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How has it been possible for Irish political leaders to not just accept but actively promote two of the largest challenges to Irish nation-statehood: the concession of sovereignty to the European Union (EU) and the retraction of the constitutional claim over Northern Ireland? This book argues that, rather than indicating a pragmatic retreat, such decisions (and their justification on the public stage) reveal the unique power and enduring relevance of nationalism to Irish and European politics today. As a detailed study of official discourse in twentieth-century Ireland, it traces the ways in which nationalism can be simultaneously redefined and revitalised through European integration. The text moves from an overview of the origins and development of Irish official nationalism to analyse the connections between its response to profound internal and external challenges to Irish nation-statehood. The genius of the Irish approach to such challenges has been to employ innovative EU-inspired concepts in finding agreement with and within Northern Ireland, whilst simultaneously legitimising further European integration on the grounds that it fulfils traditional nationalist ideals. Thus, Irish political leaders have been successful in not only accommodating potent nationalist and pro-European discourses, but in making them appear complementary. The book concludes with an assessment of likely changes in this symbiotic relationship in the post-EU enlargement, post-Celtic Tiger era.
to situate each text accurately in time. The survey is divided into two parts. The first examines the critical and cautious attitude toward European integration exhibited by Habermas from the early 1960s. The increasingly positive attitude he has shown since the early 1990s is then considered. However, such a neat periodisation should not obscure the continuity and recurrence of themes. Habermas’s ‘Eurosceptic’ 1 phase actually coincided with a gradual rejection of the nation-state, separable into three stages. The first stage
The study of European integration has in the past been plagued by the so-called sui generis problem: ‘the EU is considered somehow beyond international relations, somehow a quasi-state or an inverted federation, or some other locution’ (Long 1997 : 187). At the empirical level of analysis, few would deny that the EU does indeed display unique characteristics, be it in its scope, institutional
Introduction As we argued in chapter 1 , the widespread perception of RLPs as ‘eurosceptic’ masks the reality that they actually reflect a wide variety of positions, with elements of Europeanist idealism present in some parties and leadership elites. Moreover, ‘Euroscepticism’ is an ambiguous and highly normative term that can have the unfortunate tendency to lump together parties that reject the European integration project altogether in the name of nationalism; parties that are sceptical about the direction
1 The impact of European integration on regional power This chapter explores the key theoretical puzzles of the book: firstly, why is it that existing studies present such contradictory conclusions about the impact of European integration on regional power? Some see European integration as a source of empowerment for regions, while others argue that it may undermine regional power. Others still do not think the EU affects regional power at all. The second theoretical puzzle concerns the problems this theoretical ambiguity presents for empirical research and how
From its conception to the referenda of 2005 where it met its end, German philosopher Jürgen Habermas wrote in support of the European Constitution. This book is the first in-depth account of his project. Emphasis is placed on the conception of the European Union (EU) that informed his political prescriptions. This study engages with Habermas's thought as a totality, though attention is focussed on themes such as communicative rationality that began to surface in the 1970s. The first part of the book considers the unfolding of 'social modernity' at the level of the EU. Among the subjects covered are Habermas's concept of juridification, the latter's affinities with integration theories such as neofunctionalism and the application of Habermas's democratic theory to the EU. The second part addresses 'cultural modernity' in Europe - 'Europessimism' is argued to be a subset of the broader cultural pessimism that has assailed the project of modernity in recent decades with renewed intensity in the wake of 9/11. The final section looks at the conceptual landscape of the Constitutional Convention. The groundbreaking work of E. O. Eriksen, E. F. Fossum and others provides the most developed Habermasian account of the EU to date. Juridification is put forward as a metatheory of social modernity, and existing approaches from the corpus of European integration theory are drawn. Recent political theory confronts scholars of European integration with difficult questions. The social democrats who were interviewed had the opposite combination of opinions.
1 Habermas on European integration This chapter addresses two features of Habermas’s oeuvre. These form the basis for the account of social modernity that follows in chapters 2 to 4. First, there is the influence that the concept of juridification has had on Habermas’s journalistic writings. Though most evident in his reflections on the nationstate, juridification also informed Habermas’s (2001a, 2005) calls for constitutional deliberation. Reading his work in this way diverges from the more usual separation of its academic and journalistic aspects; it is the
2 A structural constructivist theory of politics and of European integration In this chapter, I explore in detail structural constructivism as a theory of European integration. By structural constructivism I refer to a mostly French research tradition that develops some of Pierre Bourdieu's theoretical tools (Bourdieu 1989, 14-25; Ansart 1990; Katshanov and Shmatko 1996, 90-104; Kauppi 1996, 53-68, 2000). Bourdieu's structural constructivist theory of politics offers powerful instruments for a critical analysis of political power. In European studies, the theory
The development Issues concerningofwomen European integration The development of European integration 191 13 ➤ Review of the progress towards greater integration in Europe since the 1950s ➤ An identification of the key stages in integration ➤ Explanations of the different forms of integration which have emerged ➤ The main issues concerning integration ➤ Speculation concerning the future course of integration POST-WAR EUROPE After two world wars, both of which devastated European industry and threatened permanently to sour relations between its states, Europe
Challenges currently facing European labour movements are novel, yet a rich literature bears witness to the historic manner in which labour has responded to European integration. In this chapter, so as to root later analysis in relevant debates, I conduct an in-depth survey of this literature. I commence with an examination of historic attempts by labour to respond to European integration. Though prominent political economists writing after the Maastricht Treaty emphasized processes of competition (Rhodes, 1998a ; Scharpf, 1999