scholarly journals Political dimension of European constitutionalism

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-170
Author(s):  
Patricia Kaplánová ◽  
Uroš Pinterič
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
European Identity ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
European Constitution

Abstract Author in the article tries to analyse different elements of document called European Constitution. Analysis is supported with theoretical framework of federalism, presented by Brezovšek. Authors is playing with idea of (con)federal and international organization elements of European Constitution and their mix. They are also trying to set some connections between so called common European identity as necessary condition to give legitimacy to the European Constitution. This became important question after „votes of non-confidence“ to the European Constitution in France, despite it should be addressed already before. However, European Constitution is important document on the path of European integration and lack of support to it will slow down this process of widening and deepening European ties.

Verso quale Europa?

FUTURIBILI ◽  
2009 ◽  
pp. 212-217
Author(s):  
Pasquale Baldocci
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Functional Method ◽  
Reference Points ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
The European Union ◽  
European Constitution ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Political Form ◽  
Mutual Relations ◽  
The Individual

- The author examines the question of how the future of Europe can be foreseen, whether it is moving towards integration or towards a reassertion of the national features of all EU member states. The French and Dutch rejection of the European Constitution in 2004 triggered a search for a lower-key, less political form of European integration. Possible initiatives to break out of the current state of immobility include two interconnected paths: one is a return to the functional method for horizontal integration and the other is a development and broadening of Europe's big regional areas. The need therefore arises to give people a sense of responsibility for European integration in order to convince governments to relinquish more of their sovereignty. Reconstructing the European Union meaning and reality, by Myrianne Coen The fall of the Berlin Wall has thrown a stark light on the loss of reference points for Europeans: those of good and evil - values, of their territory and their interests. Religion is discredited, technology has no conscience. In this context there is a reawakening of ethics. But now the question arises as to the values on which this ethics is to be based, its deep meaning. The history of our civilisation shows that such values have always been rooted in the survival of the species, which implies protection of the individual. Nowadays they are expressed in respect for human (individual) rights and the primacy given to the democratic system applied to a society conceived as a "significant space of exchange". Managing change in complete security is therefore a question of evaluating policies, taking the individual as a benchmark according to an interpretation which has the survival of the species as a temporal limit and the respective territories of individual freedom as a spatial limit. All of this has to take account of reality, assuring a dialectic management between the dynamics of what we are able to do and the meaning which tells us what it is permissible to do. Devising management structures able to reconcile security and change should thus take account of everything that is effective and ethical. Conducting a suitable policy - the necessary condition for effectiveness - entails taking account of reality as it is in such a way that it may be modified (the dynamics of the possible) while respecting others in (individual) space and time (future generations). On the basis of these criteria it is therefore a question of determining, in the light of reality and principles, the meaning that emanates from democratic decisions, of considering the significant spaces that the meaning covers and of structuring them so that they encompass mutual relations. The individual is placed in this context as a benchmark by which the planet should measure itself, and the planet in turn should be considered "for mankind", since it is mankind who gives it a meaning.

Religion and the Construction of a Christian Roman Polity

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-113
Author(s):  
Francesco Rotiroti
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Theories Of Religion ◽  
Ancient Christianity

This article seeks to define a theoretical framework for the study of the relation between religion and the political community in the Roman world and to analyze a particular case in point. The first part reviews two prominent theories of religion developed in the last fifty years through the combined efforts of anthropologists and classicists, arguing for their complementary contribution to the understanding of religion's political dimension. It also provides an overview of the approaches of recent scholarship to the relation between religion and the Roman polity, contextualizing the efforts of this article toward a theoretical reframing of the political and institutional elements of ancient Christianity. The second part focuses on the religious legislation of the Theodosian Code, with particular emphasis on the laws against the heretics and their performance in the construction of the political community. With their characteristic language of exclusion, these laws signal the persisting overlap between the borders of the political community and the borders of religion, in a manner that one would expect from pre-Christian civic religions. Nevertheless, the political essence of religion did also adapt to the ecumenical dimension of the empire. Indeed, the religious norms of the Code appear to structure a community whose borders tend to be identical to the borders of the whole inhabited world, within which there is no longer room for alternative affiliations; the only possible identity outside this community is that of the insane, not belonging to any political entity and thus unable to possess any right.

