scholarly journals Opening the european box

2008 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Western World ◽  
The Political ◽  
Processes Of Change ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Sociological Perspective ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
State Legitimacy ◽  
Empirical Perspective ◽  
Theoretical Paradigms ◽  
Boundary Lines

Viewed from a theoretical and empirical perspective, the ongoing process of Europeanization poses new challenges to sociology. As a science, sociology reveals the inadequacy of the conceptual and methodological instruments currently available for our understanding of European social phenomena. Sociologists fi nd it di cult to defi ne the very object under scrutiny: does a European society exist? How should we defi ne a society whose boundary lines are variable? Does a study of Europe from a sociological perspective entail a study of the European Union, or of a broader social formation? e di culty encountered in "studying Europe" in the sociological area is linked to a broader theoretical debate which, in the light of the ongoing processes of change, queries the entire cognitive apparatus and the theoretical paradigms developed by sociological disciplines and related to the modernity of the western world. e "national constellation" of norms, institutions and regulative techniques which have allowed political and social integration within the national state, are now challenged by phenomena which undermine their very epistemological foundations. e concepts applied to the study of social and political integration, - society, state, legitimacy, social inequality, mobility, justice, solidarity, etc.- are, in a classic defi nition of the term, no longer e cient in discerning the phenomena which impact on contemporary societies. e variety of themes discussed by several Italian and foreign authors explore many aspects of the workings of Europe; they reveal new theoretical and methodological perspectives with which we set out to study the political, social, cultural and economic phenomena which today characterize Europe.

Political Disaffection, Sociodemographic, and Psychographic Variables as State Legitimacy Determinants in the European Union

2020 ◽  
pp. 000276422098111
Author(s):  
Cristina Del-Castillo-Feito ◽  
Gabriel Cachón-Rodríguez ◽  
Iria Paz-Gil
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
European Union ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
General Interest ◽  
State Function ◽  
The European Union ◽  
State Legitimacy ◽  
Political Disaffection

According to political science, modern societies can separate the state function and the politicians’ mission. However, the existing relationship between political disaffection and state legitimacy indicates the contrary. The interest held by the European Union inhabitants in their politicians has been decreasing, and the closeness to a specific political party or political leader has been weakening. Many European countries have a great degree of polarity in their political parties’ system, which augments the complexity of forming governments or even makes it impossible. Citizens have been affected by corruption, the economic situation, migratory crisis, or the European project weakness. They feel that politicians have forgotten their role as the people’s representatives and their responsibility to behave according to society’s general interest. Through its institutions, the state must ensure the country’s performance and maintain it despite the change in the political leaders. Moreover, its legitimacy will depend on the level of social support received by these institutions. This research aims to quantify if the current political disaffection influences the European Union states’ social support level or state legitimacy. It also expects to demonstrate which sociodemographic and psychographic variables influence on governments’ fragility and the dilution of state legitimacy, which is critical for countries’ stability. For this purpose, we used the available data from the European Social Survey for 2016, and we developed a statistical analysis through variation and regression analysis. The results highlight the strong effect that political disaffection, as well as variables such as religion, immigration perception, citizenship, or emotional state have on state legitimacy and reveal the need for changes in the political parties’ performance and behavior to maintain the countries’ stability.

Council of Europe

1952 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-142
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western World ◽  
The Political ◽  
Special Session ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Council Of Europe ◽  
Eastern And Western Europe

Responding to an invitation issued in May 1951, fourteen members of the Congress of the United States met in Strasbourg on November 20, 1951 in a special session with twenty members of the Council of Europe. The United States delegation included Senators Benton, Green, Henrickson, Hickenlooper, Humphrey, McMahon and Wiley and Representatives Cox, Ellsworth, Judd, Keating, O'Toole, Reams and Smith. Council representatives were Mssrs. Spaak (Belgium), Brentano (Germany), Boothby (United Kingdom), Crosbie (Ireland), Gerstenmaier (Germany), Glenvil-Hall (United Kingdom), Jacini (Italy), Kieft (Netherlands), Mercouris (Greece), de Menthon (France), Moe (Norway), Mollet (France), Ohlin (Sweden), Parri (Italy), Reynaud (France), Schmid (Germany), Treves (Italy), Urguplu (Turkey), de VallePoussin (Belgium), and Lord Layton (United Kingdom). The session was to discuss “the European Union, its problems, progress, prospects, and place in the Western world”; specifically the agenda included: 1) the economic aspects of rearmament; 2) the political aspects of European defense; 3) the dollar gap and trade between eastern and western Europe; and 4) the problem of refugees and emigration.

Influence of Attitudes Toward Immigration on State Legitimacy

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (7) ◽  
pp. 955-970
Author(s):  
Cristina Del Castillo ◽  
Alicia Blanco-González ◽  
Encarnación González-Vázquez
Keyword(s):  
European Social Survey ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
State Legitimacy ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Current Article ◽  
Attitudes Toward Immigration

The current article studies the influence of attitudes toward immigration on state legitimacy. We analyzed the European Union countries that received the greatest immigrant inflows in 2014: Germany, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom, through data from the latest edition of the European Social Survey. Our results show that citizens with negative attitudes toward immigration consider their states to be less legitimate. Conversely, positive attitudes toward immigration are not associated with increased state legitimacy (except in Spain). Based on these findings, there is a clear need for communication strategies that provide information on the actual effects of immigration. In their absence, the political discourse on this matter will continue to be co-opted by power-grabbing actors.

