Review Essay The Divided West by Jurgen
Political Theory
http://ptx.sagepub.com
Review Essay: The Divided West, by Jürgen Habermas, edited
and translated by Ciaran Cronin. Malden, Mass.: Polity Press,
2006. 224 pp. $19.95 (paper). Europolis: Constitutional Patriotism
Beyond the Nation-State, by Patrizia Nanz. Manchester, UK:
Manchester University Press, 2006. 206 pp. $74.95 (cloth). Europe
(In Theory), by Roberto Dainotto. Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 2007. 270 pp. $22.95 (paper)
Craig Borowiak
Political Theory 2008; 36; 152
DOI: 10.1177/0090591707310095
The online version of this article can be found at:
http://ptx.sagepub.com
Published by:
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Theorizing Europe
and its Divisions
Political Theory
Volume 36 Number 1
February 2008 152-160
© 2008 Sage Publications
10.1177/0090591707310095
http://ptx.sagepub.com
hosted at
http://online.sagepub.com
The Divided West, by Jürgen Habermas, edited and translated by Ciaran
Cronin. Malden, Mass.: Polity Press, 2006. 224 pp. $19.95 (paper).
Europolis: Constitutional Patriotism Beyond the Nation-State, by Patrizia
Nanz. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2006. 206 pp. $74.95
(cloth).
Europe (In Theory), by Roberto Dainotto. Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 2007. 270 pp. $22.95 (paper).
The idea of a unified Europe evokes both anxiety and hope. For some,
Europe signifies economic prosperity, postnational democracy, and international rule of law. For others more skeptical, Europe is deeply implicated in
hegemonic agendas and forms of domination, past and present, internal and
external. As depictions of “fortress Europe” play out against countervisions
of “cosmopolitan Europe,” the significance of Europe’s divisions has
become more pronounced. Questions loom about whether internal differences will be an obstacle or a resource for Europe’s potential, and if the
very project of unification doesn’t generate yet new divisions and margins.
This essay reviews three recent books that address Europe, its divisions,
and their role in the contemporary political imagination.
The first book, The Divided West, is a collection of eight interviews and
essays written by Habermas since the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001. The chapters convey a sense of Habermas’s changing reactions to
events in Europe and the world. He is clearly dismayed by the pattern of
divisive U.S. foreign policy that treats the liberal ethos of a superpower as
a substitute for public law. He is just as clearly frustrated over the unwillingness of a divided Europe to proceed with deeper union. This book
reflects his efforts to theoretically and politically grapple with both issues.
The book is organized chronologically in four parts. In Part One
Habermas reflects upon the significance of September 11 and the war in
Author’s Note: I would like to thank Nilgün Uygun and Rachel Van Tosh for their helpful
suggestions.
152
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Borowiak / Theorizing Europe
153
Iraq. Part Two addresses the challenges of European unification and the
possibility of “core Europe” serving as a counterpower to the imperial policies of the United States. Part Three consists of a single wide-ranging interview on war and peace. The book concludes with a long essay entitled
“Does the Constitutionalization of International Law Still Have a Chance?”
On Habermas’s own account, this final chapter formed the basis for drawing the other writings together as a way “to throw light on” the relation
between the constitutionalization of international law and the goal of
European unification (p. xxiii).
Many of the book’s themes will be familiar to readers of Habermas,
including his constitutional patriotism, his commitment to public law and
deliberative procedures of democratic opinion and will formation, and his
push for European unification as part of a postnational politics. At least six
of the eight chapters have also been previously published, four of them in
English. Even so, it is useful to read these chapters together in a single
volume, especially given the way they tend to reference one another. And
unlike Habermas’s other works, which tend to demand a lot of readers in
terms of theoretical background and familiarity with his corpus, this book’s
topical, political character, as well as its mixture of interview and essay formats, make it relatively accessible even for nonspecialists. What emerges
from the book is a rich picture of Habermas as an engaged public intellectual whose philosophical positions thoroughly inform his interpretations of
political events.
The most original contribution in this volume is Habermas’s concluding essay in which he reconstructs Kant’s cosmopolitan project in terms of
the constitutionalization of international law. Habermas accepts the normative thrust of Kant’s cosmopolitanism, but instead of associating the
“cosmopolitan condition” with a world federal republic, he advances a fairly
conventional vision of multilevel governance. He differentiates between the
supranational level of world organizations and the transnational level of
“continental regimes.” Both levels would need to derive legitimacy from
democratic processes institutionalized in constitutional states. Institutionally,
Habermas suggests reforming the United Nations in ways that boost its
enforcement capability and restrict its functions to securing peace and
promoting human rights. He believes such a reformed UN system could
provide a framework for a politically constituted world society. But he also
believes that the “genuinely utopian moment” of the cosmopolitan condition lies at the transnational level, where the difficult regulatory problems
of “global domestic politics” need to be addressed. This requires deeper
coordination and greater civic solidarity than at the supranational level.
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154
Political Theory
Habermas takes the emergent European Union as the model the rest of the
world should follow (pp. 109, 177). As the editor of The Divided West
suggests, for Habermas the EU represents the crucible within which the
key experiments in cosmopolitanism are being conducted (p. xvii). This is
particularly evident in the earlier chapters of The Divided West.