The European identity formation in Ukraine

2017 ◽  
pp. 102-109
Author(s):  
Larysa Kovryk-Tokar
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
European Integration ◽  
European Community ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Political Integration ◽  
European Identity ◽  
European Values

Every nation is quite diverse in terms of his historical destiny, spiritual priorities, and cultural heritage. However, voluntary European integration, which is the final aim of political integration that began in the second half of the twentieth century from Western Europe, provided for an availability of large number of characteristics in common in political cultures of their societies. Therefore, Ukraine needs to find some common determinants that can create inextricable relationship between the European Community and Ukraine. Although Ukrainian culture is an intercultural weave of two East macrocivilizations, according to the author, Ukraine tends to Western-style society with its openness, democracy, tolerance, which constitute the basic values of Europeans. Keywords: Identity, collective identity, European values, European integration

Legitimation Contests

2019 ◽  
pp. 29-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Dingwerth ◽  
Antonia Witt
Keyword(s):  
International Organizations ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Time Change ◽  
International Organization ◽  
The World

In this chapter, we lay out the theoretical framework that informs our book. We argue that international organizations are legitimated in processes of contestation in which a plethora of actors seeks to define what distinguishes a ‘good’ from a ‘bad’ international organization. In doing so, the actors draw on as well as shape the normative environments in which international organizations are embedded. These environments, in turn, depend on the world political contexts of their time. Change in what we call the terms of legitimation therefore comes from two ends: first, from the dynamics of interaction among those who take part in legitimation contests (‘change from within’); and second, from material or ideational developments that support or challenge the persuasiveness of individual normative frames (‘change from the outside’).

How to Sharpen a Dull Sword – The Principle of Subsidiarity and its Control

2006 ◽  
Vol 7 (9) ◽  
pp. 733-760 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Ritzer ◽  
Marc Ruttloff ◽  
Karin Linhart
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
European Constitution ◽  
National System

The Treaty Establishing a European Constitution seems to have failed. The problems continue to exist: a centralizing tendency is inherent in the European Union like in supposedly every federal or supra-national system. This is why, for years, there has been a growing demand for a barrier against the subtle loss of competence for the Member States and their sub-national units, which also potentially threatens the acceptance of the Union's legal acts and therefore the progress of European integration overall.

Europe's history of integration and diversity

2006 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
WIM BLOCKMANS
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Sense Of Community ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
European Identity ◽  
European Citizenship ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation

The process of European integration, the complexity of the problems involved and even the resistance it raises, astonishes observers in other parts of the world, especially in large states that have a long history of centralized government behind them. Is there really so little unity in Europe? If so, how can this be explained? Has European diversity generated only problems or has it, in fact, created new and unique opportunities? Is there a chance that growing concerns at EU-level about the cultural dimensions of European citizenship could, in fact, consolidate a sense of community? And, finally, how can historians contribute to the creation of a common European identity, if this is so weakly developed?

Softening culture, opening Europe

Focaal ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 (56) ◽  
pp. 19-34
Author(s):  
Jeff Katcherian
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Intercultural Dialogue ◽  
Soft Law ◽  
European Identity ◽  
Policy Recommendations ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Aesthetic Form

This article examines the development of cultural policy recommendations, in the form of “soft law,” by the Civil Society Platform for Intercultural Dialogue, a nascent European civil society collaboration aiming to make culture a separate political endeavor within the context of European integration. Drawing on fieldwork among European bureaucrats and members of European civil society in Brussels, Belgium, the article offers an alternative discussion from common understandings of soft law, paying close attention to law as an aesthetic form that challenges dominant modes of policy-making. An investigation of soft forms of law provides a useful perspective to those who attempt to define, locate, and create European identity.

“My European feelings are not only based on the fact that I live in Europe”

2002 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michał Krzyżanowski
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Economic Impact ◽  
National Identities ◽  
European Identity ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
European Citizenship ◽  
Identification Processes

Identity has recently become one of the most frequently theorised and explored topics within various sub-branches of social sciences. Collective identities in general, and their ancestry and construction in particular, are being perceived in different ways by historians, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists and, last but not least, discourse-analysts. This article aims at shedding a new light on the concept of European identity, which, so far, has been most frequently analysed within the context of the European Union and its political and economic impact on European space. Despite drawing theoretically on some well-grounded traditions of research on European identity, such as, e.g., analysis of its contradiction and suplementariness with national identities, or, its interconnection with such concepts as European citizenship or European integration, the analysis of European identity presented here is put in the context of globally understood identification processes. Empirically, the article draws on the analysis of TV talk show thematically bound by the topics concerning European Union’s impact on national identities.

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