Europe as Empire: federalist or neomedievale?
Herfried Münkler, Imperi. The domination of the world to Rome from the United States, Mulino, pp. 316, € 29.
Jan Zielonka, Europe as Empire: The Nature of the Enlarged European Union, Oxford University Press, pp. 304, € 24.
Some years ago the library shelves for a time filled with books with titles appeared in the word "empire". Some title: L'empire powerless to Michael Mann, The Empire of the chaos of Alain Joxe, L'empire of fear of Benjamin Barber, The tears empire of Chalmers Johnson. Not missing the variant apologetic, like the Empire of Light Michael Ignatieff. The revival of a term that first decolonization and the collapse of the Soviet colossus then seemed to be relegated to an antique must without doubt the success of global empire of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. But not all. What until then had been the magic word, "globalization", it appeared increasingly spiazzata transition from thrust dell'enlargement Clinton, the Bush administration reaction to 11 September and the theory and practice of the New Century American endorsed by neocon arrived in the room of buttons. " With the renewed activism of the United States military, the bitterness of the policy of returning power of the day.
Herfried Münkler, German political scientist among the most interesting, is known for his studies on the war. His Imperi. The domination of the world from Rome to the United States (the Mulino, pp. 316, euro 29) takes us back to one of the keywords on which, as you said, has focused in recent years the debate on international politics. Unlike the literature to which you refer, however, the volume of Münkler does not bear the idea of empire in terms of termination or simply to describe the aggressive policy of a unit to become the sole superpower status. In his opinion, in fact, empire is not synonymous with "great state".
For Münkler the traits that distinguish two different forms of political organization of space as the empire and the state regarding the borders, relations with neighbors and internal integration. On the first point, it is noted that unlike the state borders, linear and traceable precisely as separate units policies counterparts, the borders of the neighborhood are inevitably and modular, in continuous transformation. The empire, does not relate to other units which recognizes equal rights, hence the impossibility of establishing clear lines of demarcation of its action. As for the empires of the past, the Border Modularity was presented as a sequence of bands there in the presence and capacity for the "center" digradava as we are initiated into suburbs remote and unknown. Entirely in the striatum of our time, a similar morphology appears not to exclude but to overlap. This is a trend anticipated by "spheres of influence" of the Cold War, in which the borders between the various states is an overlapping imperial limes that the focal areas of the planet separated the two camps. And today, steso emerge when we consider the United States, whose state borders, clearly determined not at all coincide with the imperial borders, which mark the different degrees of internal to the emperor, the "home court" to Caribbean countries or NATO Seat, until the entire globe, with the exception of the areas on which insist powers such as China or Russia, manned by a pervasive system of bases.
Unlike the state, which does not tolerate other sovereign within its own ranks, not the empire of tip homogenisation in territories under its authority. Just as empires of the past left them there to other joints policies - for example the many kingdoms included in the Hellenistic Roman construction - the same way in taking our time does not erase the imperial system of states but merely redefined the operation. Nobody thinks that Iraq or Afghanistan are candidates to become the next stars of the U.S. flag on the basis of a process in which the expansion is accompanied integration. Accordingly, within the empire, a partition between the people of the center and those belonging to the nations "federated", a model of differential inclusion in the "province" of membership determines the stock of rights and opportunities which the subject enjoys.
Many others are the elements for analysis that can be drawn from research conducted morphological and comparatively Münkler by, for example regarding the forms taken by the war in the current scenario. Of the purpose is peace, as the literature proclaims encomiastica since the days of Virgil. The war in its classical form, requires the clash between organized political units that recognize each other. Outside of empires, however, there may be only "barbarians", to which we can undertake campaigns or missions punitive peace, not war. Hence the formula that Tacitus connects the mouth to the head of caledonie: "Make the desert and call it peace", that the last decades has had many occasions to return relevant. Another interesting point of the German political scientist regards the push factors that lead to the structuring of empires. Explicit in this regard is the criticism of the various theories of imperialism, economic or political, from Hobson to Lenin, from Schumpeter to Aron, who would share in the individual only "center" the driver for the future of dynamic expansion. Otherwise, Münkler stresses the role of neighborhoods, the central role in determining the processes of imperial definition of the challenges they pose to the center, in terms of instability on the border, empty of power, threatened to consolidated assets.
Münkler inevitably raises the question: but then the EU is an empire? What kind of animal is not identifié quell'object politique, to remember the famous definition of Delors? Delors, perhaps the last chapter of the Commission popular among voters, even in its emblematic cristianosocialismo, not ideology confessed the first fifty years of life of the project and geopolitical geoconomico arose from the ruins of World War II. E 'un empire Europe, to use the term geographical skillfully hegemonic media and elites who used to refer to the hybrid creature with cerebro in Brussels and the body does not know where, animal impossible, for some political chimera, the project opened for many, a limited market and a currency by making the head of the Europeans, for their sake and asking their permission as little as possible? E 'un empire Europe created by well-intentioned technocrats and worse and bankers want business leaders?