As in his previous writings, Habermas argues for European unification
as a model way to deal with globalization and the “postnational constellation.” The Divided West adds to this the call for a unified Europe capable of
“throwing its weight onto the scales” at the international level in order to
counterbalance U.S. unilateralism. In this respect, this book is a sign of the
times: it involves a shift from the globalization debates of the 1990s and
early 2000s to the post 9/11 debates about U.S. imperialism and its ramifications for international law and justice.
Using his vision of constitutionalized international law, Habermas gives
a biting and compelling critique of the “hegemonic liberalism” of the current U.S. administration. He fears that the moralization of international politics will supersede the juridification of international relations, with
dangerous and illegitimate outcomes (p. 116). He argues that security in a
complex world is better addressed through a “horizontally juridified international community” that is legally obligated to cooperate, than through the
unilateralism of a major power that disregards law (p. 184). He adds that
even a “well-intentioned hegemon” can never be sure its policies are sufficiently impartial. To be legitimate, claims to impartiality need to be tested
against discursive procedures of opinion and will formation (p. 184). For
Habermas, this means there is no coherent alternative to a cosmopolitan
order that ensures an equal and reciprocal hearing for the voices of all those
affected (p. 36). He perceives the EU as a potential source of both cosmopolitan energies and anti-imperial resistance.
Despite his high hopes, Habermas also recognizes that Europe is
plagued by internal divisions. Mindful of these, he turns to “core Europe”
as an answer to both the “smoldering internal conflict” over the unification
process and the external U.S. effort to divide “Old” and “New” Europe
(p. 91). He argues that core Europe must lead the way in developing a
common foreign and defense policy as a counterpower to the United States.
And if Europe won’t deepen its unification in unison, core Europe should
lead the way with a Europe “at different speeds.”
The Divided West is a welcome addition to the expansive corpus of
this influential social theorist. Yet Habermas’s vision of both Europe and
cosmopolitanism contains some unsettling elements. His insistence upon
inclusive processes of deliberation, his awareness that constitutionalism
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Borowiak / Theorizing Europe
155
cannot be imposed from above, his ostensible anti-imperial agenda, and his
recognition of the dislocations and inequalities of globalization all potentially open into a critical cosmopolitan politics. It is not, however, a politics
Habermas fully embraces. Like Kant himself, Habermas seems to project
the European experience onto the canvas of the world. Rather than “provincializing Europe” within a cosmopolitan dialogue that reaches across regions,
cultures, and histories, he re-centers Europe (a region that is an exception in
so many ways) as the model to follow and as the hope for perpetual peace.
He does so with scarcely a gesture at soliciting other perspectives.
It’s not simply Habermas’s Eurocentricism that I find troubling in this
book. It is also his view of Europe. Habermas’s cosmopolitanism at times
seems to resemble a hall of mirrors that all, eventually, point back to the
very familiar “sources” of modernity: France and Germany. The meaning
of “core Europe” fluctuates for Habermas, usually including the Benelux
countries and only rarely including Italy and Great Britain. Core Europe, it
seems, has its own core for Habermas, as evidenced in his suggestion that
France and Germany are “the center” of Europe (p. 81). Habermas does
show some sensitivity to Polish resistance to deeper unification. He also
rightly points out that leadership does not necessarily entail exclusion.
Others can join when they are ready. Nonetheless, while the door may be
open, the terms of inclusion seem rather closed. It isn’t clear that the “locomotive” for European unification isn’t a French and German train rather
than a European one. This is to suggest that Habermas’s cosmopolitan and
European vision at times seems a little less inclusive and a little less deliberative than he lets on.
If divisions in Europe lead Habermas to solicit the leadership of “core
Europe,” for Patrizia Nanz they motivate a call for mutual learning. In
Europolis: Constitutional Patriotism Beyond the Nation-State, Nanz tackles the challenge of European integration through what she calls a “dialogical” theory of deliberative democracy.
Europolis is divided in three parts. The first part sets up the book with
an introduction followed by a discussion of skeptical views on European
integration. She reserves her major theorizing for Part Two, where in distinct chapters she develops original positions on the public sphere, multiculturalism, translation theory, and constitutional patriotism. Part Three
involves a major methodological shift as Nanz seeks to illustrate and test
her theorizing with case studies of immigrants living in Germany.
The core of Nanz’s argument lies in her claim that the “mutual exploration of difference” should be made a central feature of democratic legitimation and political solidarity. Like Habermas, she rejects Eurosceptical
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Political Theory
claims that only a culturally homogenous demos can generate the trust and
solidarity necessary for democratic politics (p. 15). She also similarly
embraces constitutionalism as a way to generate a democratically legitimate European polity (p. 3). However, rather than envisioning an overarching set of constitutional principles rooted in a set of shared political
orientations and historical experiences, Nanz imagines a decentered “translational constitutionalism” that stresses the unshared sociocultural perspectives within a “pluricentric” Europe (p. 41). Rather than regarding ethical
and cultural heterogeneity as an obstacle, Nanz regards it as an “epistemic
resource” for solving shared problems.
In the first of her major theoretical chapters, Nanz critiques Habermas’s
notion of the public sphere for being too focused on critical-rational discourse and consensus, and too inattentive to social identities and gender.
