An Analysis On The Reasons Why Irish Referendum Said NO To The Lisbon Treaty

The EU,known as a political laboratory of mankind,is emerging as a new form of social organization in human history.It is the first time for the international community to explore a new governance model that makes the member states transfer the sovereignty in certain areas to the EU,an independent body,which is on behalf of the entire EU member states and the interests of EU citizens.This transfer leads to a new decision-making mechanism and political philosophy: from the nation-state's independent decision-making to the EU's joint decision-making at the EU level and district level;from the rule of the nations to the common governance of EU.In this new form of social organization,it is inevitable to form a conflict between the member states' national interests and the arrangements of supranational mechanisms.The twists and turns of EU political integration process have confirmed the existence of such conflicts on many occasions.The Irish referendum against Lisbon Treaty in June 2008 was the latest frustration in the process of European political integration,which put the process of the EU constitution integration into deadlock.Why does the European political integration suffer repeated obstructions?This thesis holds that the reasons for Irish referendum against Lisbon Treaty Irish owe to the conflict between the member states' national interests and the arrangements of supranational mechanisms.With the help of basic hypotheses from Intergovernmentalism and liberal Intergovernmentalisrn,this thesis analyzes the adverse influences from the Lisbon Treaty's supra-national institutional arrangements upon Ireland's national interests from the two perspectives of the geo-political preference and economic interests.And then this thesis will demonstrate the different interpretations on national interests raised by different parts of Irish society through analyzing the power structure of the Irish society and show how these powers make their impacts on the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in 2008.This thesis finds that the supranational institutional arrangements of Lisbon Treaty have deeply intervened in the sovereignty field of all the EU member states.The intensions between national interests and supranational mechanisms are increasing among EU now and the discontents from the social level on the supranational mechanism are steadily increasing too.Therefore,how to balance the interests of the EU member states and the supranational mechanisms becomes an urgent affair to be resolved in the EU's political integration process,which is also an interesting political phenomenon worthy of further studies.