This book offers a new framework for comparing experiences of integration: regionalization must be reinterpreted as an aspect of modernization, modernization unfolding also at the local, national and global levels. The contributors discuss how and why the different visions of modernity that inform modernization projects encouraged the construction (or rejection) of regional integration, at different times and in different places. It starts with an analysis of plans for the economic integration of Europe in the aftermath of World War I. It shows how integration was identified as the means to...

Europe sees itself as embodying the ideals of modernity, especially in relation to democracy and the respect for human rights. Faced on the one hand with the need for public recognition of a new population of Muslim identity, and the threat of violent radicalization on the other, Europe is falling prey to the politics of fear and is tempted to compromise on its professed ideals.

Reflecting on the manifestations and causes of the contemporary fear of Islam gaining ground in contemporary Europe, as well as on the factors contributing to the radicalization of some Muslims,...

Taking stock of the exhaustion at the concept of democracy limited to rights and identity, this book explores the work of French political philosopher Marcel Gauchet to interpret the contemporary crisis of European politics and the role played by imaginary constructs of Islam in the risk of ideological co-radicalization.