She also critiques the idea of a singular all-encompassing public sphere. In
contrast, she aims to reconstruct a more radical “interdiscursive model” of
the public sphere characterized by a “criss-crossing and overlapping of
publics.” Nanz contends that the very process of discursively negotiating
and translating between different publics can build “dialogical solidarity”
across ethical, cultural, and national boundaries without the need for a
wider convergence. Her implication is that the “mutual exploration of differences” can itself provide a sufficient degree of solidarity to sustain
European constitutionalism.
From a discussion of interdiscursive public spheres, Nanz moves to
debates over multiculturalism. Critically engaging Charles Taylor, Habermas,
Jeremy Waldron, and Will Kymlicka, she seeks to navigate between accounts
that would essentialize cultural identity on the one hand and those that
would trivialize or subordinate cultural politics on the other. In light of what
she regards as the inescapably pluralist and dialogical character of identity,
she promotes “multicultural literacy” and a “critical politics of multiculturalism.” Such a politics, she maintains, would argue for the constant possibility of transforming identity even as it recognizes the interests that social
groups have in sustaining boundaries (p. 42).
Europolis is perhaps most original in its application of translation theory
to the challenges of constitutionalism. Drawing critically on the work of
Donald Davidson, Hilary Putnam, and Mikhail Bakhtin, Nanz argues that
all communication involves a translational crossing of borders. The aim of
“seeing the world from the other’s perspective” precedes all pragmatic
efforts to achieve mutual understanding and social integration (p. 82). In
this sense she regards difference as the “engine of understanding.” With a
particularly creative application of Bakhtin’s sociological linguistics, Nanz
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describes how the destabilizing effects of radical pluralism can be counterbalanced by the centripetal pull of “interpretive charity.” Applying this to
the European context, she suggests that while the heterogeneity of a polity
might open constitutional dialogue to new, challenging perspectives, the
effort at mutual translation can generate a common ground for shared constitutional identity.
The theoretical chapters of Europolis at times suffer from a lack of
examples and illustrations. Fortunately, Nanz partially compensates for this
in the final, empirical section of the book. She chooses to focus qualitative
case studies on the experiences of Italian and (to a lesser extent) Turkish
immigrants in Germany. She takes such migrants as prototypical cases of
decentered selves and as examples of how denationalization can lead to
intercultural forms of solidarity and trust. This section of the book fits awkwardly with the rest. And given the limited scope of her case studies—she
conducted interviews with twelve immigrants and focuses on just four—her
findings are impressionistic and provisional. It is a gesture more than a
definitive statement. It is a welcome gesture nonetheless.
Europolis conveys a deep and admirable sense of the importance of
engaging other perspectives and of how diversity can be a resource for
democratic politics. The book does, however, suffer from some weaknesses.
For Nanz, social life is saturated with plurality and translation. It goes “all
the way through” and “all the way up.” While this gives her leverage against
critics who regard heterogeneity per se as a reason to reject transnational
democracy, it does not provide justification for why we should seek out specific differences. Nanz does suggest that difference can be a source of innovation for problem solving, but she does not adequately explain why, how,
and under what conditions. She also tends to diminish the agonistic dimension of dialogue. For example, she describes the “emotional fulfillment and
intellectual enjoyment of curiosity and learning” that arise from processes of
mutual understanding, but she scarcely acknowledges the tensions and animosities that make diversity difficult and commonality appealing.
While Europolis is sophisticated in its theoretical engagements, it tends
to be weaker in its analysis of contemporary European politics. Although
Nanz is clearly motivated by the politics of a heterogeneous Europe, most
of the book’s discussions take place on a very general level, with little discussion of European institutions and little indication of what makes a distinctly European form of transnational dialogical solidarity attractive. To be
fair, Nanz’s objective in Europolis has less to do with proposing institutional solutions than with effecting a change in the European mindset. She
wants to demonstrate the possibility for transnational solidarity where
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Political Theory
others see impossibility. She defends the value of diversity and marginal
voices where others see danger and difficulty. It is in this mode that
Europolis makes a useful contribution.
The final book under review, Roberto Dainotto’s Europe (In Theory),
comes at the question of a divided Europe with greater historical depth and
from a different discipline (Romance Studies) than the other two. If
Habermas explores the progressive political possibilities of a unified
Europe, Dainotto invites wariness about the imperial project internal to
Europe. And if Nanz encourages European solidarity through an engagement with difference, Dainotto illuminates how the image of a unified
Europe has been made possible through the differentiation and marginalization of the European south. He adopts the ambitious task of reconstructing the history of the idea of “Europe” (and Eurocentrism) from the
perspective of Europe’s own internal margins. With intellectual debts to
postcolonial theory and subaltern studies, he not only critiques commonplace characterizations of southern Europe as backward in comparison to
austere northerners, he also seeks to shift the geography through which
Europe is understood. He challenges the self-assigned prerogative of northern Europe to define Europe’s borders and identities (p. 7).
Calling his project a “genealogy of Eurocentrism,” Dainotto describes
how in the eighteenth century theorists began defining Europe not through
an opposition to non-European others, but by differentiating between
Europe’s core and its margins. He singles out features in eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century theorizations of Europe that have formed what he calls
the “rhetorical unconscious” of Europe (p. 8). By this he means the way
historical imaginations of Europe continue to exert themselves upon contemporary European politics and society. For Dainotto, this “rhetorical
unconscious” has a distinctly geographical character involving recurrent
representations of a backward European south. Eurocentric theories of
Europe, Dainotto argues, have entailed the denigration of Europe’s south.
