This project, funded by the European Commission Delegation in Washington, DC, explores the prospects for democratic politics in Europe against the backdrop of the profound transformations taking place on the European continent in response to the global financial meltdown and the crisis it has unleashed in the Eurozone. It does so from two vantage points: from the \u201ccenter,\u201d through a series of debates with European ambassadors, and from the \u201cedges,\u201d through a series of conversations with European artists and writers, intellectuals and activists, and a \u201cEuropean Voices\u201d cultural festival. Our focus, as the idiom in the project title implies, is on the transformations occurring in the \u201cconstitution\u201d of the European Union and its citizenry. The global crisis did not, strictly speaking, precipitate the Euro crisis\u2014the latter was a dislocation waiting to reveal itself\u2014a flaw in the design of the euro that can be traced back to the decision to pursue a monetary union without a fiscal or political union. However, it makes its resolution urgent, given the interdependency of the global economy and the different routes the world may take depending on the path Europe chooses. Europe\u2019s challenge, but also its opportunity, is to reconstitute itself on a new, democratic foundation.<\/p>\n
Our goal is to launch a longer-term conversation with both \u201cofficial\u201d and \u201cunofficial\u201d representatives of the European Union around global challenges to democratic ideas and institutions in which the value of the EU as a model for transnational cooperation, regional integration, and cultural coexistence is highlighted. We look also at some of the difficulties Europe faces in responding to global challenges, brought to light by the \u201ccrisis.\u201d This second set of challenges, largely internal, stems from what is widely referred to as Europe\u2019s \u201cdemocratic deficit.\u201d Finally, we explore what is being done, in particular in response to the crisis, to reanimate the idea of Europe and to revitalize democracy in the European context. Our working hypothesis is that Europe\u2019s crisis, however seemingly unremitting, marks not an end but, as the Greek root would imply, a turning point for Europe and for European democracy.<\/p>\n
Organized by the new Center for the Study of Europe at Boston University, the project reprises two earlier initiatives of the Institute for Human Sciences at Boston University: a series of debates with European ambassadors in 2007, and a series of conversations with European artists and writers (Europe\u2019s cultural ambassadors) in 2009. The combination of \u201cofficial\u201d and \u201cunofficial\u201d perspectives in our current project is essential given our focus on \u201cdemocratic politics.\u201d Europe\u2019s democratic deficit does not emerge sui generis<\/em> in the birthplace of democracy; it is an outgrowth of an integration process that while initially setting member-states on the road to \u201can ever closer union,\u201d has more recently led to a rekindling of national divisions. The deficit is twofold: it is partly structural, owing to the design of the European institutions, which were modeled after international organizations, and partly linguistic\/civic\/conceptual, given the lack of an analog of the Habermasian public sphere to negotiate change. In this view, any process of \u201cdemocratization\u201d of the European Union that promotes increased participation of citizens in European decision-making must be accompanied by a \u201cpoliticization\u201d of the European people, opening space for European citizens to debate, discuss, and determine more precisely what \u201cEurope\u201d means and what its next steps ought to be.<\/p>\n Whereas a central leitmotif of the European construction was avoidance of conflict, our project takes \u201cdissent\u201d as a point of departure, building on insights into the central role of conflict in social evolution. We share the Forum of Concerned Citizens\u2019 recognition that \u201cacting in an uncertain world requires the wit, imagination, and effort of all stakeholders rather than the designs and impositions of so-called experts and tough leaders.\u201d Our aim is to be inclusive of the diversity of voices that constitute \u201cEurope\u201d: official and unofficial, popular and underground, native-born and immigrant, German and Greek, etc. We use the language of \u201ccenter\u201d and \u201cedges\u201d in our project metaphorically to refer to \u201cofficial\u201d and \u201cunofficial\u201d political arenas: the European institutions on the one hand; the European public square on the other. Our thesis, beautifully articulated by essayist Rebecca Solnit, is that ideas originate not in bureaucratic chambers, but in the \u201cstreet\u201d where they are picked up and represented by artists, writers, activists, and intellectuals in a manner that sparks public discourse and seeds future politics. We do not distinguish between \u201ccenter\u201d and \u201cperiphery\u201d in critical or geographical terms, as if French, German, and Dutch voices were more integral or representative of \u201cEurope\u201d than Polish or Greek voices.<\/p>\n \u201cCrisis\u201d serves a heuristic function in our project (much like \u201ccitizenship\u201d and \u201cidentity\u201d in our previous projects); it is not the object of our inquiry, but the prism through which we explore prospects for democratic politics in the shifting European context. It is the nature of crisis to give birth to something new. If Europe\u2019s crisis could be resolved through the ordinary workings of existing institutions, as the French philosopher Etienne Balibar argues, it would not be a \u201ccrisis.\u201d A crisis, he claims, is \u201ca contradiction that can be resolved under pressure of necessity only at the cost of transforming existing institutions, overcoming the institutional, moral, and social obstacles to its own resolution.\u201d We are not interested in \u201canalyzing\u201d the European crisis along its various dimensions (as a crisis of leadership, a crisis of solidarity, a crisis of imagination, etc.) but in thinking through it and beyond it. Because \u201cEurope\u201d and the \u201cidea of Europe\u201d are in flux, our project is by necessity future-oriented. It highlights the dynamic nature of the acquis communautaire<\/em> (Europe\u2019s \u201ccenter\u201d), and the ferment of ideas in the European public square (its \u201cedges\u201d).<\/p>\n The crisis has exposed the weaknesses in Europe\u2019s democratic structures and institutions, it has undermined the legitimacy of the European Union, and it has eroded European solidarity. Our project, therefore, seeks to chronicle, from the perspectives of Europe\u2019s political and cultural ambassadors, the strengthening of European democracy, the restoration of democratic legitimacy, and the emergence of new practices of solidarity in the European space, as Europe confronts its crisis. While we can not affect these outcomes directly (or even indirectly) from our vantage point in the United States, we can play something of an intermediary role, facilitating conversations between political actors (official and unofficial) that form the basis of democratic politics; garnering support for the European Union, especially as global actor, among our various constituencies, American and international, local and online; and highlighting conditions of globalization underlying the crisis that could form the basis of new networks of solidarity. Indeed physical distance and national origin are increasingly irrelevant given the premise that enacting new modes of political participation does not presuppose proximity, commonality, or identity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This project, funded by the European Commission Delegation in Washington, DC, explores the prospects for democratic politics in Europe against the backdrop of the profound transformations taking place on the European continent in response to the global financial meltdown and the crisis it has unleashed in the Eurozone. 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