Scandinavia Within and Without Europe

This chapter outlines changing relationships between Scandinavia and Europe. The Scandinavian ‘isolationist’ approach to Europe after the Napoleonic wars shifted to more active integrationist policies in the 1920s, with the arrival of left governments and the acceptance of the League of Nations; a new isolationist trend (‘neutrality’) set in after 1933. Against the backdrop of this long-term pattern, the focus is on shifting Scandinavian attitudes to the project of European integration and on attempts to be both within and outside Europe. Before and after the Danish entry into the EU in 1973, tensions between different approaches and between the countries concerned have been evident. The Cold War was a major factor, and its end reinforced the pro-integration approach. More recently, problems with the euro and the refugee crisis have provoked more ambiguous responses, but less so in Finland than in the Scandinavian countries.

Central and Eastern Europe: The New Core or the Periphery of Europe?

This chapter focuses on Central and Eastern European (CEE) member states of the EU, and how they positioned themselves in the new constellation of conflicts within the EU in the aftermath of the multiple crisis. It deals mainly with the Visegrad Group (V4) and explores its ‘repositioning’ in regard to two crisis-ridden policy fields of the EU: controversies about the rule of law and the refugee crisis. With regard to the former issue, the chapter discusses Poland as the most prominent case among the CEE countries. Against this background, it highlights two specific aspects of domestic politics: the memory games that the V4 countries play with their past and the Euroscepticism of government circles as well as a broader public.

Constitutionalism, Judicialisation and Human Rights in the Integration of European Society

This chapter discusses a renewed interest in a sociology of constitutions in recent years. This interest has emerged not least due to the significantly changing nature of constitutions and constitutionalism, not in the last place as a result of apparent constitutional qualities inherent in legal regimes beyond state borders. A historically and sociologically informed approach helps to study European integration as a legal and constitutional project, and highlights its fragility and tensions, increasingly visible in recent years. The chapter first introduces a sociological view of constitutions and constitutionalism in general terms, and then goes on to discuss the multi-faceted process of constitutionalisation and judicialization in postwar Europe from a sociological angle, with particular emphasis on the depoliticizing and at the same time contested nature of this process. The final part of the chapter reflects on contemporary issues related to the problematic dimensions of the constitutionalising and judicialising process, including a backlash against universal rights and supranational law in many European societies.

Islam and the European Crisis: Reciprocal Discrimination and Co-radicalisation

Tensions around the presence of Muslim minorities in Europe were aggravated when the worldwide wave of Islamic fundamentalism inspired terrorist attacks in Europe, starting with the London bombings in 2005. Events of the last three years in Britain and France have reinforced the fear that Europe faces in Islamism a particularly dangerous form of right-wing radicalism. The discussion of ‘Islamofascism’ has, however, been met by a rival discourse on the intrinsic ‘Islamophobia’ of European societies. Both notions are flawed. Islamism is a novel form of ideological radicalism, and whilst empirical evidence has established the reality of discrimination against Muslims purely on the basis of their religious identity, the failure of some Muslim minorities to integrate and their resultant hostility towards modern European culture cannot be ignored. Since the onset of the crisis of the ‘European project’ triggered by the global financial crisis, this constellation has generated a new risk: a co-radicalisation between Islamism and extreme right-wing political movements traditionally hostile to immigration.

Europe as a Civilisation and the Hidden Structure of Modernity

The economic crisis of the EU in 2007-9 needs to be seen against the backdrop of Europe as a civilisational entity. It has withstood the challenges of hundreds of years, including religious conflicts, revolutions, fascist takeovers, depression-level economic downturns and transnational wars. During the same time it created unique sociocultural, political, economic and legal innovations that have put Europe in a position of high standing that can hardly be imagined outside Europe prior to the 20th century. Foremost among those innovations is the legal revolution of the European Middle Ages that laid the institutional foundations for new structures such as universities, cities and towns, charitable organizations, private and professional corporations, constitutionalism and parliamentary democracy. These same institutional structures paved the way for the rise of a public sphere, a free press, the scientific revolution, and later the economic revolution of modern capitalism.

