Online ISSN 2286-0266
Print ISSN 1223-0685
© 2025 Œconomica by ASE & SOREC
 
Matei Alexandru APĂVĂLOAEI
Academia de Studii Economice din Bucureşti
This paper is going to argue that economic integration is a distinct phenomenon from political integration and that the latter can only impede the first. On the one hand, economic integration is best understood as an extension and intensification of the division of labour, which, in the absence of any political barriers that artificially separate two regions, will be pushed to their praxeological limits by entrepreneurs seeking profit. On the other hand, we will argue that political integration is a manifestation of political cooperation among political entrepreneurs that operate in different territories in order to limit international political competition. Because political integration reduces the stringencies that constrain the actions of political entrepreneurs, it should be seen as representing a factor that acts against economic integration, not one that is conducive to it.

ŒCONOMICA no. 1-2/2018
Keywords: praxeology, economic integration, political integration, praxeological theory of politics, counterfactual, political entrepreneurship
JEL: B53, F15, F50
Economic and Political Integration: Does One Require the Other?