Better the Devil you know? Synthetic and confederal understandings of European unification

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Abstract
In the wake of the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty there has been much work undertaken to improve the theorisation of both the politics of the European Union and the unification process under way in Western Europe. This article argues that the confederal account of the two proposed by Murray Forsyth has been mistakenly neglected, and that it is of greater relevance than the waning orthodox international relations‐derived theories of neo‐functionalism and neo‐realism. The current vogue for attempting a synthesis of the latter is evidence of their enfeebled condition, and has proved to be fruitless because the theories are united only in their increasingly evident redundancy. The emergence of a recognisable, if incomplete, Europolity after the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty must refocus attention on the confederal analysis; the price for theoretical rigour is the rejection of the familiar but unhelpful traditional frame of enquiry.