“We Speak the Truth!”

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-80
Author(s):  
Sari Hanafi
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Social Science ◽  
The Political ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Qualifications

This study investigates the preachers and their Friday sermons in Lebanon, raising the following questions: What are the profiles of preachers in Lebanon and their academic qualifications? What are the topics evoked in their sermons? In instances where they diagnosis and analyze the political and the social, what kind of arguments are used to persuade their audiences? What kind of contact do they have with the social sciences? It draws on forty-two semi-structured interviews with preachers and content analysis of 210 preachers’ Friday sermons, all conducted between 2012 and 2015 among Sunni and Shia mosques. Drawing from Max Weber’s typology, the analysis of Friday sermons shows that most of the preachers represent both the saint and the traditional, but rarely the scholar. While they are dealing extensively with political and social phenomena, rarely do they have knowledge of social science

Las funciones del interregionalismo en la relación UE-CAN

Oikos ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (29) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Olga María Cerqueira Torres
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Present Article ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Integration Process ◽  
Association Agreement ◽  
Political Rationality ◽  
Article Analysis ◽  
Andean Community ◽  
The Eu

RESUMENEn el presente artículo el análisis se ha centrado en determinar cuáles de las funciones del interregionalismo, sistematizadas en los trabajos de Jürgen Rüland, han sido desarrolladas en la relación Unión Europea-Comunidad Andina de Naciones, ya que ello ha permitido evidenciar si el estado del proceso de integración de la CAN ha condicionado la racionalidad política del comportamiento de la Unión Europea hacia la región andina (civil power o soft imperialism); esto posibilitará establecer la viabilidad de la firma del Acuerdo de Asociación Unión Europea-Comunidad Andina de Naciones.Palabras clave: Unión Europea, Comunidad Andina, interregionalismo, funciones, acuerdo de asociación. Interregionalism functions in the EU-ANDEAN community relationsABSTRACTIn the present article analysis has focused on which functions of interregionalism, systematized by Jürgen Rüland, have been developed in the European Union-Andean Community birregional relation, that allowed demonstrate if the state of the integration process in the Andean Community has conditioned the political rationality of the European Union towards the Andean region (civil power or soft imperialism); with all these elements will be possible to establish the viability of the Association Agreement signature between the European Union and the Andean Community.Keywords: European Union, Andean Community, interregionalism, functions, association agreement.

An Ever Further Apart Union? National and European Attachments in the European Union

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracey Raney
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Active Role ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Identities ◽  
Political Identification ◽  
The Eu

This paper is about the ways that citizens perceive their place in the political world around them, through their political identities. Using a combination of comparative and quantitative methodologies, the study traces the pattern of citizens’ political identifications in the European Union and Canada between 1981 and 2003 and explains the mechanisms that shape these political identifications. The results of the paper show that in the EU and Canada identity formation is a process that involves the participation of both individuals and political institutions yet between the two, individuals play a greater role in identity construction than do political institutions. The paper argues that the main agents of political identification in the EU and Canada are citizens themselves: individuals choose their own political identifications, rather than acquiring identities that are pre-determined by historical or cultural precedence. The paper makes the case that this phenomenon is characteristic of a rise of ‘civic’ identities in the EU and Canada. In the European Union, this overarching ‘civic’ identity is in its infancy compared to Canada, yet, both reveal a new form of political identification when compared to the historical and enduring forms of cultural identities firmly entrenched in Europe. The rise of civic identities in both the EU and Canada is attributed to the active role that citizens play in their own identity constructions as they base their identifications on rational assessments of how well political institutions function, and whether their memberships in the community will benefit them, rather than on emotional factors rooted in religion or race. In the absence of strongly held emotional identifications, in the EU and Canada political institutions play a passive role in identity construction by making the community appear more entitative to its citizens. These findings offer new theoretical scope to the concept of civic communities and the political identities that underpin them. The most important finding presented in the paper is that although civic communities and identities are manufactured by institutions and political elites (politicians and bureaucrats), they require thinking citizens, not feeling ones, to be sustained.   Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v2i4.179

The Berlin Process. Bringing the Western Balkan Region Closer to the European Union

Südosteuropa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Christina Griessler
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Eu Enlargement ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
New Energy ◽  
Western Balkan Region ◽  
Slow Progress ◽  
Proactive Measures

AbstractFor the countries of the Western Balkans, the path to membership in the European Union (EU) has been particularly tortuous. Its slow progress has created frustration among applicant countries. In 2014 Germany, stepping into the political void that had formed, inaugurated what has come to be known as the Berlin Process, an initiative aimed at injecting new energy into the dormant EU enlargement process. The author examines the political activities initiated between 2014 and 2019, analysing the official documentation of the Berlin Process along with publications such as policy papers and media commentaries. She concludes that although meaningful and proactive measures have been taken, such efforts have not been successful in persuading or enabling the Western Balkan states to implement the political and economic reforms required for EU accession.

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