Appeals for European solidarity as calls for colonial violence: British and German public debates around 1900

Abstract

While recent scholarship has emphasized the role of the colonial experience in the development of the idea of Europe and European integration, notions of European solidarity in the age of imperialism have largely been ignored. This paper investigates the specific context in which journalists and politicians voiced such pleas for solidarity, explores the motivations for them, and probes their limits in times of tension. A closer look at the actors involved illustrates the strictures placed on ideas of European solidarity and illuminates the limited potential of projects of integration prior to 1914. However, latter considerations notwithstanding, a discourse on European solidarity in a colonial context did emerge in the decades before the First World War, allowing early proponents of integration to view colonialism as a field for common European action.     

The limits of solidarity: Europeanism,anti-colonialism and socialism at the Congress of the Peoples of Europe,Asia and Africa in Puteaux, 1948

This article examines the claims to international solidarity and plans for a new world order of the Congress of the Peoples in Puteaux in 1948. In analysing the transnational networks at play, the article argues for the connection of historiographies of European co-operation, socialism and anti-colonialism. The congress organisers united these three strands through the idea of a socialist Third Force between the United States and the Soviet Union. However, this idea also marked the limit to the integration of these ideals, since the anti-nationalism, and particularly the anti-Stalinism that it implied, was unsustainable for many colonial delegates. Puteaux then shows how transnational solidarity in the late 1940s was checked by the uneven effects of the early Cold War and marked by lingering hierarchies. The networks at play and the limits to solidarity faced suggest continuity with the conferences in Brussels (1927) and Bandung (1955).     

The euro crisis and European citizenship: The euro 2001–2012 – celebration or commemoration? (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The Eurozone crisis has highlighted the problems of European economic integration, but what effects is it having on social cohesion in the European Union? Using symbolic, historical and anthropological perspectives this article examines the relationship between the single currency and European citizenship. I argue that the roots of the crisis lie in the euro's origins. Economic and monetary union (EMU) was an assemblage of two very different rationales: one economic and based on neoliberal assumptions, the other political and geared towards forging social cohesion among Europeans. Binding Europe through a common currency was always a risky endeavour, placing heavy expectations on the identity‐effects of money. EU leaders also seemed curiously oblivious to the possible negative effects that weaknesses in the euro might have for European solidarity. Drawing on theories of money and its role as a technology of citizenship and symbolic boundary marker, I argue that the euro continues to symbolize European integration, only now it has come to symbolize the cleavages and tensions that divide Europe. Paradoxically, one effect of the Eurozone crisis is not fragmentation but an acceleration of the deepening of European economic governance. However, the centralization this entails imposes heavy costs on the EU's peripheral members and raises concerns about the future of democracy in Europe.     

The European policy of the Jospin government: A new twist to old French games

This article presents a constructivist-inspired analysis of the Jospin government's European policy, understanding most policy developments during this period as variations on well-established French preferences—rooted in a modified Gaullist paradigm—embedded in French state identity. The variations reflect external political and economic pressures. By June 1997, the potential contradiction between perceptions of European integration as an extension of French state identity and the actual constraints imposed by integration was never greater, due to the reinforced constraints imposed by the operation of the Single European Market (SEM) and Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), in additional to the rise of German unilateralism and the need for European Union (EU) institutional and policy reforms made necessary by the approaching enlargement of the EU eastwards and the increased pressure on the Jospin government to reconceptualise an end-goal to European integration.     

The Land Resources of the Ukraine; their Evaluation and Inventory Methods

Three EU-based human geographers argue for the need to contextualize the meaning of the current economic crisis in Europe, pointing to precedents in European history. More specifically, they view Europe (as both a set of practices and ideas) as a product of successive crises that have yielded an unexpectedly resilient structure for the European Union, which retains sufficient flexibility to permit different EU members to adapt their economies to the crisis on their own terms without descending into the disintegrative pull of protectionism. The authors also show how the uneven effects of the economic crisis threaten a renewed east-west divide, and highlight the ongoing relevance of the European Union as a transnational fiscal regime with important implications for EUrope's future. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F130, F150, G010, N130, N140. 1 figure, 1 table, 58 references.     

Dismantling the Soviet Security System. Soviet–Finnish Negotiations on Ending Their Friendship Agreement, 1989–91.

