Article contents
The Idea of Thick Constitutional Patriotism and Its Implications for the Role and Structure of European Legal History
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 March 2019
Extract
A sense of cohesion grounded in a common identity is widely believed to be a prerequisite for a functioning democratic European polity. If the European Union is to master successfully the tasks assigned to it in the Constitutional Treaty and, using a non-consensual procedure, decide on policies that concern the security of its citizens or have significant distributive effects, then a sufficiently thick common identity is believed to be necessary both to legitimate and to ensure the functioning of the polity in the long term. There is little doubt that such an identity is currently missing. The question is what such an identity should be and whether the prepolitical pre-requisites for the development of such an identity exist. Are there historical experiences and accomplishments that enable European citizens to understand themselves as having suffered a common past and which animate them to see themselves engaged in the construction of a common political future? What are the appropriate narratives around which a European identity could, over time, develop? What should the focus of a self-conscious politics of memory be? What are the implications for the role and structure of European historiography, in particular for the European legal and political historiography?
- Type
- Articles: Special Issue: Confronting Memories – Constitutionalization after Bitter Experiences
- Information
- German Law Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 2: Article: Special Issue - Confronting Memories: European „Bitter Experiences“ and the Constitutionalization Process , 01 February 2005 , pp. 319 - 354
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2005 by German Law Journal GbR
References
1 I thank Jörg Benedict, Moshe Halbertal, Martti Koskenniemi, and Ruth Rubio-Marin, for helpful comments and suggestions.Google Scholar
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25 For a remarkable example of anti-universalist ethnic historiography that was apparently mainstream in Germany at the time, cf., the following excerpt from the introduction to a history book used in German “Gymnasien“ (higher than high schools) just before WWI: The author underlines that his book is not political in the ordinary sense of party politics and that it instead reflects commitments that no reasonable person would interpret as biased: “Stolz auf unser deutsches Volkstum und die zahlreichen Űbermenschen, die es hervorgebracht hat, die Űberzeugung von der Notwendigkeit einer starken Staatsgewalt, die Űberzeugung, dass wir nur dann gross und stark bleiben, wenn wir unsere deutschnationale Eigenart erhalten und pflegen, die Erkenntnis, dass es nichts Ungleicheres gibt gibt als die Menschen, dass nichts mehr zu bekaempfen ist als die Nivellierungssucht underer Zeit, welche alle Unterschiede zwischen den menschen, Nationene und Rassen beseitigen möchte. Die Plutokratie, die zumehmende Demokratisierung und der Universalismus bilden die grössten Gefahren der Gegenwart.” Heinrich Wolf, Angewandte Geschichte: Eine Erziehung zum Politischen Denken und Wollen VI (1913). We refrain from a literal translation and have instead italicised some notions which have become world famous. The problem with translating this type of text is that the language used is, fortunately enough, no longer existent. And there are no real equivalents for sunk ugliness in German or English. So let us just restate the message, which is very clear: universalism, democracy and equality are cast as the great moral enemy of the strong German Volk.Google Scholar
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27 Kant's proposed account of world history may in fact be prone to such charge. Unlike the proposal here, he suggested reading history as if the purpose of world history were to bring to fruition globally human capacities and liberal ideals. In this sense his account of history was pre-committed to a progress narrative. The kind of historical writing suggested here would not be grounded in such a premise. The very idea of constitutional patriotism, is however, under girded by the hope and desire for of an ever-more perfect understanding of the basic principles of justice and their ever more perfect realization in the polity. But this is a political hope. The rhetorical invocation of such a hope is an integral part, for example, in American political rhetoric at Party Conventions or Presidential Inaugural Addresses – in the idea of a more perfect and inclusive Union.Google Scholar
28 A stellar example for this is Eric Hobsbawm, whose major work includes, The Age of Revolution (1962), The Age of Capital (1975) and The Age of Empire (1987) which became a defining work of his chosen period, the “long 19th century”, from 1789 to 1914. See, also, The Age of Extremes (1994) extending his coverage to the ‘short 20th century'.Google Scholar
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58 See Handyside v. U.K., 7 December 1976, 1 E.H.R.R. 737.Google Scholar
59 For example, would the ERT line of jurisprudence still be law of the land after the ratification of the Constitutional Charter, Art. II-51 notwithstanding?Google Scholar
60 The Constitutional Treaty mentions the Charter of Fundamental Rights as well as the traditional formula first used by the ECJ “Fundamental rights as guaranteed by the ECHR, and as they result from the constitutional traditions common to the Member States as general principles of the Union's law”, while opening up the prospect accession to the ECHR in addition to all of this, see Art. II-7.Google Scholar
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