Citizens in Europe : essays on democracy, constitutionalism and European integration

This interdisciplinary collection of essays by a constitutionalist and a political sociologist examines how fragmented societies can be held together by appropriate and effective constitutional arrangements providing for bonds of democratic citizenship. Exploring the political order dilemmas of capitalist democracies, the authors address moral and institutional prerequisites on which the deepening of European integration depends. The desirability of such deepening is currently contested, with the membership of some states (and their compliance with the spirit of the Union's treaties) at stake. The authors do not consider the 'renationalisation' of Europe to be a feasible (and even less so a desirable) way out of Europe's current malaise. Yet whatever the way out, charting it calls not just for the vision and imagination of political elites but also for the intellectual efforts of social scientists. With this book, Preuß and Offe contribute to those efforts. Key Features: - original insights on the nature of the European crisis - analysis of how fragmented societies can be held together by appropriate constitutional arrangements - how state sovereignty and federal structures can be merged - account of the moral prerequisites and resources of democratic polities - dilemmas of political order under democratic capitalism. Citizens in Europe; Contents; Chapter One The Union's Course: Between a Supranational Welfare State and Creeping Decay; Chapter Two The Significance of Cognitive and Moral Learning for Democratic Institutions; Chapter Three Democratic Institutions and Moral Resources; Chapter Four Crisis and Innovation of Liberal Democracy: Can Deliberation Be Institutionalised?; Chapter Five Democracy Against the Welfare State? Structural Foundations of Neoconservative Political Opportunities; Chapter Six Toward a New Understanding of Constitutions Chapter Seven The Political Meaning of ConstitutionalismChapter Eight Citizenship and Identity: Aspects of a Political Theory of Citizenship; Chapter Nine Competitive Party Democracy and the Keynesian Welfare State: Factors of Stability and Disorganisation; Chapter Ten Main Problems of Contemporary Theory of Democracy and the Uncertain Future of its Practice; Chapter Eleven Constitutionalism in Fragmented Societies: The Integrative Function of Constitutions; Chapter Twelve 'Homogeneity' and Constitutional Democracy: Coping with Identity Conflicts through Group Rights Chapter Thirteen Perspectives on Post-Conflict Constitutionalism: Reflections on Regime Change Through External ConstitutionalisationChapter Fourteen Is There, Or Can There Be, a 'European Society'?; Chapter Fifteen Problems of Constitution Making: Prospects of a Constitution for Europe; Chapter Sixteen Revisiting the Rationale Behind the European Union: The Basis of European Narratives Today and Tomorrow; Chapter Seventeen Citizenship in the European Union: A Paradigm for Transnational Democracy?; Chapter Eighteen The Democratic Welfare State in an Integrating Europe Chapter Nineteen The Constitution of a European Democracy and the Role of the Nation StateChapter Twenty The Problem of Legitimacy in the European Polity: Is Democratisation the Answer?; Chapter Twenty-One The European Model of 'Social' Capitalism: Can It Survive European Integration?; Chapter Twenty-Two Two Challenges to European Citizenship; Chapter Twenty-Three Europe Entrapped: Does the EU Have the Political Capacity to Overcome its Current Crisis?; Index

At a time when so many cracks have emerged within the imagined community of 'the West', this important new book, by one of the leading social scientists in Europe, examines the intellectual history of comparing Europe and the United States. Claus Offe considers the perspectives adopted by three of Europe's greatest social scientists – Alexis de Tocqueville, Max Weber and Theodor W. Adorno – in their comparative writings on Europe.
While traveling, studying and working in the US, all three constantly looked back to their European origins, trying to decipher from their American experience what the future may hold for Europe, be it for better or worse. Alexis de Tocqueville, the French aristocrat, observed the functioning of American democracy with a mix of admiration, envy and deep concerns about the fate of liberty in the 'democratic age'. Max Weber, the German sociologist, reported enthusiastically about the youthful energy he found in the United States, which, however, he saw as gradually succumbing to the stifling tendencies of European bureaucratization. Theodor W. Adorno, the critical theorist and refugee from Nazi Germany, observed with a sense of despair the workings of the American 'culture industry' which he equated to the totalitarian experience of Europe, only to switch to a much more favorable picture upon his return to Germany.
Europe and the US are conventionally assumed to share the same trajectory and develop according to some common pattern of 'occidental rationalism', with the observed differences resulting from mere lags and relative advances on one side or the other. In this insightful book, Offe questions the relevance of this paradigm to transatlantic relations today.