The Soviet Union had tied Finland to its security system through the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance (FCMA) signed between the two in 1948. As the Soviet Union began to disintegrate at the end of the 1980s, Finland exited the Soviet sphere of influence – the region controlled through a system of bilateral and multilateral agreements. This article analyses the Soviet–Finnish negotiations to discard the FCMA treaty as a case study of the changing Soviet European neighbourhood policy. It gives important insights into the disintegration of the Soviet foreign policy mechanism during the Gorbachev era as it elaborates on both the intra-bureaucracy conflicts between the Kremlin and the Soviet foreign ministry, MID, and later between the Soviet central government and the Russian republic. As Finland was part of the Soviet security system, analysing Finland's exit from it sheds light onto the crucial change that took place in the Soviet foreign policy doctrine during the perestroika years. The Gorbachev leadership's decision not to defend its sphere of influence with force paved way for the upheavals of 1989 which led to the Cold War's end.     

Popular perceptions of Europe and the Nation: the case of Italy

ABSTRACT. To date, European identity has not mobilised a feeling of belonging or solidarity that would be comparable to the ways in which national identities stir people's passions and make them ready ‘to die for’ their nations. However, much of the related political debate and scholarly analysis has paid little attention to citizens' understanding of European identity and the way this relates to national identity. This paper aims to contribute towards filling this gap. It explores qualitatively the relationship between national and European identity among Italian citizens with a view to answering the following research questions: How do Italian citizens define Europe? Who is a European? How does feeling European relate to feeling Italian? How do citizens perceive the European integration process? The article is based on 24 qualitative interviews with Italian citizens of varying age, gender, locality of residence and socio‐economic status, conducted in spring and summer 2003. The methodology adopted follows the discourse analytical tradition.     

Carl Schmitt in the Kremlin: the Ukraine crisis and the return of geopolitics

The protracted crisis in Ukraine has exposed fundamental political differences between leaders in western Europe and their counterparts in Russia. The very existence of the European Union was meant to have refuted geopolitics as a useful theoretical lens through which to view power relations in Europe. After all, the European project is based on the idea that boundaries no longer matter and that national sovereignty is obsolete. And yet, geopolitics remains critically important—certainly for Europe's potential enemies, but also for Europe itself. It is poignant that to advance our understanding of this new constellation we are well served to turn to the insights of a classic, if hugely controversial, German political thinker: Carl Schmitt. Schmitt's political philosophy is relevant in three aspects. First, as a source of inspiration—even if only indirectly—for the contemporary Russian political establishment. Second, the behaviour of Putin's Russia, particularly since 2008, can be best understood through some of the key concepts that preoccupied Schmitt: sovereignty, the political and geopolitics. Third, Schmitt's philosophy can serve as a point of departure for reflecting on the possibility of a more robust response by Europe to the Russian intervention in Ukraine. What Europe needs is a more hard‐nosed realist approach, which recognizes that Russia's expansionist ambitions can only be constrained by its own readiness and willingness to deploy power both politically and, if necessary, even militarily.     

Brexit or Bremain: what future for the UK's European diplomatic strategy?

A major public debate on the costs and benefits of the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union is presently under way. The outcome of the referendum on 23 June 2016 will be a pivotal moment in determining whether the EU has a future as a component of the UK's European diplomatic strategy or whether there is a major recalibration of how the UK relates to Europe and more widely of its role within international relations. Since accession to the European Economic Community the UK has evolved an uncodified, multipronged European diplomatic strategy. This has involved the UK seeking to reinforce its approach of shaping the security of the continent, preserving a leading diplomatic role for the UK in managing the international relations of Europe, and to maximize British trade and investment opportunities through a broadening and deepening of Europe as an economically liberal part of the global political economy. Since accession the UK's European diplomatic strategy has also been to use membership of the EU to facilitate the enhancement of its international influence, primarily as a vehicle for leveraging and amplifying broader national foreign and security policy objectives. The strategy has been consistent irrespective of which party has formed the government in the UK. Increasing domestic political difficulties with the process of European integration have now directly impacted on this European strategy with a referendum commitment. Whether a vote for a Brexit or a Bremain, the UK will be confronted with challenges for its future European strategy.     

Re-appropriating Europe: Albert Camus's wartime Europeanism

The study of ideas of Europe in the works of Albert Camus is a relatively recent aspect of Camus scholarship, but one that has tended towards the teleological, reading Camus's stance on Europe as pioneering or at least anticipating modernday European integration. This article proposes a re-reading of Camus's Lettres à un ami allemand , of which the third letter (written in 1944) is one of the strongest expressions of Europeanism in the Camusian oeuvre. Unlike existing scholarship, it situates this text in the context of the various understandings of Europe of the resistance movements and the collaborators in Occupied France. Based on Higgins's understanding of resistance poetry as an effort to reappropriate language, and through comparison with Camus's hitherto largely ignored book review of works by Brice Parain, the article demonstrates how Camus's text constitutes an effort to reappropriate the discourse of Europe.     