In five rich chapters Europe (in Theory) moves between hegemonic
voices from Europe’s north and noncanonical counter-hegemonic voices
from Europe’s south. The chapters address debates on the origins of
Europe; the emergence of modern Eurocentrism and the north-south dialectic in the work of Montesquieu; the identification of Europe with a
Republic of Letters centered in Paris; the challenge posed to the Francocentric vision of Europe by the exiled Spanish Jesuit Juan Andrés; the shift
of cultural hegemony from France to Germany, as seen particularly in
the work of Madame de Staël and Hegel; and the counter-hegemonic
Orientalism of the nineteenth-century Sicilian historian Michele Amari.
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Borowiak / Theorizing Europe
159
Readers will find good examples of how Orientalist and colonial discourses have been applied within Europe by northern European countries
against the Greek, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese south. Dainotto traces
how this internal north-south dialectic, which first appears in Montesquieu,
recurs first in the French-centered Republic of Letters, and then in Germancentered depictions of nationalist Europe. Regardless of whether it is
France or Germany that constitutes the core, the spirit of Europe continues
to be perceived as located in the north, and the image of a culturally deficient and Orientalized European south continues to make the image of
Europe, as progress, possible.
While Dainotto’s readings of Montesquieu, Voltaire, Mme. de Staël,
Hegel, and other canonical figures are informative, the most original and
exciting contributions of Europe (in Theory) come out of his presentation
of noncanonical voices from Europe’s south. The first such figure he studies is Juan Andrés, an eighteenth-century Spanish Jesuit forced into exile in
Italy. Dainotto paints a compelling picture of a remarkable intellectual
figure whose ambition to write a history of world literature challenged the
Francocentric logics inherent in the idea of a Republic of Letters. Andrés
not only decentered the Parisian metropole, he provincialized French literature (p. 108). Against the linear histories of progress—histories that invariably culminate in Paris—he produced what Dainotto suggests was a first
attempt at comparative literature (p. 6). In his seven-volume history, Andrés
credits Arabs as the source of modern literature and as a central influence
in the rebirth of modern Europe (pp. 127–28). By implication, he argues
that Europe’s south should be regarded as the origin of European modernity
on account of its historical connection to the Arab world. While Dainotto
recognizes that Andrés’s history was far from flawless, he persuasively uses
Andrés to disrupt the hegemonic geographic narrative of European identity
and history.
Dainotto concludes his book with a fascinating study of the nineteenthcentury Sicilian Orientalist Michele Amari. He describes how Amari’s
vision of a “constitutional, revolutionary, freedom-seeking Sicily” upended
commonplace perceptions of the backward south and revolutionized the
geography of theories of Europe (p. 192). Under Amari’s pen, the thirteenthcentury Sicilian revolt against Frankish rule, typically characterized as a
dynastic succession, becomes not only a key moment for Sicily but also a
moment in world history: the first modern revolution. Additionally, in
Islamic law and the Muslim occupation of Sicily, Amari found a nonEuropean source of modern notions of freedom and an alternative basis for
social democracy (p. 209). Unlike his Orientalist counterparts in the north,
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Political Theory
Amari perceived the Orient as an integral part of European civilization and
culture, as part of his own history rather than as a faraway object to be
“known, colonized, exploited and administered” (p. 177). Dainotto seeks to
recuperate this alternative, Mediterranean-style Orientalism for his own
counter-hegemonic agenda. So doing, he not only critiques mainstream
denigrations of Europe’s south; he also challenges the critics of Orientalism
(in the tradition of Edward Said) who replicate the marginalization of the
South by focusing almost entirely upon French and British Orientalist
archives. However, in the spirit of subaltern studies, he uses the fact that the
history of Sicily’s initial engagement with Islam is largely lost in obscurity
to provocatively suggest the virtual impossibility of telling the history of
Europe from the perspective of its own southern margins (p. 217).
Europe (in Theory) is a well-written, yet challenging read well worth the
effort. Although Dainotto restricts his study to Europe’s southern margins,
his approach invites similar studies from other marginal zones (e.g., the
Balkans, the extreme north). It would be interesting to see if those other
margins are as necessary to the concept of Europe as Dainotto believes the
south is.
Aside from occasional brief allusions to contemporary European politics,
Dainotto leaves it largely to the reader to identify how the “rhetorical unconscious” manifests itself today. Having read Europe (in Theory) after
Habermas’s The Divided West, it is not difficult to draw some connections.
Habermas’s unapologetic vision of a French and German core Europe leading both European unification and a cosmopolitan project appears to be one
more site where Europe’s rhetorical unconscious plays itself out. At the very
least, one leaves these three books wondering if Habermas isn’t looking in
the wrong place and in the wrong way for an inclusive cosmopolitanism.
Craig Borowiak
Haverford College, Pennsylvania
Craig Borowiak is an assistant professor of political science at Haverford College, Pennsylvania.
His publications include: “Accountability Debates: The Federalists, the Anti-Federalists, and
Democratic Deficits,” Journal of Politics (November 2007) and “Farmers Rights: Intellectual
Property and the Struggle over Seeds,” Politics & Society (December 2004). He is currently
completing a book on democratic accountability and global governance.
