A Community Of Europeans

In A Community of Europeans?, a thoughtful observer of the ongoing project of European integration evaluates the state of the art about European identity and European public spheres. Thomas Risse argues that integration has had profound and long-term effects on the citizens of EU countries, most of whom now have at least a secondary "European identity" to complement their national identities. Risse also claims that we can see the gradual emergence of transnational European communities of communication. Exploring the outlines of this European identity and of the communicative spaces, Risse sheds light on some pressing questions: What do "Europe" and "the EU" mean in the various public debates? How do European identities and transnational public spheres affect policymaking in the EU? And how do they matter in discussions about enlargement, particularly Turkish accession to the EU? What will be the consequences of the growing contestation and politicization of European affairs for European democracy? This focus on identity allows Risse to address the "democratic deficit" of the EU, the disparity between the level of decision making over increasingly relevant issues for peoples' lives (at the EU) and the level where politics plays itself out—in the member states. He argues that the EU's democratic deficit can only be tackled through politicization and that "debating Europe" might prove the only way to defend modern and cosmopolitan Europe against the increasingly forceful voices of Euroskepticism.

Numerous historical studies use the term "community'" to express or comment on social relationships within geographic, religious, political, social, or literary settings, yet this volume is the first systematic attempt to collect together important examples of this varied work in order to draw comparisons and conclusions about the definition of community across early modern Europe. Offering a variety of historical and theoretical approaches, the sixteen original essays in this collection survey major regions of Western Europe, including France, Geneva, the German Lands, Italy and the Spanish Empire, the Netherlands, England, and Scotland. Complementing the regional diversity is a broad spectrum of religious confessions: Roman Catholic communities in France, Italy, and Germany; Reformed churches in France, Geneva, and Scotland; Lutheran communities in Germany; Mennonites in Germany and the Netherlands; English Anglicans; Jews in Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands; and Muslim converts returning to Christian England. This volume illuminates the variety of ways in which communities were defined and operated across early modern Europe: as imposed by community leaders or negotiated across society; as defined by belief, behavior, and memory; as marked by rigid boundaries and conflict or by flexibility and change; as shaped by art, ritual, charity, or devotional practices; and as characterized by the contending or overlapping boundaries of family, religion, and politics. Taken together, these chapters demonstrate the complex and changeable nature of community in an era more often characterized as a time of stark certainties and inflexibility. As a result, the volume contributes a vital resource to the ongoing efforts of scholars to understand the creation and perpetuation of communities and the significance of community definition for early modern Europeans.

The period since 1945 has seen political events and socio-economic developments of enormous significance for the human race. This series explores these developments.

This volume analyzes the character of the EU as an actor in international affairs. The authors consider the questions such as: Does the EU have an identity of its own in global affairs, distinct from that of its member states? And what is its relationship with other major international actors?

This book examines the emergence of (and limitations to) a common European public sphere and the advantages and problems surrounding this development.

The book addresses contemporary developments in European identity politics as part of a larger historical trajectory of a common European identity based on the idea of 'solidarity.' The authors explain the special sense in which Europeans perceive their obligations to their less fortunate compatriots, to the new East European members, and to the world at large. An understanding of this notion of 'solidarity' is critical to understanding the specific European commitment to social justice and equality. The specificity of this term helps to distinguish between what the Germans call "social state" from the Anglo-Saxon, and particularly American, political and social system focused on capitalism and economic liberalism. This collection is the result of the work of an extremely distinguished group of scholars and politicians, invited by the previous President of the European Union, Romano Prodi, to reflect on some of the most important subjects affecting the future of Europe.

The surprising story of how Algeria joined and then left the postwar European Economic Community and what its past inclusion means for extracontinental membership in today’s European Union. On their face, the mid-1950s negotiations over European integration were aimed at securing unity in order to prevent violent conflict and boost economies emerging from the disaster of World War II. But French diplomats had other motives, too. From Africa to Southeast Asia, France’s empire was unraveling. France insisted that Algeria—the crown jewel of the empire and home to a nationalist movement then pleading its case to the United Nations—be included in the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community. The French hoped that Algeria’s involvement in the EEC would quell colonial unrest and confirm international agreement that Algeria was indeed French. French authorities harnessed Algeria’s legal status as an official département within the empire to claim that European trade regulations and labor rights should traverse the Mediterranean. Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany conceded in order to move forward with the treaty, and Algeria entered a rights regime that allowed free movement of labor and guaranteed security for the families of migrant workers. Even after independence in 1962, Algeria remained part of the community, although its ongoing inclusion was a matter of debate. Still, Algeria’s membership continued until 1976, when a formal treaty removed it from the European community. The Seventh Member State combats understandings of Europe’s “natural” borders by emphasizing the extracontinental contours of the early union. The unification vision was never spatially limited, suggesting that contemporary arguments for geographic boundaries excluding Turkey and areas of Eastern Europe from the European Union must be seen as ahistorical.