Ismail Kadere’s Idea of Europe

The aim of this article is to reconstruct and pinpoint the peculiarities of Ismail Kadare’s idea of Europe. Kadare’s idea of Europe, it is argued, differs from the ideas of Europe embraced or presumed by intellectuals like Paul Valéry, Georg Simmel, Danilo Ki?, Václav Havel, Adam Michnik, or Milan Kundera, or from that of the European Union. For Kadare it is literature rather than the polis or its particular ideology that is the guardian of European values. Thus the European legacy, in his view, is primarily Homeric rather than Socratic. I suggest first that the persecution of writers and the repression of literature in totalitarian regimes underlies Kadare’s idea of Europe. I then further characterize Kadare’s theme of persecution as a dialectic between regime and culture. Finally, I reconstruct Kadare’s narrative of Albania’s “return to Europe” as the struggle for recognizing Albania as the birthplace of European culture.     

Scale as an 'Active Progenitor' in the Metamorphosis of the Waste Management Hierarchy in Member States: The Case of the Republic of Ireland

In the light of the raft of legislation introduced by the European Commission since the late 1980s, waste management planning in the European Union (EU) is currently undergoing tumultuous restructuring. At the heart of this restructuring is the requirement by member states to formulate waste management plans that embrace the Commission's central concept of the waste management hierarchy. This article begins with the assertion that the grounding of the waste management hierarchy in different European countries reflects members' ongoing difficulties balancing supra-national environmental regulations with the imperatives of national accumulation strategies. Central to negotiating this tightrope has been a tremendous transformation, modification, re-jigging and re-calibration of the hierarchies of waste management planning institutions in member states. The core argument advanced in this article is that far from being a neutral or technical or practical side show, contemporary (re)scalings of waste management planning in Europe must be approached as being centrally implicated in the constitution of forms of environmental controls that serve rather than burden the interests of leading capitals. This argument is illustrated through a detailed case study of recent scalar inventions in waste management planning in the Republic of Ireland.     

The Failed European Union: Franco-German Relations during the Great Depression of 1929–321

French scholars have led a revival of interest in inter-war efforts at European integration and the prominent role played by the French Foreign Minister, Aristide Briand. Franco-German rapprochement was integral to this effort, but with the death in October 1929 of his like-minded German counterpart, Gustav Stresemann, it is generally held that Berlin adopted a more confrontational foreign policy even before Hitler took power. However, this article demonstrates that in spite of a series of upsets, an intense and sustained effort continued during the years of the Great Depression (1929–32) to forge Franco-German détente. This culminated in September 1931 in a Franco-German treaty that established the mechanisms for far-reaching integration of the two countries’ economies, with a customs union and European union as the ultimate goals. It then examines in detail how and why this remarkable effort collapsed during 1932, paying particular attention to an unforeseen crisis in trading relations and the impact of a media scandal surrounding the publication of Stresemann's memoirs. Despite this failure, efforts to integrate Europe around a Franco-German axis between 1929 and 1932 can nonetheless be understood as part of a deeper process that survived Hitler and saw the emergence of the current European Union.     

Europe as a global actor: empire by example?

The European Union (EU) spreads its norms and extends its power in various parts of the world in a truly imperial fashion. This is because the EU tries to impose domestic constraints on other actors through various forms of economic and political domination or even formal annexations. This effort has proved most successful in the EU's immediate neighbourhood where the Union has enormous political and economic leverage and where there has been a strong and ever‐growing convergence of norms and values. However, in the global arena where actors do not share European norms and the EU has limited power, the results are limited. Consequently, it is not only Europe's ethical agenda that is in limbo; some basic social preferences across the EU seem also to be unsustainable. Can Europe maintain, let alone enhance, its environmental, labour or food safety norms without forcing global competitors to embrace them? The challenge lies not only in enhancing Europe's global power, but also primarily in exporting rules and norms for which there is more demand among existing and emerging global players. This means that Europe should engage in a dialogue that will help it to establish commonly shared rules of morality and global governance. Only then can Europe's exercise of power be seen as legitimate. It also means that Europe should try to become a ‘model power’ rather than a ‘superpower’, to use David Miliband's expression. The latter approach would imply the creation of a strong European centre able to impose economic pains on uncooperative actors. The former would imply showing other actors that European norms can also work for them and providing economic incentives for adopting these norms. To be successful in today's world, Europe needs to export its governance to other countries, but it can do it in a modest and novel way that will not provoke accusations of ‘regulatory imperialism’.     