Downloaded from http://ptx.sagepub.com at HAVERFORD COLLEGE on May 13, 2009
http://ptx.sagepub.com
Review Essay: The Divided West, by Jürgen Habermas, edited
and translated by Ciaran Cronin. Malden, Mass.: Polity Press,
2006. 224 pp. $19.95 (paper). Europolis: Constitutional Patriotism
Beyond the Nation-State, by Patrizia Nanz. Manchester, UK:
Manchester University Press, 2006. 206 pp. $74.95 (cloth). Europe
(In Theory), by Roberto Dainotto. Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 2007. 270 pp. $22.95 (paper)
Craig Borowiak
Political Theory 2008; 36; 152
DOI: 10.1177/0090591707310095
The online version of this article can be found at:
http://ptx.sagepub.com
Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com
Additional services and information for Political Theory can be found at:
Email Alerts: http://ptx.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts
Subscriptions: http://ptx.sagepub.com/subscriptions
Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav
Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
Downloaded from http://ptx.sagepub.com at HAVERFORD COLLEGE on May 13, 2009
Theorizing Europe
and its Divisions
Political Theory
Volume 36 Number 1
February 2008 152-160
© 2008 Sage Publications
10.1177/0090591707310095
http://ptx.sagepub.com
hosted at
http://online.sagepub.com
The Divided West, by Jürgen Habermas, edited and translated by Ciaran
Cronin. Malden, Mass.: Polity Press, 2006. 224 pp. $19.95 (paper).
Europolis: Constitutional Patriotism Beyond the Nation-State, by Patrizia
Nanz. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2006. 206 pp. $74.95
(cloth).
Europe (In Theory), by Roberto Dainotto. Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 2007. 270 pp. $22.95 (paper).
The idea of a unified Europe evokes both anxiety and hope. For some,
Europe signifies economic prosperity, postnational democracy, and international rule of law. For others more skeptical, Europe is deeply implicated in
hegemonic agendas and forms of domination, past and present, internal and
external. As depictions of “fortress Europe” play out against countervisions
of “cosmopolitan Europe,” the significance of Europe’s divisions has
become more pronounced. Questions loom about whether internal differences will be an obstacle or a resource for Europe’s potential, and if the
very project of unification doesn’t generate yet new divisions and margins.
This essay reviews three recent books that address Europe, its divisions,
and their role in the contemporary political imagination.
The first book, The Divided West, is a collection of eight interviews and
essays written by Habermas since the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001. The chapters convey a sense of Habermas’s changing reactions to
events in Europe and the world. He is clearly dismayed by the pattern of
divisive U.S. foreign policy that treats the liberal ethos of a superpower as
a substitute for public law. He is just as clearly frustrated over the unwillingness of a divided Europe to proceed with deeper union. This book
reflects his efforts to theoretically and politically grapple with both issues.
The book is organized chronologically in four parts. In Part One
Habermas reflects upon the significance of September 11 and the war in
Author’s Note: I would like to thank Nilgün Uygun and Rachel Van Tosh for their helpful
suggestions.
152
Downloaded from http://ptx.sagepub.com at HAVERFORD COLLEGE on May 13, 2009
Borowiak / Theorizing Europe
153
Iraq. Part Two addresses the challenges of European unification and the
possibility of “core Europe” serving as a counterpower to the imperial policies of the United States. Part Three consists of a single wide-ranging interview on war and peace. The book concludes with a long essay entitled
“Does the Constitutionalization of International Law Still Have a Chance?”
On Habermas’s own account, this final chapter formed the basis for drawing the other writings together as a way “to throw light on” the relation
between the constitutionalization of international law and the goal of
European unification (p. xxiii).
Many of the book’s themes will be familiar to readers of Habermas,
including his constitutional patriotism, his commitment to public law and
deliberative procedures of democratic opinion and will formation, and his
push for European unification as part of a postnational politics. At least six
of the eight chapters have also been previously published, four of them in
English. Even so, it is useful to read these chapters together in a single
volume, especially given the way they tend to reference one another. And
unlike Habermas’s other works, which tend to demand a lot of readers in
terms of theoretical background and familiarity with his corpus, this book’s
topical, political character, as well as its mixture of interview and essay formats, make it relatively accessible even for nonspecialists. What emerges
from the book is a rich picture of Habermas as an engaged public intellectual whose philosophical positions thoroughly inform his interpretations of
political events.
The most original contribution in this volume is Habermas’s concluding essay in which he reconstructs Kant’s cosmopolitan project in terms of
the constitutionalization of international law. Habermas accepts the normative thrust of Kant’s cosmopolitanism, but instead of associating the
“cosmopolitan condition” with a world federal republic, he advances a fairly
conventional vision of multilevel governance. He differentiates between the
supranational level of world organizations and the transnational level of
“continental regimes.” Both levels would need to derive legitimacy from
democratic processes institutionalized in constitutional states. Institutionally,
Habermas suggests reforming the United Nations in ways that boost its
enforcement capability and restrict its functions to securing peace and
promoting human rights. He believes such a reformed UN system could
provide a framework for a politically constituted world society. But he also
believes that the “genuinely utopian moment” of the cosmopolitan condition lies at the transnational level, where the difficult regulatory problems
of “global domestic politics” need to be addressed. This requires deeper
coordination and greater civic solidarity than at the supranational level.
