Title: Methodologies and Research Design in the Social Sciences
1A Political Sociology of European Democracy
2A Political Sociology of European Democracy
Week 6 Lecture 1 Lecturer Paul Blokker
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Introduction
- The Construction of a European Political Society
- Legitimacy
- Normative justifications
- Different views on
- Role and relevance of actors (governments,
experts, civil society, citizens) - Institutions and integration
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Introduction
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Introduction
- Announcement Examination
- The student will be evaluated at the end of the
course by means of a written essay - NB. New deadline Thursday 7 June, to be handed
in by e-mail, by 1700 pm - - The written essay will be of a minimum of 3.000
words, and needs to contain a bibliography with
at least 10 academic resources.
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Introduction
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Communitarian democracy
- Multiple Democracies II Communitarian Democracy
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy (Eriksen 2009, chapter
4)
Stakeholder democracy Instrumental legitimacy
Communitarian democracy Contextual legitimacy
Postnational democracy Universalistic legitimacy
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy
- To constitute and give life to a body politic
is to put some things in common. ... The problem
of the Europeans is that they do not know what
they want to put in common. - (Manent, 2006 67)
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Communitarian democracy Rather than simply a
classificatory matter, how one conceptualises the
common says much about the models of democracy to
which one wants to lend credence. Ones
perspective is laden with consequences for how
one understands the purpose of the polity and the
nature of citizenship, and how one understands
the challenges that a particular polity or
polities in general may face. It may point
towards certain kinds of institutional
configuration or regime rather than others.
(White, 2010 106)
Communitarian democracy
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Communitarian democracy To suggest what
Europeans might put in common is at the same time
to suggest a vision of politics for the EU.
Likewise any vision of how a polity should look
is going to involve, explicitly or implicitly, a
position being taken on what it is that holds the
political community together. A debate on the
nature of the common is embedded in all
discussion of the political, and the implications
of different positions are therefore an
appropriate target of inquiry. (White, 2010
106)
Communitarian democracy
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy (Eriksen 2009, chapter
4) - Thus, a different strategy for legitimation of
the European Union and European democracy is that
of a value-based community or a communitarian
view of democracy. - This strategy is based on the need to further
clarify the value basis of the EU, by means of a
collective process of self-interpretation or
self-identification.
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy (Eriksen 2009, chapter
4) - This strategy has been attempted both in the
European Charter of Fundamental Rights and the
Convention on the Future of Europe - A main discussion was about the question of
Europes religious heritage as one such a value
basis - Also the Lisbon Treaty contains a reference to
Europes religious inheritance.
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy (Eriksen 2009, chapter
4) - example
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy (Eriksen 2009, chapter
4) - example
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy (Eriksen 2009, chapter
4) - example
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy (Eriksen 2009, chapter
4) - example
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy (Eriksen 2009, chapter
4) - example
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy (Eriksen 2009, chapter
4) - The idea behind the communitarian strategy is
that the EU is a p0lity in the making, and in
order for it to become a robust political
community with democratic legitimacy it needs to
stimulate the idea of a common identity, which
can then serve as a basis for shared objectives
and visions for the European project.
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy (Eriksen 2009, chapter
4) - This perspective posits that because of a common
destiny, a common fate induced by common
vulnerabilities, people are turned into
compatriots who are willing to take on new
collective obligations to provide for each
others well-being (Eriksen 2009 66).
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy
- On the political philosophers Will Kymlickas
account, the significance of a national identity
and culture for democracy consists of the fact
that it provides - - a common language for communication as well
as - - a system of meaning in order to make
meaningful choices
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy
- - National identity thus provides individual
citizens with meaning, means of communication and
a distinct identity. A societal culture, in
Kymlickas terms, consists of a territorially
concentrated culture, centred on a shared
language which is used in a wide range of
societal institutions, in both public and private
life - (in Blokker 2009)
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy
- Imagined community
- It is imagined because the members of even the
smallest nation will never know most of their
fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them,
yet in the minds of each lives the image of their
communion. Renan referred to this imagining in
his suavely back-handed way when he wrote that
'Or lessence d'une nation est que tous les
individus aient beaucoup de choses en commun, et
aussi que tous aient oublié bien des choses.