Yes, it is an empire, but sui generis. Negri, and Münkler describing some good aspects, one of the suburbs that want to be integrated into the prosperous of the peace to leave the border "barbaric" instability and poverty, the other architecture political and economic domain, showing how governance is now the last refuge of an empty sovereignty, emptied of its non-terzietà in conflict for control of peer production, which opposes the new classes of society in the elite financial network, which controls most means of digital production society, now irretrievably.
Negri, however, and Münkler refer to the Emperor in general and not to Europe and the history of Europe in particular. On this there is relief in the important Jan Zielonka Europe as Empire: The Nature of the Enlarged European Union, released last year for Oxford. His thesis is simple and strong. The enlargement to the east towards the 12 Baltic countries, Middle European and Balkan has irrevocably changed its nature, transforming it into a sort of Holy Roman Empire of the twenty-first century, with levels of government and sovereignty overlapped, a differential which is the circles concentric borders nuanced (fuzzy borders) and areas of instability on its doorstep (Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, the Caucasus, Turkey, Middle East and Maghreb). It remains not investigated what was the nature of the front enlargement (the EU-15 90s), and especially what the political eurozone today, which disappointed many federalists see as the future Core Europe, which runs ahead of other States on the path of politics. Zielonka not seem to see this case as probable and provides a very realistic portrait of how the mission has changed the European Union and the end of the Cold War, beyond the implicit or explicit drawings that the Commission and had to weave Convention states once placed over the Wall and the Iron Curtain: The New Europe has changed the Old Europe, this is the verdict. It has the largest market business of the world, with its 500 million consumers a high-average income, and has made its borders more porous and undefined in the direction of Russia, the Bosporus, the Caucasus. The New Europe of velvet revolutions wanted by the Old Europe human rights and prosperity: the certainty that the Cold War had ended Actually, that freedom to say, do, travel conquests were irreversible.
The Union has disappointed many of its new members, wait a long time to accept them in 2004-7, but it has certainly increased the standard of living of eurorientali survived the shock therapy of the early 90s. But the political integration of the region east of Elba and Trieste was a first work of NATO, much lest thanks to the direction in the U.S. reap the benefits of the new geopolitical situation determinatasi dall'implosione the other superpower, and only after the Sept. 11, notably a delay coward who has had enormous human costs in the former Yugoslavia. The integration of Central was only after the rich euroccidentali had managed to put the family jewels in a safe, creating the kind of superfrancosvizzero that would have sucked to Frankfurt and Paris the flow of Arab and Asian savings that the first moves towards the City and Wall Street, the price of a common arcimonetarista by statute, the effects of which, however predictable, are there for all to see: cuts in real wages and income polarization, widespread insecurity and exclusion, impoverishment of the middle class. The setting neoliberal (and monetarist) for the economy as modular bridle policy has prevented euroccidentali to see the benefits that a faster integration would have caused to the whole continent, they themselves first. The Anglo-Americans have always pressed for Europe former Soviet entry into the European Union (and now want the same to happen for Turkey), with the intent to dilute the dream Eurofederalist that the elites of various countries held in the drawer: the dream to build a Europe-power, politically and militarily, not only economically integrated, independent of the U.S., and therefore, conversely them, a super vesftaliano, to borrow the terminology of Zielonka, ie a nation state (and federal ) Projecting its imperial domination on the rest of the world.
In truth Eurofederalist that dream had always been the preserve of elite restricted minority even within the three main European policy: Liberals, Christian Democrats, Social Democrats. The double no Franco-Dutch did the bubble burst Eurofederalist, and no Irish even the most modest and intergovernmental Treaty of Lisbon. This shows once again that the emperor is naked European or weak as it was an elective emperor of the third phase of the Holy Roman Empire, the next to the Golden Bull of 1356, which killed the idea of Empire as the sovereign power to the benefit of principalities, were regional, city-states and emerging nation. Even in the EU returns the duality between sovereign powers: on the one hand, the imperial court in Brussels, the other heads of state and government of European nations, in a constant tension between EU powers and prerogatives intergovernmental.
Zielonka proposes a paradigm neomedievale to interpret the nature of sovereignty in 27 states, that questions from the perspective of the internal division of powers (does not meet the centralization and tripartizione typical of the modern state), economic governance (tempered liberalism) , Democracy (or rather lack of it) and the international projection, as power postvestfaliana of civil and administrative (right makes might) between national powers who often resort to military force to defend their interests (might makes right). It is worthwhile here to summarize the elements of the two visions, Eurofederalist (super-Westphalian) and neomedievalista (the secular Franco-German empire) of contemporary Europe.
