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Examines problems posed by the history of the Rhineland region and its effects upon the foundation of the European Union.
The EU seeks to define a role for itself in power politics while remaining firm in its rejection of power politics. In order to make power compatible with the European project, EU debate has appended a number of progressive adjectives to the word "power," adjectives like "civilian" and "normative," among others. This book asks what is power, such that it can be modified, tamed, and modulated by adjectives, yet remain "powerful"? Loriaux passes EU debate on power through the mill of phenomenological and post-phenomenological analysis, juxtaposing it against writings by Machiavelli, Agamben, Thucydides, Nietzsche, Patocka, and Levinas. The book locates power in "power/play," the theatrical, staged representation of threat that generates aesthetic effect and undecidability. Power/play endows the word "power" with perlocutionary force, which the adjectives of EU "qualified" power actually enhance rather than moderate. Loriaux argues that EU discourse on power therefore risks inviting EU "exceptionalism," or risks lapsing into an expression of EU ressentiment, rather than advancing a new, progressive understanding of "power." If European Union is to remain steadfast in its opposition to power politics, it must represent itself as "anti-power." This book will be of interest to those who work in the area of EU foreign policy, as well as to those who have a more general theoretical interest in the concept of power.
This text provides a broad and deep analysis of the underlying assumptions governing modern European politics, and of the way European union works in reality. It argues that the plans to integrate Western Europe around a single currency are dangerous for democracy and the rule of law. It also contends that Western policy towards Eastern Europe and Russia is similarly misguided, and that the current drift will only encourage the hegemony of Russia over the West. John Laughland shows how the European idea was warmly embraced by Fascists and Nazis during World War II - especially in France, Germany and Belgium. He reiterates the essential link between free trade on the one hand, and democratic politics, nationhood and the rule of law on the other.
This book presents a new approach to studying the European Union’s regional and global relevance. It recasts into a dynamic perspective the three most significant systemic processes that define the EU as a regionalist project: its enlargement, neighborhood, and mega-regional policies. The book argues that these processes collectively demonstrate a dynamic shift of the core tenets of European regionalism from an inward-looking process of region building to an open, selective system of global interactions.
How should political community be seen in the context of European integration? This book combines a theoretical treatment of political allegiance with a study of ordinary citizens, examining how taxi-drivers in Britain, Germany and the Czech Republic talk politics and situate themselves relative to political institutions and other citizens.
This book provides a theoretical and historical examination of the speech and deeds of European founders. Using a fresh and innovative approach, this monograph connects political theory with concrete political practices based on empirical evidence, and theorizes the internal process of European reconciliations as it has been experienced by those involved. The book draws upon over 100 interviews, memoirs, autobiographies and essays of elite and grassroot actors across the history of the European Union, from the founding of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1950-2 to the 2010 financial crisis. It introduces the reader to major contemporary Western political thinkers, Hannah Arendt, Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor and Paul Ricoeur, and examines how their theories develop the interpretation of political phenomena such as European integration. As one of the first studies of EU memories, this approach opens a unique window of analysis to view the development of the European community, and makes a fascinating contribution to our understanding of the political tradition born of 60 years of European integration. A Political Theory of Identity in European Integration: Memory and Policies will be of strong interest to students and scholars of European politics, contemporary democratic theory and EU studies.
We are in the embrace of territorial shock today. Globalization with its migrants, foot-loose firms, cyber-war and surging income inequality induces political instability and longing for a `saviour'. This book puts such events in a historical perspective. New social trends collide with territorial principles (closure, identity, governance) that always have been taken for granted. Should we invest the new monarchs with the same authority as the pope (16th century) or accept other classes as co-citizens (19th century)? The answers implied a moral shift and so do our problems with globalization.
European unity is a dream that has appealed to the imagination since the Middle Ages. Its motives have varied from a longing for peace to a deep-rooted abhorrence of diversity, as well as a yearning to maintain Europe's colonial dominance. This book offers a multifaceted history that takes in account the European imagination in a global context.
When war broke out between France and Prussia in the summer of 1870, one of the first targets of the invading German armies was Strasbourg. From August 15 to September 27, Prussian forces bombarded this border city, killing hundreds of citizens, wounding thousands more, and destroying many historic buildings and landmarks. For six terror-filled weeks, “the city at the crossroads” became the epicenter of a new kind of warfare whose indiscriminate violence shocked contemporaries and led to debates over the wartime protection of civilians. The Siege of Strasbourg recovers the forgotten history of this crisis and the experiences of civilians who survived it. Rachel Chrastil shows that many of the defining features of “total war,” usually thought to be a twentieth-century phenomenon, characterized the siege. Deploying a modern tactic that traumatized city-dwellers, the Germans purposefully shelled nonmilitary targets. But an unintended consequence was that outsiders were prompted to act. Intervention by the Swiss on behalf of Strasbourg’s beleaguered citizens was a transformative moment: the first example of wartime international humanitarian aid intended for civilians. Weaving firsthand accounts of suffering and resilience through her narrative, Chrastil examines the myriad ethical questions surrounding what is “legal” in war and what rights civilians trapped in a war zone possess. The implications of the siege of Strasbourg far exceed their local context, to inform the dilemmas that haunt our own age—in which collateral damage and humanitarian intervention have become a crucial part of our strategic vocabulary.