Idiosyncrasy and integration: suggestions from comparative political economy

There is a growing consensus in comparative political economy that 'globalization' is not eliminating the distinctive character of specific nation-states. Even in Europe, where formal integration between countries is most profound, nation-states remain idiosyncratic. Starting from this consensus, the questions I ask are: (a) how can we explain the coincidence of national idiosyncrasy and international integration; (b) what does our explanation tell us about processes of European integration? The answers, I argue, lie in two theoretical traditions -- one stemming from Karl Polanyi's (1957) insistence on the social embeddedness of market institutions and the other from Gunnar Myrdal's (1956) interpretation of the cumulative causality behind integration at the national and international levels. Although well received in other areas, neither tradition has played much of a role in the study of the European Union. The article concludes by suggesting a research program that could develop from the interface between idiosyncrasy and integration.