Europe: neomedieval or federalist?
| Empire neomedieval | Westfalian superstate |
| Borders osmotic evolving | external borders rigidly fixed |
| uneven socioeconomic | Socio-economic homogeneity |
| Coexistence different cultural identities | Pan-European cultural identity |
| intermingling and overlapping of different types of policies | clear hierarchical structure with a central authority |
| distinction between center and periphery crucial, but open to redefinition continues | absolute and permanent distinction between EU members and non-members EU |
| citizenship differential with different sets of rights and obligations | United citizenship and exclusive |
| many police and military institutions that overlap with each other | an army and a European police |
| divided along lines sovereignty and territorial functional |
|
The twentieth century in Europe, after 1991 we can say without a shadow of doubt, was the century of the nation-state and nationalism: the dream of socialist solidarity of class and revolutionary internationalism of the previous century was defeated by the militaristic nationalism and saved from destruction only by twisting nazionalitaria of the Soviet Union and its "anti-Russian empire", from which Mao and Tito will soon head off with very different outcomes: Communist China is still standing thanks all'etnonazionalismo han, while the multi-ethnic and Federal Yugoslavia was plunged into an abyss of blood, opened by savage Milosevic, a socialist cetnico and antialbanese, and Tudjman, Croatia's direct descendant of ustascia Ante Pavelić, the most cruel of statistical phantom Nazi era. The dangerous farce pseudonazionalista of independent Kosovo, recognized by only half the EU countries but blessed by Solana and defended by NATO, which bears a flag that looks like a mix of iconology of the two great protectors, reminds us that there are several fires nationalists (and regionalists ) That still hatch in Europe. When nationalism is mixed with xenophobia and makes indigenous minorities or immigrant their scapegoat, as has happened in the early 90s in the east and is happening in the early'00 to the west, the doors are open to a replica of functional European fascism remains lie below. The alternative to nationalism is aggressive in search of internal and external enemies, in other words fascism. Westphalia, the European system was structured on the basis of religion then national first centuries after 1648, led to colonialism and fascism in Europe. Perhaps Zielonka is right to want to bring to history forever.
The Polish social scientist, however, is unwilling to represent the dark side of the neomedievale, here briefly what we try to do. For example, the "differential citizenship" to see clearly provides guarantees to individuals much less than those offered from the universality of national citizenship as it was developed after the French Revolution. In the Middle Ages, only the nobles, clerics and warriors had full rights. To others, urban artisans, rustic and serf, were recognized only exemptions and obligations. The former could acquire a significant stock of freedom only escape legitimized by the feudal sovereignty, avoiding free to cities and municipalities free, ie those interstices of autonomy allowed by the overlapping of different secular and ecclesiastical authorities. The second had only the right to protection from arbitrary violence of others but not the feudal lord. In short, producers in the Middle Ages were in principle excluded from citizenship. Only urban dwellers were able to assert their rights, at the cost of popular rebellions against the clerical and aristocratic often ended in blood, such as those that shake the Hanseatic League in the thirteenth century, or Liege (municipal democracy) and Florence (the Ciompi ) In the second half of the fourteenth century.
Fast Forward to the twenty-first century. Even in today's society are not large, partially or completely, by nationality. The migrants sans papiers are the first category that comes to mind: migrants are the serf of contemporary Europe. But in general, all immigrants, especially Muslims, are citizens of the third category. The remainder nationalistic, yes medieval, which gives citizenship on the basis of "race" rather than place of birth, means that children and grandchildren of immigrants from Africa, Asia, South America remain in most cases excluded from citizenship. Remove the ius sanguinis (six Italian only son of Italian) for the benefit of ius soli (six Italian if born in Australia) is the fundamental measure for a political strategy of the left that wants to create a true European citizenship: start with giving European passport to anyone born in Europe, no matter if parents "illegal". But well see even precarious and unemployed have full citizenship. The European social market recognizes substantial rights only to those who work. Who does not work or has a job precariousness is a citizen of series B, as devoid of protection offered by intermediate groups such as unions and professional organizations. Moreover, while native salaried employees and enjoy full citizenship, do not feel citizens for all intents and purposes, and it just may vote against the charges and privileges of the European elite. Only the European nobility is now as then truly cosmopolitan. That is to say that elite politicians, bureaucrats, managers, bankers, professionals who have benefited over the past twenty years the pooling of financial and commercial. Those who have seen their real incomes shrink blatantly after the introduction of the euro does not feel citizens of Europe, but their states and their regions. One of the paradoxes of regionalism to Bossi and xenophobic Haider is to be arciostile EU, when it was just to boost economic regions in an attempt to create a fair policy that bypass the cumbersome nation-states and diminished the power of authority National always reluctant to cede power to Brussels and Strasbourg. Until the 90s and younger students represented a constituency secure Europe. Yet in the years'00, despite Erasmus, GSM and low-cost, took a vote massively against the new EU treaties, both in France and Ireland, because Europe has become too elitist, undemocratic gerontocratica and especially in order to heat the young minds. Instead, they stir when he says that if you vote against will be as if nothing had happened.
Finally, the end of the Cold War had opened an area east to the attractiveness of the European post, creating the outskirts desire to join the European Community, and Münkler as theorized in the relationship between cities and suburbs is typical of ' empire as bearer of peace and prosperity, but the return of war and geopolitical tensions in the years'00, and the aggravation of an economic crisis when landlocked, have cooled the enthusiasm to the east for the Union. Just as the euroccidentali counterparts, expressing widespread skepticism toward the EU policies and show the same indifference to the elections dell'europarlamento of who is in the Community for 50 years. There is still everything to create a Europeanism "bottom". Derrida and Habermas believed to see in the millions to the streets for peace on February 15 2003, the birth of a European demos. So it was not. And never will be?
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