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There has been a lot of talk about the European Union's so-called 'democratic deficit', by which is meant its lack of legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens. This book provides a critical analysis of the democratic stalemate in European politics. It argues that the root of the 'democratic deficit' has more to do with the domestic political fields of the Union's member-states and the structure of the evolving European political field than with the relationships between supranational institutions. The book analyses the complex ways 'Europe' is integrated into domestic politics and shows how domestic political fields and cultures have prevented deepening integration. As a result of the formation of a European political field, political resources in European 'postnational' and 'postabsolutist' polities are being redistributed. The theory of structural constructivism proposed fuses French structural theories of politics and a 'bottom-up' approach to European integration. The book examines the relationship between French political traditions and the construction of a European security structure from the point of view of identity politics and the French post-imperialist syndrome. The educational and social homogeneity of French civil servants provides a political resource that certain individuals can use in Brussels, influencing the direction and form of European integration. Studying legislative legitimacy in the European Parliament elections, the book highlights that intellectuals are important players in French politics: the politics of the street has always been a key part of French political life.
conditioned by the structures of national political fields and their specific historical traditions. In this chapter, I will examine the relationship between French political traditions and the construction of a European security structure. This will be approached from the point of view of identity politics and the French post-imperialist syndrome (Kortunov 2001), by investigating a complex set of symptoms arising from the discrepancy between French ambition and reality. National and European identities are intertwined with institutions that frame political action and ideas
and Robert Hue's list 'Bouge l’Europe!’ were caught between contradictory ideological and pragmatic political requirements. Ideologically, the French Communist Party was against market forces and the creation of a common European defence. Pragmatically, as a partner in Jospin's government, it had to back the French war effort in the Balkans. It could not openly question Jospin's moves to forge a common European security structure, to cut public spending or to privatise industry. Hue even declared in the business daily La Tribune that ‘the Communists are not the
should put its trust in all-European security structures embodied in a reinforced and reformed Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Kuźniar 2008: 88–92). Indulging the inter-war Intermarium idea, President Lech Wałęsa briefly toyed with the idea of NATO-bis: a separate collective security alliance of all former Warsaw Pact members minus Russia (Onyszkiewicz, 1999 : 135). Another expression of a separate East