Transparent compliance and clandestine cooperation in the EU: A comparative study of English and Belgian supranationalism utilising social fractal methodology

This thesis expands the definition of supranationalism as a theory which goes beyond the authority of hierarchically constructed state systems. As such, there are two state ideal types of Member States that provide transparency and democracy at the national level and those which provide non-transparency and bureaucracy at the supranational level. This thesis goes on to show that if the democratic deficit were eliminated and EU authority were transparent, then either the EU would become a superstate or return European politics to a system Realpolitik. The second half of this thesis posits two case studies and, utilising a novel approach this thesis calls Social Fractal Methodology, a study of two state cultures of administration provides evidence for the above theory as well as confirms the operationalisation of the state ideal types 'institutionalised' states and 'constructivist' states whose unit-level characteristics are shown to be accountability and culpability respectively. In the end, this thesis hopes to achieve a new prescription for the EU which, contrary to popular logic, depends on increasing non-transparency to increase cooperation.