Mitterrand’s Europe: functions and limits of ‘European solidarity’ in French policy during the 1980s

Abstract

This paper explores the conceptualization and interpretation of ‘European solidarity’ by the French President François Mitterrand. It discusses the relevance of former concepts of foreign and European policy. It differentiates between a European idea and European institutions, also taking into account personal experiences. Finally, it analyses the correlation between different concepts such as ‘European solidarity’, ‘transatlantic solidarity’, ‘West European solidarity’ and ‘pan-European solidarity’.     

Austrian foreign cultural policy: Europeanization through the prism of national interests

ABSTRACT

In the second half of 2018, Austria for the third time has taken over the EU Council Presidency and is therefore particularly interested in promoting an image of itself as a reliable partner and a European country which accepts and protects European values. Foreign cultural policy is one of the suitable instruments for achieving this goal. The present paper analyses Austrian foreign cultural policy with the aim of finding out how European integration affects it. The paper uses qualitative research methods such as desk research, document research and expert interviews. The results of the analyses show that Austrian stakeholders traditionally consider Europeanization primarily as a tool to promote Austrian national interests on the international stage.     

A baffling experience: Technology transfer,Anglo-American nuclear relations,and the development of the gas centrifuge 1964-70*

The development of the gas centrifuge in the 1960s revolutionized the production of enriched uranium. More simple and efficient than gaseous diffusion, the centrifuge offered countries a means of producing enriched uranium independently of America. For Britain, the centrifuge possessed political as well as economic advantage. It provided the opportunity for Britain to share nuclear knowledge with its European partners, so improving the prospect of successful admission to the European Common Market. In Washington, the prospect of a joint European centrifuge project received an ambivalent response. The State Department, keen to foster a strong Europe as a bulwark against Soviet expansionism, welcomed collaboration. In contrast, the Atomic Energy Commission, charged with maintaining US nuclear security, sought to block the venture on the grounds that it infringed US law. This paper reviews this debate, examining Anglo-American nuclear relations in the context of Britain's entry into the European Common Market. It argues that Britain was determined to establish a purely European solution to the question of uranium supply even if this led to a breach in Anglo-American relations.     

The Introduction of Fallow Deer to Britain: A Zooarchaeological Perspective

Abstract

Ambiguous historical evidence, misidentifications, contextual disturbance, as well as ancient trade in antler and other skeletal elements, have all confused our understanding of the past distribution and spread of European fallow deer (Vama dama). In order to determine the date and source of their introduction to Britain, this paper sets out to examine and, in some cases, re-analyse the zooarchaeological evidence for this species.     

Between Euro-Federalism,Euro-Pragmatism and Euro-Populism: the Gaullist movement divided over Europe

Abstract

Since the creation of the European Community, the Gaullist movement has never been united over the question of European integration. De Gaulle’s intergovernmental vision of the European project has largely been the dominant discourse. At times however, this narrative has been questioned—on the one hand by more supranational notions of European integration; and on the other by a more pro-sovereignty Eurosceptic discourse. Subsequently, in its various modern-day guises the Gaullist movement has faced a series of major internal divisions with regard to its position on ‘Europe’. This uncertainty has also manifested itself at the highest level as demonstrated by the changing discourse advocated by former French presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy. This paper analyses the internal tensions over the European issue within the Gaullist movement at elite level. It determines that despite Chirac’s and Sarkozy’s attempts to unite the party throughout their presidencies the Gaullist movement is far from having moved towards a united European stance. Accordingly, the authors identify that over the past three decades, it is possible to identify three distinct, and at times conflicting, Gaullist stances on European integration with which the party’s elites have vacillated, namely Euro-Federalism, Euro-Pragmatism and Euro-Populism.     

The Public Role of Religion: A Central-European Perspective

Abstract

Church leaders in Europe frequently lament that the environment is non-religious and unchristian. Reflecting on how the European countries which fell under Communist domination have adjusted to the post-Communist era, the paper advances the view that the situation should be characterized differently. European Christianity stands on the threshold of another of its historical metamorphoses. The continent is not simply unchristian or non-religious, but neither is not religious in a Christian way. Christianity is not the religion of present-day Europe, and at the same time European Christianity can no longer be seen as a "religion."     