This interdisciplinary collection of essays by a constitutionalist and a political sociologist examines how fragmented societies can be held together by appropriate and effective constitutional arrangements providing for bonds of democratic citizenship. Exploring the political order dilemmas of capitalist democracies, the authors address moral and institutional prerequisites on which the deepening of European integration depends. The desirability of such deepening is currently contested, with the membership of some states (and their compliance with the spirit of the Union's treaties) at stake. The authors do not consider the "renationalisation" of Europe to be a feasible (and even less so a desirable) way out of Europe's current malaise. Yet whatever the way out, charting it calls not just for the vision and imagination of political elites but also for the intellectual efforts of social scientists. With this book, Preuß and Offe contribute to those efforts.-- Provided by Publisher The management of contemporary public affairs involves many different centres of social power, engaged in complex and mutable relations, ranging from willing cooperation, to competition, to out-and-out conflict. This book emphasises the role played in these relations by political institutions in particular. Generally, these claim a special competence to authorise and regulate the activities of other institutions, but their claim is often contested by other power centres, serving different and sometimes contrasting interests. To explore those processes, the author, after identifying the nature of 'the political', considers its dealings with other forms of social power. Among these, economic power gets particular attention, in view of the contemporary salience of the 'state vs market' issue. But this book also considers the relations between politics at one end, and law, the public sphere, citizenship, and religion at the other.-- Provided by Publisher "Until recently, liberalism was, according to Karl Polanyi, embedded within civil society, working closely with a democratic state intent on addressing, in solidarity, the social risks associated with modern capitalism. Modern relations between society and the state have been, at best, ones of shared language and goals rather than necessary conflict. Already under the polizeistaat, absolutist rulers took, in their own way, the care of their population as central to their rule. The welfare state was only the most innovative embodiment of such collective concerns. Today's neoliberalism is, to the contrary, a subversion of liberal embeddedness. It is the utopia of market fundamentalism intent, by the power of its perversity narrative of the past, on replacing socially embedded market and government with a dispiriting, socially isolating Malthusian project. "--Site web de l'éditeur Until recently, liberalism was, according to Karl Polanyi, embedded within civil society, working closely with a democratic state intent on addressing, in solidarity, the social risks associated with modern capitalism. Modern relations between society and the state have been, at best, ones of shared language and goals rather than necessary conflict. Already under the polizeistaat, absolutist rulers took, in their own way, the care of their population as central to their rule. The welfare state was only the most innovative embodiment of such collective concerns. Today's neoliberalism is, to the contrary, a subversion of liberal embeddedness. It is the utopia of market fundamentalism intent, by the power of its perversity narrative of the past, on replacing socially embedded market and government with a dispiriting, socially isolating Malthusian project -- Provided by Publisher Until recently, liberalism was, according to Karl Polanyi, embedded within civil society, working closely with a democratic state intent on addressing, in solidarity, the social risks associated with modern capitalism. Modern relations between society and the state. Today's neoliberalism is, to the contrary, a subversion of liberal embeddedness. It is the utopia of market fundamentalism intent, by the power of its perversity narrative of the past, on replacing socially embedded market and government with a dispiriting, socially isolating Malthusian project.have been, at best, ones of shared language and goals rather than necessary conflict. Already under the polizeistaat, absolutist rulers took, in their own way, the care of their population as central to their rule. The welfare state was only the most innovative embodiment of such collective concerns. What kind of unity can fragmented and 'post-national' societies achieve in and through the EU? These essays, by two prominent German scholars from the fields of democratic constitutionalism and political sociology, ask questions designed to elicit some answers Giuseppe Di Palma. Includes Bibliographical References (pages [113]-118) And Index.