ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Neofunctionalism

Neofunctionalism is a big and complicated word that talks about how different groups of people, like countries, work together to solve problems.

Imagine you and your friends want to build a big treehouse. In order to do this, each one of you has to do something different. You may be in charge of finding the materials, while your friend is in charge of drawing up the plans. When everyone does their job, they all work together and the treehouse gets built.

In the same way, neofunctionalism says that different countries have to work together to solve problems. For example, if one country has a big problem with pollution, they can't solve it alone – they need help from other countries. Each country has to do its own job to help towards solving the overall problem.

But there's a catch. Neofunctionalism also says that when countries work together like this, they start to get more connected. They start to rely on each other more, and sometimes they even give up some of their own power to work together better.

So, it's like building the treehouse, but as you keep working together, you and your friends start to become more and more like a team. You might even start to have more fun working together than you do playing on your own!