FROM NOSTALGIA TO UTOPIA: A GENEALOGY OF FRENCH CONCEPTIONS OF SUPRANATIONALITY (1848–1948)

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 707-736
Author(s):  
HUGO CANIHAC
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
European Union ◽  
International Law ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Intellectual Origins ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
International Thought

AbstractThis essay investigates the intellectual history of one of the purportedly most “revolutionary” concepts of post-1945 international thought—the concept of supranationality. While the literature has generally analyzed the concept as a direct continuation of progressive cosmopolitan ideas, or, to the contrary, as a political watchword formulated after 1945 to promote the European project, this essay highlights other, more ambiguous origins for the concept. It retraces the early uses of the concept in French debates. It argues that the irruption of supranationality in the political and legal vocabulary was far from revolutionary, as is typically claimed—without referring directly to the writings of the great classical philosophers. Rather, the concept drew on earlier discourses whose emergence can be identified in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century debates, ranging from Catholic thought to international law. To retrace the genealogy of supranationality in the decades preceding the supranational vogue of the 1950s contributes to illuminating the complex intellectual origins of the European Union and of international thought more generally.

What, Where and Why is Europe? Some Answers from Recent Historiography

2010 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 701-713 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Big Bang ◽  
The Political ◽  
Clear Definition ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Alexander Von Humboldt ◽  
Catching Up ◽  
History Of ◽  
Institutional Expansion ◽  
Definition Of

Writing the history of a continent is generally a tricky business. If the continent is not even a real continent, but rather ‘a western peninsula of Asia’ (Alexander von Humboldt) without a clear definition of where the continent becomes peninsula, things do not get any easier. Despite these problems there is no dearth of trying. In fact, writing European histories seems to become more fashionable by the year — ironically just as the political and institutional expansion of Europe is losing steam. While the European Union is catching its breath, the historians are catching up. With the first wave of post-Euro and post-big-bang-Enlargement literature written, it is time for the reviewer to survey the landscape — and to provide some guideposts for future exploration.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
William Ghosh
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Caribbean Region ◽  
The Political ◽  
The World ◽  
Colonial Experience ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
Historical Past

V.S. Naipaul is one of the most internationally acclaimed twentieth-century writers from the Caribbean region. Yet it is usually assumed that he was neither much influenced by the Caribbean literary and intellectual tradition, nor very influential upon it. This chapter argues that these assumptions are wrong. It situates Naipaul’s life and work within the political, social, and intellectual history of the twentieth-century Caribbean. Naipaul’s work formed part of a larger historical debate about the sociology of slavery in the Caribbean, the specificity of Caribbean colonial experience, and the influence of that historical past on Caribbean life, culture, and politics after independence. The chapter closes with a reading of Naipaul’s late, retrospective book about Trinidad, A Way in the World.

Israel and the European Union

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Pardo
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Middle East ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Integration Project ◽  
The Eu

Israeli-European Union (EU) relations have consisted of a number of conflicting trends that have resulted in the emergence of a highly problematic and volatile relationship: one characterized by a strong and ever-increasing network of economic, cultural, and personal ties, yet marked, at the political level, by disappointment, bitterness, and anger. On the one hand, Israel has displayed a genuine desire to strengthen its ties with the EU and to be included as part of the European integration project. On the other hand, Israelis are deeply suspicious of the Union’s policies and are untrusting of the Union’s intentions toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to the Middle East as a whole. As a result, Israel has been determined to minimize the EU’s role in the Middle East peace process (MEPP), and to deny it any direct involvement in the negotiations with the Palestinians. The article summarizes some key developments in Israeli-European Community (EC)/EU relations since 1957: the Israeli (re)turn to Europe in the late 1950s; EC-Israeli economic and trade relations; the 1980 Venice Declaration and the EC/EU involvement in the MEPP; EU-Israeli relations in a regional/Mediterranean context; the question of Israeli settlements’ products entering free of duty to the European Common Market; EU-Israeli relations in the age of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP); the failed attempt to upgrade EU-Israeli relations between the years 2007 and 2014; and the Union’s prohibition on EU funding to Israeli entities beyond the 1967 borders. By discussing the history of this uneasy relationship, the article further offers insights into how the EU is actually judged as a global-normative actor by Israelis.

The Project for a New Anglo Century

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Bell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Constituent Elements

This chapter sketches a synoptic intellectual history of the attempt to unify the constituent elements of the “Anglo-world” into a single globe-spanning community, and to harness its purported world-historical potential as an agent of order and justice. Since the late nineteenth century numerous commentators have preached the benefits of unity, though they have often disagreed on the institutional form it should assume. These are projects for the creation of a new Anglo century. The first two sections of the chapter explore overlapping elements of the fin de siècle Anglo-world discourse. The third section traces the echoes of debates over the future relationship between the empire and the United States through the twentieth century, discussing the interlacing articulation of imperial-commonwealth, Anglo-American, democratic unionist, and world federalist projects. The final section discusses contemporary accounts of Anglo-world supremacy.

