Dhaka, Feb. 21 -- Ernst B. Haas coined the theory of neo-functionalism to describe the European integration project. Haas later declared the theory obsolete after Charles De Gaulle's empty chair politics. The European Coal and Steel Community personified the neo-functionalist understanding of integration. From a coal and steel community, the European project progressively became an economic and political union which is now described by a multitude of theoretical approaches, including the regulatory approach, international regime analysis, liberal inter-governmentalism, the policy-network approach, multilateral governance, institutionalism, rationalism, constructionism, reflectivism and post-modernism.

A common refrain nowadays is that "A...