Towards an Imperfect Union mounts a formidable defense of the rationale of the European project. Mr. Rohac also makes a powerful metaphysical argument for maintaining the union. Conservatives tend to be skeptical of radical and irreversible change. The consequences of breaking up the European Union are not foreseeable and could very well be unpleasant. Stepping into the unknown in this way, Mr. Rohac concludes, is not something that any true conservative should be doing.

The Wall Street Journal

In seven short chapters that are accessible and well documented, Rohac explains how the EU has generated unprecedented peace, democracy, and economic growth in Europe. Progress such as this would not have been possible with authoritarian tendencies, belligerence, and protectionism. The book warns of similarities between the pushback to a stronger EU and the isolationism of the interwar period that contributed to WW II. Because of this danger, Rohac debunks the arguments that attract European conservatives to become Euro-skeptics: loss of national sovereignty, excessive bureaucratic regulation, or too much power given to economic elites. Rohac looks at current European trends: the endless Euro crisis, growing resistance to the free movement of people, and the absence of a common asylum and border policy. Backed by an extensive cohort of conservative thinkers, Rohac argues that the solution is a more powerful set of European institutions. This conclusion may seem counterintuitive because nowadays many conservatives embrace nationalistic sentiments. Nevertheless, the analysis is solid. In the final chapter, Rohac recommends changes to EU institutions to improve levels of citizen representation and, of course, economic growth.

Summing Up:Recommended. General readers; lower- and upper-division undergraduates.

Choice Reviews

[Rohac] argues persuasively that the EU is a force for peace and prosperity that, on balance, promotes the precepts of the libertarian philosopher Friedrich Hayek. He argues that rather than seek to weaken Brussels, conservatives should work to strengthen and reform EU institutions. Rohac does not paper over the union’s flaws, especially the growth- inhibiting euro. But he concludes that the answer to Europe’s problems is more union, not less…. [His] book is an original corrective to unthinking (and often mendacious) Euroskepticism on the right.

Foreign Affairs

What makes this volume a ‘conservative case’ is that, in the grand sweep of European history, the past 70 years of steady integration have been the most peaceful and productive. This is not, Rohac argues, a coincidence, and those Euroskeptics who believe that not merely halting but reversing the integrationist trend would produce even better outcomes are falling for a 'nirvana fallacy.' That's usually a criticism directed at starry-eyed leftists, but here it fits: For far from being 'conservative,' undoing the EU would be fundamentally radical, as it is 'difficult to think of any more ambitious, larger-scale alteration of the existing political order in Europe than that of discarding the project of European integration altogether.'

The Weekly Standard

The free-market argument against Brexit is laid out in a new book ... by Dalibor Rohac.... Rohac, a native of Slovakia, is a true-blue conservative who wrote a series of articles harshly criticizing EU policies such as farm subsidies. While standing by those criticisms, he writes that ‘in the past two years, I have come to the realization that, for all its flaws, the European project has been beneficial for the continent.... To keep the European project alive,’ Rohac writes, ‘it has to be turned into a visible—in fact, anostentatious—engine of economic prosperity.’ He argues for making the EU more democratically governed, decreasing regulation, and increasing competition. Member nations should do more to get their fiscal houses in order.

Bloomberg

Written prior to the British vote on European Union membership, this account of the rise of euroscepticism challenges what the author sees as the sceptics’ nationalist, fascist and protectionist rhetoric. Rohac believes that political conservatives should support the EU as a means of protecting democratic principles and advancing economic prosperity.

Survival: Global Politics and Strategy