, democracy? Can the extraordinary phenomenon of Brexit help us understand better the impulses behind the EU over time?
