Under Construction @ Keele 2019 summer 2019, vol 5 issue 1 | Page 27

Menz neglects to remedy another criticism to do with RCI. Specifically, its inability to predict
future policy developments. 29 For example, his empirical data is grounded in past decision-
making, which is to say that his argument cannot be generalised to migration policy. Given
the failure of various EU initiatives to successfully resolve the refugee crisis, which escalated
later in 2015—the same year Menz’s article was published—it is difficult to apply his
framework in order to prove that the Commission is still the ‘agent’ leading the development
of immigration policy. 30
The analytical frameworks adopted by all three authors are very successful in their
attempt to explain the development of immigration policy, since they are both consistent
with the theoretical assumptions of Liberal Intergovernmentalism and Rational-Choice
Institutionalism. A comparison between these two theories raises the following conclusion:
developments in immigration policy are driven by national preferences of member states,
established by Givens and Luedtke, and by the Commission – dependent on the strategic
interests of its members in areas of control policy, as suggested by Menz. Combining two
theories is an act beneficial to European integration theory. Theoretical explanations should
not be overarching, universal, but rather a useful conglomerate of different theories.
Combining various theories, including grand theories (such as LIG) and mainstream theories
(including RCI), offers a varied toolkit for analysing and explaining integration on different
areas and levels of the EU. Now, more than ever, integration theory must respond to new
challenges—such as the refugee crisis—in a diverse, interdisciplinary way.
29
Mark Aspinwall and Gerald Schneider, The Rules of Integration: Institutionalist Approaches to the Study of
Europe (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), 15.
30
Munir Hussain, The European Union: On the Verge of Global Political Leadership (Germany: Springer, 2016),
91.
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