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154
Political Theory
Habermas takes the emergent European Union as the model the rest of the
world should follow (pp. 109, 177). As the editor of The Divided West
suggests, for Habermas the EU represents the crucible within which the
key experiments in cosmopolitanism are being conducted (p. xvii). This is
particularly evident in the earlier chapters of The Divided West.
As in his previous writings, Habermas argues for European unification
as a model way to deal with globalization and the “postnational constellation.” The Divided West adds to this the call for a unified Europe capable of
“throwing its weight onto the scales” at the international level in order to
counterbalance U.S. unilateralism. In this respect, this book is a sign of the
times: it involves a shift from the globalization debates of the 1990s and
early 2000s to the post 9/11 debates about U.S. imperialism and its ramifications for international law and justice.
Using his vision of constitutionalized international law, Habermas gives
a biting and compelling critique of the “hegemonic liberalism” of the current U.S. administration. He fears that the moralization of international politics will supersede the juridification of international relations, with
dangerous and illegitimate outcomes (p. 116). He argues that security in a
complex world is better addressed through a “horizontally juridified international community” that is legally obligated to cooperate, than through the
unilateralism of a major power that disregards law (p. 184). He adds that
even a “well-intentioned hegemon” can never be sure its policies are sufficiently impartial. To be legitimate, claims to impartiality need to be tested
against discursive procedures of opinion and will formation (p. 184). For
Habermas, this means there is no coherent alternative to a cosmopolitan
order that ensures an equal and reciprocal hearing for the voices of all those
affected (p. 36). He perceives the EU as a potential source of both cosmopolitan energies and anti-imperial resistance.
Despite his high hopes, Habermas also recognizes that Europe is
plagued by internal divisions. Mindful of these, he turns to “core Europe”
as an answer to both the “smoldering internal conflict” over the unification
process and the external U.S. effort to divide “Old” and “New” Europe
(p. 91). He argues that core Europe must lead the way in developing a
common foreign and defense policy as a counterpower to the United States.
And if Europe won’t deepen its unification in unison, core Europe should
lead the way with a Europe “at different speeds.”
The Divided West is a welcome addition to the expansive corpus of
this influential social theorist. Yet Habermas’s vision of both Europe and
cosmopolitanism contains some unsettling elements. His insistence upon
inclusive processes of deliberation, his awareness that constitutionalism
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cannot be imposed from above, his ostensible anti-imperial agenda, and his
recognition of the dislocations and inequalities of globalization all potentially open into a critical cosmopolitan politics. It is not, however, a politics
Habermas fully embraces. Like Kant himself, Habermas seems to project
the European experience onto the canvas of the world. Rather than “provincializing Europe” within a cosmopolitan dialogue that reaches across regions,
cultures, and histories, he re-centers Europe (a region that is an exception in
so many ways) as the model to follow and as the hope for perpetual peace.
He does so with scarcely a gesture at soliciting other perspectives.
It’s not simply Habermas’s Eurocentricism that I find troubling in this
book. It is also his view of Europe. Habermas’s cosmopolitanism at times
seems to resemble a hall of mirrors that all, eventually, point back to the
very familiar “sources” of modernity: France and Germany. The meaning
of “core Europe” fluctuates for Habermas, usually including the Benelux
countries and only rarely including Italy and Great Britain. Core Europe, it
seems, has its own core for Habermas, as evidenced in his suggestion that
France and Germany are “the center” of Europe (p. 81). Habermas does
show some sensitivity to Polish resistance to deeper unification. He also
rightly points out that leadership does not necessarily entail exclusion.
Others can join when they are ready. Nonetheless, while the door may be
open, the terms of inclusion seem rather closed. It isn’t clear that the “locomotive” for European unification isn’t a French and German train rather
than a European one. This is to suggest that Habermas’s cosmopolitan and
European vision at times seems a little less inclusive and a little less deliberative than he lets on.
If divisions in Europe lead Habermas to solicit the leadership of “core
Europe,” for Patrizia Nanz they motivate a call for mutual learning. In
Europolis: Constitutional Patriotism Beyond the Nation-State, Nanz tackles the challenge of European integration through what she calls a “dialogical” theory of deliberative democracy.
Europolis is divided in three parts. The first part sets up the book with
an introduction followed by a discussion of skeptical views on European
integration. She reserves her major theorizing for Part Two, where in distinct chapters she develops original positions on the public sphere, multiculturalism, translation theory, and constitutional patriotism. Part Three
involves a major methodological shift as Nanz seeks to illustrate and test
her theorizing with case studies of immigrants living in Germany.
The core of Nanz’s argument lies in her claim that the “mutual exploration of difference” should be made a central feature of democratic legitimation and political solidarity. Like Habermas, she rejects Eurosceptical
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claims that only a culturally homogenous demos can generate the trust and
solidarity necessary for democratic politics (p. 15). She also similarly
embraces constitutionalism as a way to generate a democratically legitimate European polity (p. 3). However, rather than envisioning an overarching set of constitutional principles rooted in a set of shared political
orientations and historical experiences, Nanz imagines a decentered “translational constitutionalism” that stresses the unshared sociocultural perspectives within a “pluricentric” Europe (p. 41). Rather than regarding ethical
and cultural heterogeneity as an obstacle, Nanz regards it as an “epistemic
resource” for solving shared problems.
In the first of her major theoretical chapters, Nanz critiques Habermas’s
notion of the public sphere for being too focused on critical-rational discourse and consensus, and too inattentive to social identities and gender.