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy
- Imagined community
- With a certain ferocity Gellner makes a
comparable point when he rules that 'Nationalism
is not the awakening of nations to
self-consciousness it invents nations where they
do not exist.' The drawback to this formulation,
however, is that Gellner is so anxious to show
that nationalism masquerades under false
pretences that he assimilates 'invention' to
'fabrication' and 'falsity', rather than to
'imagining' and 'creation.
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy
- Imagined community
- In this way he implies that 'true' communities
exist which can be advantageously juxtaposed to
nations. In fact, all communities larger than
primordial villages of face-to-face contact (and
perhaps even these) are imagined. - Communities are to be distinguished, not by
their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in
which they are imagined. - (Benedict Anderson (1983), Imagined Communities)
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy (Eriksen 2009, chapter
4) - A communitarian strategy is based on the
socio-cultural mobilization of people around
particular ethical- cultural values and the idea
of clear boundaries between the in-group (EU
citizens) and the out-group (non-EU citizens)
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy (Eriksen 2009, chapter
4) - Thus, once established, the sense of common
identity is maintained through a system of border
control, which excludes those deemed as others,
and a system of military defence that protects
against external aggression, influence, and
control.
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy (Eriksen 2009, chapter
4) - A European strategy of communitarian democracy
- The active development of a we-feeling
- The identification of a set of European values
- Socialization of people into becoming
Europeans - A set of clearly identified criteria of who are
Europeans and who are not.
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy (Eriksen 2009, chapter
4) - Communitarian forms of legitimacy
- Democracy is here about searching for shared
values, identify problems which need collective
attention, and make hard choices about
non-commensurable entities - Communitarian legitimacy then views democracy
then as deliberation upon the common good, and
the enhancement of solidarity.
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy (Eriksen 2009, chapter
4) - Communitarian forms of legitimacy
- Citizens are then supposed to participate in the
collective quest for a common good and interest - There is thus a strong emphasis on political
socialization and the development of feelings of
belonging.
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy as a model
- Communitarian democracy gives a priority to an
ethic of identity (Blokker 2010), that is, the
idea that democratic society needs a minimal
level of shared identity - The community is paramount and communal
solidarity the overriding value (Rosenfeld
2006)
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy as a model
- Identity fulfils various functions
- - facilitates meaningful communication
- - facilitates meaningful choices for
individuals - - stimulates some form of solidarity between
members of a community that will never meet,
an imagined community
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy as a model
- Modern democracies need to make choices on
membership and its criteria - In addition, any kind of democracy needs some
cultural substrate (based on a common history,
traditions and shared language) - Communitarian democracy is about patriotism and
a shared love of the particular of the polity
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy as a model
- This means that identity is ultimately prior to
rights in a communitarian democracy - In other words, rights are defined through the
lens of a specific community - Specific rights are deemed more important in some
states than in others social rights, freedom of
expression, religious rights
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy (Eriksen 2009, chapter
4) - Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy is akin to what the
political philosopher Michael Walzer has called
Liberalism 2, which "allows for a state
committed to the survival and flourishing of a
particular nation, culture or religion or of a
limited set of nations, cultures, and religions -
so long as the basic rights of citizens who have
different commitments or no such commitments at
all are protected."
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy (Eriksen 2009, chapter
4)
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy
- Benefits of EU communitarianism
- 1. Symbolic dimension Potentially tying
citizens to the European project (reflection of
key values) - 2. Dialogic dimension facilitation of debate on
European values (e.g. religion) - 3. Collective dimension emphasis on the common
good.
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Communitarian democracy
- Communitarian democracy Problems with
communitarianism - 1. No autonomous political sphere, but politics
expression of national community - 2. Depoliticisation
- 3. Diversity is downplayed (e.g. EU is
pluralistic) - 4. Rights are understood contextually, and less
so in a universalistic way.
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