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Britain has frequently been portrayed as a ?reluctant European?. But does this mean that it is also a reluctant supranationalist? This question is explored: (a) by contextualising the type of supranationalism experienced within the European Union by reference to a range of other examples; (b) by examining historic British attitudes to supranationalism, and British experience of supranational entities on rather different lines from that of the EU. In the process issues of sovereignty, management and accountability within supranational entities are also considered. The paper concludes by arguing that Britain is not a reluctant supranationalist. The key variable is seen as the way in which sovereignty is handled ambiguously in the EU, whilst it is argued that supranationalism in the British imagination and experience has used ambiguity for other purposes, but the locus of sovereignty has been clear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europeanization has brought radical change to the governance practices of all EU member-states, which have in turn clashed with traditional ideas about democracy. These changes in practices and challenges to ideas have profoundly affected all EU member states, but some more so than others, largely as a question of ?institutional fit.? The EU, as a ?compound? supranational polity in which governing activity is highly diffused through multiple authorities, has been more disruptive to ?simple? national polities such as Britain and France, in which governing activity has traditionally been channeled through a single authority, than to ?compound? national polities such as Germany and Italy, in which it has traditionally also been diffused through multiple authorities. The main problem for EU member-states, however, is not so much that practices have changed and that ideas have been challenged than that national leaders have generally failed to come up with new ideas and discourse that reflect the new Europeanized realities. But here, too, institutional differences matter, although to differing effect. Simple polities have greater potential for speaking to changes in practices and challenges to ideas, were they to so choose, because their concentration of authority ensures them a more elaborate ?communicative? discourse to the general public, in which they are better able to speak in one voice and to convey a single message than more compound national polities, let alone the EU, given the number of potentially authoritative voices with differing messages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]