De-personifying Collaert's Four Continents: European descriptions of continental diversity, 1585–1625

Adriaen Collaert's personifications of the four continents are typical examples of how continents and their respective cultures were represented in the art and literature of Europe in the early-modern period. For example, Asia is the exotic double to Europe, possessing an ‘otherness’ upon which European identity has been juxtaposed. Such personifications of continents and broader tropes of ‘the other’ and ‘the exotic’ have greatly influenced the historiography of the idea of Europe. However, the creation of art and literature characterised by these tropes reflects only part of the European understanding of the wider world. This article will explore how travellers – such as missionaries, merchants and ambassadors – in Europe's encounters with non-European societies presented a complex picture of the world sought to offer practical guidance and knowledge. How travellers’ accounts and personifications interacted is important for understanding the European experience of other continents. In considering how travellers presented their knowledge of continents, it is possible to analyse both how early-modern Europeans viewed other continents and question how useful artistic representation of ‘other’ continents are for understanding how they viewed their own.     

The supreme court of Israel: Formative years, 1948–1955

In seeking to establish a paradigm of a literary “New Jew” for the early twentieth century, we must view the cultural developments of the time on the background of European modernist culture. During this period the European “New Jew” underwent many incarnations, including Max Nordau's muscular hero, Buber's “Renaissance” Jew, Berdyczewski's Nietzschean “new man,” Herzl's “authentic Jew,” and the Hebrew literary talush (rootless person). All the divergent ideas of Jewish renewal propounded in Europe were united in Shaul Tchernichovsky's poetry, either through deliberate reference or as a result of the tenor of the time. This article examines Tchernichovsky's implicit conception of the “New Jew” through two poems: “Lenokhah pesel Apollo” (Before a statue of Apollo, 1899) and “Ani – li misheli ein klum” (I have nothing of my own, 1937).     

A nineteenth-century Mediterranean union: Michel Chevalier’s Système de la Méditerranée

This article examines one of the nineteenth-century’s most revolutionary schemes for establishing a union of Mediterranean states. In 1832, Michel Chevalier set out a startling scheme that would bring to an end armed conflict in Europe through a confederation of European states and a subsequent alliance between Europe and the Ottoman Empire. His plan envisaged a vast infrastructure network of railways, canals, roads and shipping lanes that would link the major ports of the Mediterranean with Europe’s capital cities and those of the Ottoman and Russian Empires. The infrastructure network at the heart of Chevalier’s Système de la Méditerranée was conceived by him as the basis for a system of economic integration that would foster political harmony throughout Europe – anticipating by over one hundred years Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman’s plans for a European Union – but also between Europe and the Ottoman world. Harboured within Chevalier’s infrastructure scheme for the Mediterranean was one of the earliest and most complex nineteenth-century theories of networks ever devised. This article examines the centrality of the Mediterranean to Chevalier’s theory of networks, and explores the multiple dimensions of this complex theory, including the intimate connection he identified between networks as expressions of human creativity and the kind of unalienated human relations that would result in the end of conflict both between and within nations.     

Reflections on the European Legacy (from the Plains of Anatolia)

Turkey's insistence on its European credentials, and its endeavours to join the European Union, provide an opportunity to reflect on what the European legacy means. While acknowledging the diverse contributors to Europe, and the extensive interactions with the rest of the world that have shaped European history and identity, this essay locates Europe's most important legacy—and measure—in the realm of ideas, especially the ideas we use to organise our experience and approach the challenges of the world. These ideas came to fruition in the Enlightenment, and they provide an approach that is potentially liberating for peoples but uncomfortable for those with power, and those that aspire to power, including within Europe itself. The challenge for Turkey is to recognise that the EU is not necessarily the last word on ‘Europe,’ while continuing to engage creatively with the European legacy.     

Post–Socialist Borderland: Promoting or Challenging the Enlarged European Union?

The formerly socialist East European countries have undergone extensive political and territorial changes since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. This transformation has largely been associated with two simultaneous developments in the post–socialist states: nationalisation and European integration. The concept of post–socialist borderland underlines the scope and effect of post–socialist identity politics in the countries applying for EU membership, and also points at the dramatically changing political map of Europe.
In discussions about the ongoing European integration, stability is expected to emerge through inclusive arrangements. It has generally been thought that political accommodation is not at issue at the future internal or external borders of the EU. However, the European enlargement project faces severe problems as nationalization and European integration represent contradictory tendencies in post–socialist democratisation and European stabilisation.
This article discusses the role that borderlands play in balancing between national and European goals. The evolving European integration is examined from the vantage point of the states applying for membership. Particular attention is paid to the contextual basis of political argumentation, the structural politics of the European Union, and the nationally sensitive elements of the nation–state. The example of the Estonian/Russian borderlands represents a 'post–socialist' condition, within which old loyalties of the past meet contemporary socio–economic and political realities, threats and future expectations. These issues seem to influence considerably the formation of 'common European goals' in the enlarged European Union.