Weber, Habermas, and transformations of the European state : constitutional, social, and supranational democracy

This book critically engages Jürgen Habermas's comprehensive vision of constitutional democracy in the European Union. John P. McCormick draws on the writings of Max Weber (and Habermas's own critique of them) to confront the difficulty of theorizing progressive politics during moments of radical state transformation. Both theorists employ normative and empirical categories, drawn from earlier historical epochs, to analyze contemporary structural transformations: Weber evaluated the emergence of the Sozialstaat with antedated categories derived from nineteenth-century and premodern historical examples; while Habermas understands the EU almost exclusively in terms of the liberal (Rechtsstaat) and welfare state (Sozialstaat) paradigms. Largely forsaking the focus on structural transformation that characterized his early work, Habermas conceptualizes the EU as a territorially expanded nation-state. McCormick demonstrates the deficiencies of such an approach and outlines a more appropriate normative-empirical model, the supranational Sektoralstaat, for evaluating prospects for constitutional and social democracy in the EU. Cover 1 Half-title 3 Title 5 Copyright 6 Dedication 7 Contents 9 Acknowledgments 11 Abbreviations 15 Weber, Habermas, and Transformations of the European State: Constitutional, Social, and Supranational Democracy 17 1 Introduction: Theorizing Modern Transformations of Law and Democracy 19 1. Critical Theory and Structural Transformations 24 2. Critical Theory and the Supranational Constellation 30 3. Chapter Outline 34 4. Law, Democracy, and State Transformation Today 42 2 The Historical Logic(s) of Habermas’s Critique of Weber’s “Sociology of Law” 45 1. The Fragility of Legal-Rational Legitimacy 48 2. Moral Underpinnings of Formal Law 49 3. The Possibility of Rationally Coherent Sozialstaat Law 52 4. Secularization, Commodification, and History 61 Excursus: The Transformation of Habermas’s Theory of History 67 5. Philosophy of History and the Sociology of Law 77 Conclusion 85 3 The Puzzle of Law, Democracy, and Historical Change in Weber’s “Sociology of Law” 88 1. The Public–Private Law Distinction and “Modern” Law 92 2. History as Confirmation/Contestation of Legal Categories 99 3. Legal History as Contrast/Continuity with the Present 101 4. Legal Limits on Power: Separation and Application 107 5. Organizations, Special Law, the Law of the Land 115 6. Weber, Law, and Social Change 122 7. Formal and Substantive Rationalization of Law 125 8. Formal versus Substantive Law and the Sozialstaat 131 Conclusion 142 4 Habermas’s Deliberatively Legal Sozialstaat: Democracy, Adjudication, and Reflexive Law 144 1. Habermas on Language and Law, Lifeworld and System 146 2. Beyond Formalist and Vitalist Notions of Constitutional Democracy 150 3. Rational and Democratically Accessible Adjudication 158 4. Selecting Nineteenth- or Twentieth-Century Paradigms of Law 172 5. Conceptual Paradigms and Historical Configurations of Law 186 Conclusion 192 5 Habermas on the EU: Normative Aspirations, Empirical Questions, and Historical Assumptions 194 1. Global Problems to Be Solved by EU Democracy 198 2. The History of the State as a Guide to the Present 210 3. The Form and Content of EU Democracy 223 4. Critical-Historical Limits of Habermas’s Theory of EU Democracy 237 Conclusion 247 6 The Structural Transformation to the Supranational Sektoralstaat and Prospects for Democracy in the EU 249 1. Legal Integration and the Supranationalist Model 254 2. State Centrism – EU Law Constrained 263 3. The European Sektoralstaat Model 268 (a) Legally Facilitated Race to the Bottom or Stroll to the Top? 269 (b) Comitology – Open, Public, and Equitable Deliberation? 283 (c) Multiple Policy Europes – Out of One, Many? 297 4. Democracy, the EU Sektoralstaat, and Further Questions 302 7 Conclusion: Habermas’s Philosophy of History and Europe’s Future 305 Index 313 This book critically engages Jurgen Habermas's comprehensive vision of constitutional democracy in the European Union. John P. McCormick draws on the writings of Max Weber (and Habermas's own critique of them) to confront the difficulty of theorizing progressive politics during moments of radical state transformation. Both theorists employ normative and empirical categories, drawn from earlier historical epochs, to analyze contemporary structural transformations: Weber evaluated the emergence of the Sozialstaat with antedated categories derived from nineteenth-century and premodern historical examples; while Habermas understands the EU almost exclusively in terms of the liberal (Rechtsstaat) and welfare state (Sozialstaat) paradigms. Largely forsaking the focus on structural transformation that characterized his early work, Habermas conceptualizes the EU as a territorially expanded nation-state. McCormick demonstrates the deficiencies of such an approach and outlines a more appropriate normative-empirical model, the supranational Sektoralstaat, for evaluating prospects for constitutional and social democracy in the EU

This book draws on the writings of Max Weber and JÃ1⁄4rgen Habermas to trace the relationship of law and democracy in three configurations of the European state: the liberal state (or Rechtsstaat), the welfare state (Sozialstaat), and the emerging supranational polity represented by the European Union. John P. McCormick exposes the tendency of social and political theorists to reach back unreflectively to the past and outlines a new, more appropriate normative-empirical model, the supranational Sektoralstaat, for evaluating prospects for constitutional and social democracy in the EU.

John P. McCormick critically engages Jürgen Habermas's comprehensive vision of constitutional democracy in the European Union. He draws on the writings of Max Weber to confront the difficulty of theorising progressive politics during moments of radical state transformation

This book confronts the difficulty of theorizing progressive politics during radical state transformation.