The Crisis of the European Union: A Response

The Crisis of the European Union: A Response

Language: English

Pages: 153

ISBN: B00IX5OX5C

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


Translated by Ciaran Cronin.

In the midst of the current crisis that is threatening to derail the historical project of European unification, Jürgen Habermas has been one of the most perceptive critics of the ineffectual and evasive responses to the global financial crisis, especially by the German political class. This extended essay on the constitution for Europe represents Habermas’s constructive engagement with the European project at a time when the crisis of the eurozone is threatening the very existence of the European Union. There is a growing realization that the European treaty needs to be revised in order to deal with the structural defects of monetary union, but a clear perspective for the future is missing. Drawing on his analysis of European unification as a process in which international treaties have progressively taken on features of a democratic constitution, Habermas explains why the current proposals to transform the system of European governance into one of executive federalism is a mistake. His central argument is that the European project must realize its democratic potential by evolving from an international into a cosmopolitan community. The opening essay on the role played by the concept of human dignity in the genealogy of human rights in the modern era throws further important light on the philosophical foundations of Habermas’s theory of how democratic political institutions can be extended beyond the level of nation-states.

Now that the question of Europe and its future is once again at the centre of public debate, this important intervention by one of the greatest thinkers of our time will be of interest to a wide readership.

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Expression; but as early as 1944 the International Labour Organization (ILO) employed the rhetoric of human dignity without qualification in a similar context.13 Moreover, just a few years later Article 22 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights already calls for guarantees of economic, social and cultural rights, so that every individual can live under conditions which are ‘indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality’.14 12 13 14 McCrudden speaks in similar.

Citizens reaches beyond the reciprocal moral recognition of responsible subjects; it has the concrete meaning of the respect demanded for a status that is deserved, and as such it is infused with the connotations of the ‘dignity’ which was associated in the past with membership in socially respected corporate bodies. (b) The concrete concept of dignity or of ‘social honour’ belongs to the world of hierarchically ordered traditional societies. In those societies a person could derive his dignity.

Individuals have “simply in virtue of their humanity”.’ Kenneth Baynes, ‘Toward a political conception of human rights’, p. 382. 100 HABERMAS PRINT.indd 100 01/03/2012 09:22 Appendix: The Europe of the Federal Republic The interview with Thomas Assheuer (I) was conducted after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and a couple of days before the anticipated election of Barack Obama as president of the United States, with which great hopes were associated. Themes are already struck in the.

However, the collapse of the Soviet Union led to a fatal triumphalism in the West. The feeling of being among the winners of world history is seductive. In this case it inflated a theory of economic policy into a worldview permeating all areas of life. Zeit: Neoliberalism is a form of life. All citizens are supposed to become entrepreneurs and customers . . . Habermas: . . . and competitors. The stronger, who win out in the free-for-all of the competitive society, can claim this success as their.

Doubt over whether the transnationalization of popular sovereignty is even possible.23 It goes without saying that imperatives which follow from the logic of democracy itself under changed conditions can be thwarted by reality. The most stubborn scepticism concerning a democratic legal domestication of political authority that reaches beyond national borders, however, is nourished by a collectivist misunderstanding which confuses popular and state sovereignty. This misconception, which occurs in.

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