‘Independence, Dependence, and Interdependence Day’

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter D. McDonald
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Philosophical Thinking ◽  
Political Thinking ◽  
Finnegans Wake ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth

This chapter begins by reflecting on various reactions Joyce’s Finnegans Wake provoked during its long gestation, looking in detail at H. G. Wells, T. S. Eliot, Eugene Jolas, and C. K. Ogden. After explaining why it is important to consider the Wake’s place in intellectual history, it focuses on three traditions from which Joyce derived inspiration: the political thinking of the late nineteenth century, reflected in the writings of the Russian anarchist Léon Metchnikoff (1838–88); the linguistic thinking of the early twentieth century, as manifest in the work of the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen (1860–1943); and the philosophical thinking also of the early twentieth century, associated with the Austro-Hungarian journalist, novelist, and philosopher Fritz Mauthner (1849–1923). The chapter concludes by considering the Wake’s various lessons in reading, the centrality it accords to writing, and the bearing this has on how we think about language, culture, community, and the state.

scholarly journals The Idea of a European Union in the Interwar Period

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Adrian-Stelian Dumitru
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Political History ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Federalist ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of

The study of the political history of European construction is particularly important to explain the context in which the first institutional nuclei of European integration appeared. This paper identifies the main contributions from the interwar period to the project of a united Europe and their role in defining the process of creating the future European Union. The paper analyzes two main federalist projects namely "Pan-Europe" and "Briand initiative", looking at the similarities between them and at the elements prefigured by the two Europeanists of the federalist movement which are found in the current political-institutional configuration of the European Union. I conclude that Coudenhove-Kalergi and Aristide Briand’s proposals still represents, after 90 years since their drafting, core principles and values we recognise today in the European Union of 2020.

Encounters from the Twentieth Century: Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 39-41
Author(s):  
Jan Bryant
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Italo Calvino ◽  
Maurice Blanchot ◽  
The Political ◽  
Henri Lefebvre ◽  
Political Aesthetics ◽  
History Of Art ◽  
History Of

The disappointments that flowed from the squashing of the student uprisings in 1968 is discussed as a way to underline a rupture in progressive thinking in the latter years of last century. Of particular concern for Marxists was a loss of faith in the proletariat as the revolutionary subject. It introduces three case studies that form the content of the next chapters, each revealing intellectual differences which became apparent the post 1968 era: (1) Paolo Pasolini and Italo Calvino; (2) Henri Lefebvre and Maurice Blanchot; and (3) the political aesthetic of Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK). The aim is to offer detailed encounters between left thinkers, not only to reveal a clash of approaches to resisting forms of power, but to offer an alternative for understanding how recent intellectual history has informed contemporary political aesthetics. It is also a way to avoid restaging another history of art, or received canon, to offer instead a non-totalising picture of history. [157]

Churchill, Powell and the Conservative ‘Brexiteers’: The Political Legacies of the Anglosphere

2019 ◽  
pp. 191-206
Author(s):  
Michael Kenny ◽  
Nick Pearce
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
European Union ◽  
The Political ◽  
British Politics ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Opportunities ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
High Politics

This chapter advances the case for a more ‘political’ reading of the Anglosphere discourse than is typically offered by its advocates, or by its academic commentators and critics. The authors stress the plentiful rhetorical resources and motifs associated with this shifting current of thinking, and the political opportunities and dilemmas associated with its recurrent deployment in high politics throughout the twentieth century. They give particular emphasis to the ways in which the Anglosphere ideal was re-worked and re-invented in different eras. And they explore its particular importance in the last three decades in British politics, highlighting its growing importance as a vehicle for an antithetical characterisation of the UK’s past and future to conventional ideas about the integral importance of the European Union to British prospects. They highlight the stirrings of this manner of thinking during the Thatcher years, its coalescence within a wider Anglo-American community in the 1990s, and its subsequent influence over leading campaigners for Brexit. They draw lessons from this account for wider debates about how the Anglosphere might be conceptualised and interpreted.

The Entry into Force of the Lisbon Treaty: The European Union in Retrospect and Prospect

2012 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 265-290
Author(s):  
Avinash Sharma
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
International Law ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Lisbon Treaty ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The European Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Eu

SummaryThe history of European integration unmistakably shows that it has progressed step by step and is indeed an ongoing and irreversible process. One such step is the conclusion of the Lisbon Treaty, which came into force on 1 December 2009, following negotiations spanning nearly a decade. The treaty aims, inter alia, at improving the functioning of the European Union (EU) and significantly amends the treaty basis of the EU as a supranational organization. It formally establishes the EU as a legal entity under public international law, strengthens the role of the European Parliament, and significantly reforms the role of the high representative of the union for foreign affairs and security policy. Moreover, the treaty has made the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights a legally binding and enforceable instrument and has expanded the competences of the EU in the fields of trade and other external commercial relations by providing it with exclusive competence to conduct the EU’s Common Commercial Policy. The author reviews these and other innovations of the Lisbon Treaty and briefly evaluates the treaty and its implications for the EU.

scholarly journals Public authority and its demons: the Sherbro leopard murders in Sierra Leone

Africa ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 91 (2) ◽  
pp. 226-248
Author(s):  
Paul Richards
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Public Authority ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Resistance ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Civilizing Mission ◽  
Political Advantage ◽  
Late Nineteenth

AbstractDemonization is a widespread aspect of political discourse. We are familiar with the demonization of Brussels bureaucrats as a tool for pursuing the British exit from the European Union, and we take stories about the compulsory straightening of bananas with a pinch of salt, however frustrating it might be that some disaffected voters choose to accept these canards as true. But somehow, stories about the demonic in Africa have been accorded much greater ontological respect, not only by colonial powers keen to boost their own legitimacy through claims to a civilizing mission, but also by anthropologists anxious to understand their informants’ imaginative concerns, perhaps without fully appreciating the political craft or guile with which these discourses are invested. In seeking to void the charge of delusion, an empathetic reading of demonization risks missing the strategic significance of mythic interventions intended to extract political advantage. This article examines an instance of mythic creativity in the politics of late nineteenth-century interior Sierra Leone as an example of the stagecraft sometimes implicit in African public authority. The case is that of the human leopard, an avatar of commercially compromised chieftaincy. The article asks whether the alleged activities of these leopards were the straight bananas of a certain form of anti-colonial political resistance. In a concluding discussion, some consequences for understanding current forms and practices of local public authority are inferred.

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