Conceit and Deceit in the European Union: Imaginaries of Europe and a Pan-Eurasian Alternative

Current tensions between ‘old’ and ‘new’ members of the EU are explored with reference to capitalist political economy and historical constructions of a continental divide. While ‘populist’ politicians in the countries of the Visegrád cooperation celebrate their nations and Christian civilisation, the Wertegemeinschaft espoused by the EU mainstream is a form of liberal cosmopolitanism. These contrasting imaginaries of Europe are reinforced by structural inequalities, accentuated by the eurozone (as analysed by W. Streeck and C. Offe). EU elites conceptualize Asia as a distinct continent, and Hungarian leaders invoke the Asian roots of the Magyars when it suits their legitimation strategies. The chapter concludes by drawing attention to long-term commonalities extending across the entire landmass of Eurasia, and the potential of this civilizational heritage for creating new forms of political cooperation.

Europe in Crisis: The History, the Players and the Stakes

The post-1945 European movement was partly moulded by the interests of American corporate business, which supported multi-party democracy managed in ways that maintained strong checks on its political rivals, especially Soviet-style state socialism. The EU maintained the historical European pattern of a rough balance between a loose framework of rules and cultural understandings and a diversity of politico-economic tendencies in different parts of the continent. This was possible because it was a relatively sheltered arena hemmed in both east and west by the supporting and containing walls provided by the two main Cold War players. Since 1989 the surrounding ‘outworks’ of the EU in North Africa, Central Eurasia, and the Middle East have substantially crumbled. The EU’s stability is buttressed by the integrated Eurozone which partially compensates for the decline of socio-political integration as EU membership has increased; and by the interlocking effect of cross-cutting rivalries and collaborations within the EU.

The Fall of the Habsburg Monarchy and the Crisis of Modern Europe: A Historical–Sociological Comparison

The Habsburg Empire was for several centuries a major European power centre, and represents a highly instructive case of state formation. Its final failure has been the subject of a highly diverse debate, ranging from moral accusation to the acceptance of historical inevitability. A closer focus on structural reasons will highlight the question of military efficiency and the centrifugal impact of multiple nationalisms, exacerbated by parliamentarisation. Looking at recent crises of the European Union (centrifugal tendencies of and within member states, inability to act in emergency situations), we can observe striking similarities with the Habsburg Empire. European decision-making at the highest levels is reminiscent of debates in the Austrian Reichsrat. Both these supra-national survival units, as Norbert Elias would call them, can be described as economically efficient agencies of modernisation. A key difference is that the Union lacks both an army and an imperial charisma. Its military arm is external: the US as the pacifier of Europe. But attempts to change that are likely to end in disaster.

To Hell and Beyond: The European Civilisational Crisis of the Twentieth Century

The main focus of the chapter is on the first half of the short twentieth century as a background to European integration, but it contains some reflections on subsequent developments. Against the widely current description of the period from 1914 to 1945 as a time of European civil war, it is argued that the notion of a civilisational crisis is more adequate, and this crisis is best understood in terms of modernity as a distinctive civilisation with specific European variations. Global wars and totalitarian regimes, based on ideological absolutizations of class and nation as historical actors, are the defining features of the crisis period. The following phase, characterised by the Cold War, was partly a step beyond the crisis, partly a perpetuation of its dynamics. The process of European integration, unfolding in this context, was a response to the most traumatic experiences of the crisis, but also an attempt to move beyond the constellation that had proved conducive to disasters. This latter aspect may be described as the civilisational dimension of the European project. The concatenation of circumstances and intentions is a matter for historical interpretation, rather than strong theories; in this regard, the work of Alan Milward is exemplary.

Introduction: Perspectives on European Unity and Diversity

The introduction begins with a comment on the different periodizations and temporalities to be noted when reflecting on European integration as a long-term process. This is followed by a discussion of different interpretive frameworks. Comparative civilizational analysis provides distinctive approaches to the European experience, but with significant differences in focus. One school of thought posits a continuity of European civilization from ancient through medieval to modern times, while another prefers the model of a civilisational sequence, culminating in modernity as a new type of civilisation, and a third one regards the Eurasian macro-region as a civilisational zone, integrated through encounters and transfers. All these viewpoints are represented in the book. An alternative perspective stresses the context of global history and relates European transformations, including the most recent ones, to that background. A case is made for combining the two approaches, thus paving the way for closer analysis of Europe’s various regions, whose characteristics and situations are briefly discussed. The introduction then concludes with summaries of the following chapters.