The New Europe

Europe Old and New

Based on Taras, Ray. 2008. Europe Old and New: Transnationalism, Belonging, Xenophobia. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Reading: Chapter 3, “Metacultural Presumptions of European Elites.”

Culture

Why does it matter for the study of politics?

“culture fulfills people’s desire for wholeness and coherence” (60)

thus, it gives animus to politics

Metaculture

Meta – what does it mean?

In the case of Europe, European-ness

Also meta in terms of being supranational

Elite construction, manipulation of culture

Can they do this or is culture really an organic thing?

Use examples to support your answer

Cultural Foundations of the Europe of the EU (58-59)

1. Europe as Moral Union

Moral Universalism

Based on a civic consciousness

A communitarian vision

A people united by basic cultural foundation

Republican roots: a demos (rather than an ethnos)

Values undergirding Europe??

Rationality, justice, democracy

Universalism – problematic?

In practical politics, commitment to these values created the

European Social Model,

Espoused by Jacques Delors, Frenchman, President of the EU Commission 1985-1994

Components of the European Social Model (62)

1. Inviolability of Human Rights

2. Culture as Emancipation

3. Sustainable Development

4. Peace in the International Order

**stress on social democracy as alternative to capitalism unbridled

2. Europe as a Culture of Communication

Discourse

Discursive practice (Habermas!!)
Translation

Power of at interpersonal level

Model for intercultural politics

3. A Europe of Governance

Institutions

Multi-level

4. An Instrumental Europe

Because it works

based on arguments about efficiency, market esp. but also political efficiency

5. Europe as a Destination

A fate

A common European home

A telos

Very Western notion

6. A Europe of Nations

not just the ones you’ve heard of

nationalism in the older, pre-nation-state version

a Europe of pluralism, a multitude of national communities

e.g.?

Role of Globalization in Creating the European Moment

What processes, trends, changes associated with globalization are facilitating the social construction of European identity, metaculture??