The European Union as a Global Power?

European integration started after the Second World War as an effort to bring peace in the Old Continent and to promote the unity of its peoples in a categorical rejection of nationalism. Hence, the very reason of making a united Europe was internal in its roots. Without denying the extraordinary achievements of the European project, today we can no longer give traditional answers to the fundamental question: ‘Why make Europe?’ If yesterday the underlying reason was clear to everyone—peace, in fact—today it is no longer the case. One of the ‘positive’ aspects of Brexit—and there are very few!—is having awakened Europe from a dangerous, deterministic, and almost dogmatic inertia of giving ‘Just because’ as the answer. So why should we continue to build a united Europe? Why do we need the European Union in the twenty-first century? In a nutshell the answer is that from the hegemon it was until the twentieth century, Europe must become a beacon for the world as a value-based global power. This is the essence of the new role that Europe is called to play in the world. In order to do this, we can no longer just look at internal causes for making Europe, but must also take into account the external context. In other words, we should adopt a mentality whereby European values coincide with European strategic interests. This shift is the key to making Europe live up to its global ambitions.

Planning Practice in Latin America: The Legacy of the Traveling Urbanists and Other Vertical Dialogues

During the first half of twentieth century, Europe was the world vanguard for urban planning ideas. European urbanists traveled to Latin America, participated in urban plans, influenced local professionals, and had their ideas replicated by secondary sources. This influence transformed not only Latin American cities but also their academic and professional practice of urbanism. First, two items contextualize the discussion: the third part discusses the reality of Latin American largest cities in early 1900s, and the fourth part identifies main traveling urbanists and their trajectories in Latin America. The last part presents a temporal reading of facts and urban trends. The fifth part discusses the legacy of old vertical dialogues and shifts in the relation between Latin America and central countries. Main conclusions are that (1) between Latin America and Europe existed a vertical and almost exclusive dialogue, and (2) recent shifts seem to impair the old model of central–peripheral transfer of urban planning ideas.

“Deeds, Not Words”: Right-Wing Terrorism in Twentieth-Century Europe

This chapter focuses on the manifestations and characteristics of right-wing terrorism in twentieth-century Europe, particularly on developments in Germany and Italy. When viewed from a comparative perspective, a central characteristic for right-wing terrorism is the Tatglaube, the faith in deeds. Although the worldview justifying such terrorism is grounded in racism, ethnocentrism, and nationalistic concepts of superiority, the decisive factor is violence as an end in itself, a violence that generally forgoes any justifying pattern of argument and strives to annihilate the enemy physically. The repertoire of actions taken and the formulized language of right-wing terrorism have remained largely unchanged throughout the twists and turns of twentieth-century history. Nevertheless, it is possible to differentiate various phases of right-wing terrorism, which were also influenced, in turn, by the political and societal environment. Despite the ethnocentric and nationalistic worldview from which this terrorism springs, it also becomes evident here that right-wing terrorism has always been marked by transnational influences, particularly since the end of the twentieth century.