Does size matter? How important was the relative power of Britain and Norway for their governments' negotiation strategies for EC-membership in 1970-72

(Geir Almlid, University of East Anglia)

This paper compares the Norwegian and British governments' negotiations for membership of the European Community in 1970-72. By examining a wide range of archive documents, I determine what strategies were developed for the negotiations and what influenced the decision-makers when making them; and subsequently how these were acted out on the international stage. In my analysis I utilise a theoretical framework based on Putnam's model of two-level games to explain the different negotiation strategies. This reveals that a unitary-state approach as used in the realist tradition of international relations is ineffective: it was not each country's relative power and resources which determined its negotiation approach. Rather, we should investigate the domestic level in order to understand their negotiation behaviour. Then we see that it was in fact the small state (Norway) which chose the toughest negotiation line, as a result of strong pressures from important domestic constituents. In other words, the British government's win-set was significantly larger and consequently they were in a position where they could accept terms which were remarkably unfavourable in the short term, while the Norwegian government had their hands tied on the national political arena, leaving them little room for concessions in Brussels.