Abstract
At the opening of this chapter, it is worth emphasizing that the prevalent mood nowadays surrounding European integration is one of gloom and doom, and instead of grandiloquent proclamations and calls for further political, economic, and social integration from European elites, the general consensus is for the desirability of settling for the ‘consolidation’ of ‘historical achievements.’ But if the EU’s failed Constitutional Treaty in 2005 contributed to such sentiments among European elites, and at the present time of writing, the debt crisis and its political effects have led to the rise of the extreme right opposing European integration in several member states, the crisis of European integration is nothing new. Already, at the beginning of the 1990s, a tension between two major tendencies in the project of European integration was becoming increasingly evident. At the same time as the EU’s competences were extended and the EU moved from intergovernmental to supranational modes of decisionmaking in a number of policy areas, ‘Euroskepticism’ was seemingly on the rise across virtually all of its member states. The so-called ‘permissive consensus,’ i.e. the utilitarian belief that as long as European integration was understood to be correlated to increasing economic prosperity it was broadly supported at the mass level, which was thought to have enabled European integration ever since the creation of the ECSC in the early 1950s, could no longer be taken for granted in the 1990s and into the 2000s.1
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
E. Best (2005) ‘In Search of the Lost Constitution: The EU Between Direct Democracy and the Permissive Consensus,’ EIPAScope 2, pp. 5–13.
H. Friese and P. Wagner (2002) ‘Survey Article: The Nascent Political Philosophy of the European Polity,’ Journal of Political Philosophy 10, no. 3, pp. 342–64.
R. Bellamy and D. Castiglione (2003) ‘Legitimizing the Euro-"Polity” and Its “Regime:” The Normative Turn in EU Studies,’ European Journal of Political Theory 2, no. 1, pp. 7–34.
A. Föllesdal (2006) ‘Survey Article: The Legitimacy Deficits of the European Union,’ Journal of Political Philosophy 14, no. 4, pp. 441–68.
J. Neyer and A. Wiener (2011) ‘Introduction: The State of the Art of a Non-State-Oriented Political Theory,’ in J. Neyer and A. Wiener (eds.) Political Theory of the European Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 1–18.
E. O. Eriksen and J. E. Fossum (eds.) (2012) ‘Europe’s Challenge. Reconstituting Europe or Reconfiguring Democracy?’ Rethinking Democracy and the European Union (London and New York: Routledge), p. 29.
D. M. Curtin (1997) Postnational Democracy: The European Union in Search of a Political Philosophy (The Hague: Kluwer).
A. Föllesdal and P. Koslowski (eds.) (1997) Democracy and the European Union (Berlin: Springer-Verlag).
D. N. Chryssochoou (1998) Democracy in the European Union (London: I. B. Taurus).
A. Weale and M. Nentwich (eds.) (1998) Political Theory and the European Union: Legitimacy, Constitutional Choice and Citizenship (London and New York: Routledge).
D. Beetham and C. Lord (1998) Legitimacy and the European Union (London: Longman).
T. Banchoff and M. P. Smith (eds.) (1999) Legitimacy and the European Union (London and New York: Routledge).
F.W. Scharpf (1999) Governing in Europe: Effective and Democratic? (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
J. H. Weiler (1999) The Consti-tution of Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
P. C. Schmitter (2000) How to Democratize Europe and Why Bother (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield).
A. Föllesdal (2001) ‘Union Citizenship: Conceptions, Conditions, and Preconditions,’ Law and Philosophy 20, no. 3, pp. 233–7.
A. Warleigh (2003) Democracy in the European Union. Theory, Practice and Reform (London: Sage).
L. Dobson and A. Föllesdal (2004) (eds.) Political Theory and the European Constitution (London and New York: Routledge).
J. Neyer and A. Wiener (2011) (eds.) Political Theory of the European Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
I. Manners (2013) ‘European Commu-nion: Political Theory of European Union,’ Journal of European Public Policy 20, no. 4, pp. 473–94.
W. Walters and J. H. Haahr (2005) Governing Europe. Discourse, Governmentality and European Integration (Abingdon and New York: Routledge), p. 66.
P. Andersson (2009) The New Old World (London: Verso).
J. Nye (2002) The Paradox of American Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 33.
A. Föllesdal (2006) ‘EU Legitimacy and Normative Political Theory,’ in M. Cini and A. Bourne (eds.) Palgrave Advances in European Union Studies (Houndmills: Palgrave), pp. 152–3.
R. Bellamy with C. Attucci (2009) ‘Normative Theory and the EU: Between Contract and Community,’ in A. Wiener and T. Diez (eds.) European Integration Theory, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 198.
J. Bowman (2006) ‘The European Union Democratic Deficit. Federalists, Skeptics, and Revisionists,’ European Journal of Political Theory 5, no. 2, pp. 191–212.
C. Lord (1998) Democracy in the European Union (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press), p. 11.
A. Smith (1992), ‘National Identity and the Idea of European Unity,’ International Affairs 68, no. 1, pp. 55–76.
D. Grimm (1995) ‘Does Europe Need a Constitution?’ European Law Journal 1, no. 3, pp. 282–302.
L. Siedentop (2000) Democracy in Europe (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Press).
P. Schlesinger and J. E. Fossum (eds.) (2007) ‘Communicative Practices and a European Public Sphere,’ The European Union and the Public Sphere. A Communicative Space in the Making? (Abingdon and New York: Routledge), p. 22.
V. Boon (2007) ‘Jürgen Habermas’s Writings on Europe: Not Habermasian Enough?’ Ethical Perspectives: Journal of the European Ethics Network, 14, no. 3, pp. 287–310.
J. Bowman (2007) ‘Challenging Habermas’s Response to the European Union Democratic Deficit,’ Philosophy and Social Criticism, 33, no. 6, pp. 736–55.
O. Parker (2012) ‘The Ethics of an Ambiguous Cosmopolitics: Citizens and Entrepreneurs in the European Project,’ International Theory 4, no. 2, p. 216.
E. O. Eriksen and J. E. Fossum (eds.) (2000) Democracy in the European Union: Integration Through Deliberation? (London and New York: Routledge).
E. O. Eriksen, J. E. Fossum and A. J. Menéndez (eds.) (2004) Developing a Constitution for Europe (London and New York: Routledge).
E. O. Eriksen (2009) The Unfinished Democratization of Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
E. O. Eriksen and J. E. Fossum (eds.) (2012) Rethinking Democracy and the European Union (London and New York: Routledge).
J. E. Fossum (2003) ‘The European Union. In Search for an Identity,’ European Journal of Political Theory 2, no. 3, p. 322.
E. O. Eriksen and J. E. Fossum (eds.) (2000) ‘Post-National Integration,’ Democracy in the European Union, p. 18–19.
E. O. Eriksen (2006) ‘The EU — a Cosmopolitan Polity?’ Journal of European Public Policy 13, no. 2, p. 266.
U. Beck and E. Grande (2007) ‘Cosmopolitanism. Europe’s Way Out of Crisis,’ European Journal of Social Theory, 10, no. 1, pp. 67–85.
R. Miliband (1994) Socialism for a Sceptical Age (London: Verso).
T. Diez (2013) ‘Normative Power as Hegemony,’ Cooperation and Conflict 48, no. 2, pp. 194–210.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2015 Stefan Borg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Borg, S. (2015). Political Theory Meets European Integration Studies. In: European Integration and the Problem of the State. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137409331_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137409331_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-48861-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-40933-1
eBook Packages: Palgrave Intern. Relations & Development CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)