She also critiques the idea of a singular all-encompassing public sphere. In
contrast, she aims to reconstruct a more radical “interdiscursive model” of
the public sphere characterized by a “criss-crossing and overlapping of
publics.” Nanz contends that the very process of discursively negotiating
and translating between different publics can build “dialogical solidarity”
across ethical, cultural, and national boundaries without the need for a
wider convergence. Her implication is that the “mutual exploration of differences” can itself provide a sufficient degree of solidarity to sustain
European constitutionalism.
From a discussion of interdiscursive public spheres, Nanz moves to
debates over multiculturalism. Critically engaging Charles Taylor, Habermas,
Jeremy Waldron, and Will Kymlicka, she seeks to navigate between accounts
that would essentialize cultural identity on the one hand and those that
would trivialize or subordinate cultural politics on the other. In light of what
she regards as the inescapably pluralist and dialogical character of identity,
she promotes “multicultural literacy” and a “critical politics of multiculturalism.” Such a politics, she maintains, would argue for the constant possibility of transforming identity even as it recognizes the interests that social
groups have in sustaining boundaries (p. 42).
Europolis is perhaps most original in its application of translation theory
to the challenges of constitutionalism. Drawing critically on the work of
Donald Davidson, Hilary Putnam, and Mikhail Bakhtin, Nanz argues that
all communication involves a translational crossing of borders. The aim of
“seeing the world from the other’s perspective” precedes all pragmatic
efforts to achieve mutual understanding and social integration (p. 82). In
this sense she regards difference as the “engine of understanding.” With a
particularly creative application of Bakhtin’s sociological linguistics, Nanz
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describes how the destabilizing effects of radical pluralism can be counterbalanced by the centripetal pull of “interpretive charity.” Applying this to
the European context, she suggests that while the heterogeneity of a polity
might open constitutional dialogue to new, challenging perspectives, the
effort at mutual translation can generate a common ground for shared constitutional identity.
The theoretical chapters of Europolis at times suffer from a lack of
examples and illustrations. Fortunately, Nanz partially compensates for this
in the final, empirical section of the book. She chooses to focus qualitative
case studies on the experiences of Italian and (to a lesser extent) Turkish
immigrants in Germany. She takes such migrants as prototypical cases of
decentered selves and as examples of how denationalization can lead to
intercultural forms of solidarity and trust. This section of the book fits awkwardly with the rest. And given the limited scope of her case studies—she
conducted interviews with twelve immigrants and focuses on just four—her
findings are impressionistic and provisional. It is a gesture more than a
definitive statement. It is a welcome gesture nonetheless.
Europolis conveys a deep and admirable sense of the importance of
engaging other perspectives and of how diversity can be a resource for
democratic politics. The book does, however, suffer from some weaknesses.
For Nanz, social life is saturated with plurality and translation. It goes “all
the way through” and “all the way up.” While this gives her leverage against
critics who regard heterogeneity per se as a reason to reject transnational
democracy, it does not provide justification for why we should seek out specific differences. Nanz does suggest that difference can be a source of innovation for problem solving, but she does not adequately explain why, how,
and under what conditions. She also tends to diminish the agonistic dimension of dialogue. For example, she describes the “emotional fulfillment and
intellectual enjoyment of curiosity and learning” that arise from processes of
mutual understanding, but she scarcely acknowledges the tensions and animosities that make diversity difficult and commonality appealing.
While Europolis is sophisticated in its theoretical engagements, it tends
to be weaker in its analysis of contemporary European politics. Although
Nanz is clearly motivated by the politics of a heterogeneous Europe, most
of the book’s discussions take place on a very general level, with little discussion of European institutions and little indication of what makes a distinctly European form of transnational dialogical solidarity attractive. To be
fair, Nanz’s objective in Europolis has less to do with proposing institutional solutions than with effecting a change in the European mindset. She
wants to demonstrate the possibility for transnational solidarity where
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others see impossibility. She defends the value of diversity and marginal
voices where others see danger and difficulty. It is in this mode that
Europolis makes a useful contribution.
The final book under review, Roberto Dainotto’s Europe (In Theory),
comes at the question of a divided Europe with greater historical depth and
from a different discipline (Romance Studies) than the other two. If
Habermas explores the progressive political possibilities of a unified
Europe, Dainotto invites wariness about the imperial project internal to
Europe. And if Nanz encourages European solidarity through an engagement with difference, Dainotto illuminates how the image of a unified
Europe has been made possible through the differentiation and marginalization of the European south. He adopts the ambitious task of reconstructing the history of the idea of “Europe” (and Eurocentrism) from the
perspective of Europe’s own internal margins. With intellectual debts to
postcolonial theory and subaltern studies, he not only critiques commonplace characterizations of southern Europe as backward in comparison to
austere northerners, he also seeks to shift the geography through which
Europe is understood. He challenges the self-assigned prerogative of northern Europe to define Europe’s borders and identities (p. 7).
Calling his project a “genealogy of Eurocentrism,” Dainotto describes
how in the eighteenth century theorists began defining Europe not through
an opposition to non-European others, but by differentiating between
Europe’s core and its margins. He singles out features in eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century theorizations of Europe that have formed what he calls
the “rhetorical unconscious” of Europe (p. 8). By this he means the way
historical imaginations of Europe continue to exert themselves upon contemporary European politics and society. For Dainotto, this “rhetorical
unconscious” has a distinctly geographical character involving recurrent
representations of a backward European south. Eurocentric theories of
Europe, Dainotto argues, have entailed the denigration of Europe’s south.
