The EU Topicality of the Tocquevillian Societal Democracy
(2015) RES Project CES-ARENA Summer School — Location: Krakow (15.June.2015)
Files
No attached file found for this publication.
Details
- Authors
- Abstract
- The aim of this research is to study the forms of the legitimacy of the European integration in relation with the model of societal democracy that Tocqueville proposed. Beyond the legitimization of Europe either by its institutional democratization or by its functional integration, we would rather focus on a broader social legitimization. The question is not that much whether a European Demos exists or not, but to discuss about the theoretical conditions, at a European level, of a Tocquevillian democracy, a democracy as a society and not as a political regime. Our specific understanding of the Tocquevillian democracy is centered on the dialectic between liberty and equality. This approach considers the social links between Europeans as the basis of the “cosmopolitan horizontal integration” described by Ferry. That could also be related to sociological studies on bottom-up legitimization of Europe. This approach, which is indeed about a “shared democratic culture”, counterbalances what the EU often represents, i.e. the universality of law, while keeping the basic values of democracy. Moreover, the aim is to extend the social legitimacy theory to the idea of a “composite democracy”, taking into account the complexity of what is at stake with legitimacy. In that context, we will investigate the consequences of the integration of a European society on traditional political concepts like people, nation or territory, and on the role that should be given to the civilian society according to Rosanvallon. We will eventually examine whether the European cosmopolitan project, based on a wider transnational conception, really gives a chance to democracy at a European level.
- Affiliations
Citations
Arens, N. (2015). The EU Topicality of the Tocquevillian Societal Democracy. RES Project CES-ARENA Summer School, Krakow. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/187507