THE LIBERALIZATION AND REREGULATION OF AIR TRANSPORT

We seek to explain the transfer of competence to govern, from national to supranational authorities, in air transport. We ask two questions. First, how and why did air transport come on to the European legislat ive agenda? Second, why did member state governments agree to divest t hemselves of control at the national level? In responding to these que stions, we at times focus on the Council of Ministers, and therefore o n intergovernmental stages of the legislative process. Such a focus, h owever, need not entail adopting intergovernmentaIist theories of inte gration. On the contrary, our case study broadly supports theoretical arguments developed by Stone Sweet and Sandholtz (1997), and corrobora tes recent research on the origins and evolution of supranational gove rnance. We find that the intensity of transnational exchange and the p ro-integrative behaviour of the European Community's (EC's) supranatio nal organizations not only generated the context in which intergovernm ental bargaining took place, but provoked the emergence of supranation al governance.