In five rich chapters Europe (in Theory) moves between hegemonic
voices from Europe’s north and noncanonical counter-hegemonic voices
from Europe’s south. The chapters address debates on the origins of
Europe; the emergence of modern Eurocentrism and the north-south dialectic in the work of Montesquieu; the identification of Europe with a
Republic of Letters centered in Paris; the challenge posed to the Francocentric vision of Europe by the exiled Spanish Jesuit Juan Andrés; the shift
of cultural hegemony from France to Germany, as seen particularly in
the work of Madame de Staël and Hegel; and the counter-hegemonic
Orientalism of the nineteenth-century Sicilian historian Michele Amari.
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Readers will find good examples of how Orientalist and colonial discourses have been applied within Europe by northern European countries
against the Greek, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese south. Dainotto traces
how this internal north-south dialectic, which first appears in Montesquieu,
recurs first in the French-centered Republic of Letters, and then in Germancentered depictions of nationalist Europe. Regardless of whether it is
France or Germany that constitutes the core, the spirit of Europe continues
to be perceived as located in the north, and the image of a culturally deficient and Orientalized European south continues to make the image of
Europe, as progress, possible.
While Dainotto’s readings of Montesquieu, Voltaire, Mme. de Staël,
Hegel, and other canonical figures are informative, the most original and
exciting contributions of Europe (in Theory) come out of his presentation
of noncanonical voices from Europe’s south. The first such figure he studies is Juan Andrés, an eighteenth-century Spanish Jesuit forced into exile in
Italy. Dainotto paints a compelling picture of a remarkable intellectual
figure whose ambition to write a history of world literature challenged the
Francocentric logics inherent in the idea of a Republic of Letters. Andrés
not only decentered the Parisian metropole, he provincialized French literature (p. 108). Against the linear histories of progress—histories that invariably culminate in Paris—he produced what Dainotto suggests was a first
attempt at comparative literature (p. 6). In his seven-volume history, Andrés
credits Arabs as the source of modern literature and as a central influence
in the rebirth of modern Europe (pp. 127–28). By implication, he argues
that Europe’s south should be regarded as the origin of European modernity
on account of its historical connection to the Arab world. While Dainotto
recognizes that Andrés’s history was far from flawless, he persuasively uses
Andrés to disrupt the hegemonic geographic narrative of European identity
and history.
Dainotto concludes his book with a fascinating study of the nineteenthcentury Sicilian Orientalist Michele Amari. He describes how Amari’s
vision of a “constitutional, revolutionary, freedom-seeking Sicily” upended
commonplace perceptions of the backward south and revolutionized the
geography of theories of Europe (p. 192). Under Amari’s pen, the thirteenthcentury Sicilian revolt against Frankish rule, typically characterized as a
dynastic succession, becomes not only a key moment for Sicily but also a
moment in world history: the first modern revolution. Additionally, in
Islamic law and the Muslim occupation of Sicily, Amari found a nonEuropean source of modern notions of freedom and an alternative basis for
social democracy (p. 209). Unlike his Orientalist counterparts in the north,
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Amari perceived the Orient as an integral part of European civilization and
culture, as part of his own history rather than as a faraway object to be
“known, colonized, exploited and administered” (p. 177). Dainotto seeks to
recuperate this alternative, Mediterranean-style Orientalism for his own
counter-hegemonic agenda. So doing, he not only critiques mainstream
denigrations of Europe’s south; he also challenges the critics of Orientalism
(in the tradition of Edward Said) who replicate the marginalization of the
South by focusing almost entirely upon French and British Orientalist
archives. However, in the spirit of subaltern studies, he uses the fact that the
history of Sicily’s initial engagement with Islam is largely lost in obscurity
to provocatively suggest the virtual impossibility of telling the history of
Europe from the perspective of its own southern margins (p. 217).
Europe (in Theory) is a well-written, yet challenging read well worth the
effort. Although Dainotto restricts his study to Europe’s southern margins,
his approach invites similar studies from other marginal zones (e.g., the
Balkans, the extreme north). It would be interesting to see if those other
margins are as necessary to the concept of Europe as Dainotto believes the
south is.
Aside from occasional brief allusions to contemporary European politics,
Dainotto leaves it largely to the reader to identify how the “rhetorical unconscious” manifests itself today. Having read Europe (in Theory) after
Habermas’s The Divided West, it is not difficult to draw some connections.
Habermas’s unapologetic vision of a French and German core Europe leading both European unification and a cosmopolitan project appears to be one
more site where Europe’s rhetorical unconscious plays itself out. At the very
least, one leaves these three books wondering if Habermas isn’t looking in
the wrong place and in the wrong way for an inclusive cosmopolitanism.
Craig Borowiak
Haverford College, Pennsylvania
Craig Borowiak is an assistant professor of political science at Haverford College, Pennsylvania.
His publications include: “Accountability Debates: The Federalists, the Anti-Federalists, and
Democratic Deficits,” Journal of Politics (November 2007) and “Farmers Rights: Intellectual
Property and the Struggle over Seeds,” Politics & Society (December 2004). He is currently
completing a book on democratic accountability and global governance.
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