A Political Theory of Identity in European Integration: Memory and Policies

ISBN-13: 9780415562911 / Angielski / Twarda / 2011 / 238 str.

Catherine Guisan

Opis

This book provides a path-breaking political theory of EU identity formation by drawing on an interpretative tradition that grounds political identities in the speeches and deeds of political actors. At important historical junctures between 1950 and 2009, this monograph probes stories of European actors with philosophical concepts developed by six major contemporary political theorists: Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, J rgen Habermas, Karl Jaspers, Paul Ricoeur and Charles Taylor, and detects three principles of action behind major EC/EU initiatives: reconciliation, power as action in concert and recognition of the other. Each chapter consists of a critical three-way dialogue among political theorists, actors, and their policies, drawing from 93 long interviews with elite actors (including Emma Bonino, Jacques Delors, Bronislaw Geremek, Max Kohnstamm, Doris Pack, Gy rgi Sch pflin), and memoirs and autobiographies of elite and non-elite actors. Making an important contribution to our understanding of the political tradition born of 60 years of European integration, and major works in democratic theory, this book will be of strong interest to students and scholars of European politics, contemporary democratic theory and EU studies.

There has been focusing considerable attention on the link between shared identity and political legitimacy in the last fifteen years but these studies take little account of memory. This is somewhat of a paradox given the large consensus among social scientists that political identities are constructed and that the facing up to history is closely related to democratization.

This book provides a political theory of EU identity formation and draws on an interpretative tradition that grounds political identities in the speeches and deeds of political actors. From 1950 to the present, this monograph probes stories of European actors with philosophical concepts developed by six major contemporary political theorists: Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, Jürgen Habermas, Karl Jaspers, Paul Ricoeur and Charles Taylor, to illuminate constitutive elements of the EU and EU identity formation.

Making an important contribution to our understanding of European integration, and a number of major works in democratic theory, this book will be of strong interest to students and scholars of European politics, political theory and EU studies.

Recenzje

'Guisan’s analysis claims a stronger focus on the theoretical implications of her findings for the process of European integration, [this] book is highly recommended: it proves that it is still possible to add new insights and findings to the existing literature dealing with issues of European identity.' - Alexander Reinfeldt, Universitat Hamburg, Germany

Spis treści

1. Principles of Action or Clichés? Why Hermeneutics Matters to European Integration  2. "After the Deluge": The Principle of Reconciliation  3. Remembering the Principle of Reconciliation: "Applications"  4. Of Power and Purgatory: Building the European Communities  5. Enlargements and the Recognition of the Other: The Case of Turkey  6. The Question of the Demos: Truth-Telling and Right-Speaking  7. EU Borders and the "Enlarged Mentality"

O autorze

Catherine Guisan is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota and the author of Un sens à l'Europe: Gagner la paix (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2003).