Promise and challenge of European Memory

Abstract

This introduction identifies the ubiquitous, but controversial, public and academic debate on European Memory as a key for articulating assumptions and expectations about an enhanced process of European integration via references to Europe’s past. The authors outline contradictions that constitute this discourse by pointing to its inherently conflictive potential and carve out the implicit and explicit normative assumptions of European Memory. Albeit acknowledging differences in memories of twentieth-century mass violence, references to European Memory promise to overcome the conflicts inherent in the historical experiences of such violence. Confronting this bias, this special issue postulates an understanding of European Memory as a discursive reality rather than a normative ideal. European Memory becomes manifest whenever actors refer to ‘Europe’ in their interpretations of the past. Further developing an understanding of ‘entangled memory’, the contributions of this special issue share a common interest in the universalizing potential of references to European Memory. They demonstrate how mnemonic practices may lose contextual references and link or even transfer to other memories in order to articulate claims of relevance on a European level.     

The Whangaroa Incident, 16 July 1824 A European–Māori Encounter and Its Many Incarnations

ABSTRACT

This paper examines an incident in 1824 in which the Ngāti Pou of Whangaroa Harbour (New Zealand) boarded a European ship, holding its crew and three missionaries captive for two hours. During the 19th century the incident was retold approximately 30 times in Europe and America. This paper describes the original incident from primary sources and then discusses how the various incarnations of the story enabled different authors to draw diverse moral lessons. The changing narrative provides a window into various European attitudes towards the Indigenous peoples of New Zealand.     

At the nexus of academia and activism: bordermonitoring.eu

Abstract

This paper discusses the question of militant research from a perspective of critical knowledge production. In reference to our work on Dublin II and the European border regime, we discuss controversial issues, pitfalls and challenges we have encountered during out research and campaign activities. Among these are the strategic use of courts and a human rights language, differing modes of knowledge production between activism and academia and the issue of wage. The paper includes a discussion of the current place Asylum holds in the European border and migration regime from a historical and governmental perspective.     

In search of a spiritus: Francesco Patrizi on tides

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes two chapters of Francesco Patrizi’s Nova de universis philosophia that deal with a topic widely debated in European intellectual circles at the time: the origin of tides. By deconstructing Patrizi’s views on the phenomenon of ebb and flow, this paper places these chapters of Patrizi’s opus magnum into a larger context and shows how, with the use of novel philosophical arguments, he sought to replace what he considered an outdated theory of tides.     

Introduction: writing the contemporary history of European solidarity

Abstract

This introduction outlines the possibilities and perspectives of a history of ‘European solidarity’. While – given the high frequency with which the term is used in contemporary political debate – this is most certainly a hot-button issue, the topic has long been neglected by researchers on the history of European integration and European ideas. The reasons for this lack of empirical studies lie in the vagueness and the normativity of the term. This introduction thus conceptualizes ‘European solidarity’ as an analytical tool for research and discusses three major approaches to its historicization: first, deconstructing ideas and discursive notions of ‘European solidarity’, a term that has been omnipresent in primary sources in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; second, investigating concrete practices of ‘European solidarity’, for example in welfare-state policies or in the work of civil-society actors; third, looking at historical limits of ‘European solidarity’ which help to bring contesting perceptions and motives into view. Finally, the introduction addresses the question of the analytical benefits of a history of ‘European solidarity’: it points among other things to new periodizations that help to avoid a teleological orientation in European historiography, as well as to the detachment of the European integration process from the institutionalization of the European Communities.     

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 European Union—a Reflection: The Theological Challenge

Abstract

The advisor on religious affairs of the European Commission's President recently suggested the need for a European political theology. He was acknowledging Christianity's past impact on European culture. He was also intimating that a creative Christian contribution to the making of Europe's future might partly depend upon some systematic theologically informed reflection upon the nature of the challenges which the continent currently confronts. This paper does not purport to supply such a theology which, by the nature of things, must be the fruit of a long-term collaborative exercise. It does, however, seek to provide a few pointers that might become the subject of further discussion. Following clues provided by Vatican II we may seek to discern some of those "signs of the times" which might disclose the issues at stake and which, in the light of general Christian understandings, may ultimately provide some guides for subsequent action.     

Seaborne Ethnography and the Natural History of Man*

This paper examines intellectual interchanges between European theorists in the science of man and sailors, naturalists and artists on scientific voyages in Oceania during the century after 1750. I argue that travellers' narratives and ethnographic representations were not mere reflexes of dominant metropolitan discourses, but were also personal productions generated in the tensions and ambiguities of cross-cultural encounters. I identify countersigns of indigenous agency embedded in such materials and evaluate their trajectory from the interactions which provoked them, through varied genres and media of voyagers' representations, to their contorted appropriation by European savants. My examples are drawn from British and French accounts of visits to New Holland and Van Diemen's Land between 1770 and 1802. In this paper, Aboriginal Australians, especially Tasmanians, serve as synecdoche for the indigenous inhabitants of Oceania generally, using the regional term in its extended early 19th-century sense which encompassed the present Indonesia and Australia along with Papua New Guinea, Aotearoa/New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.     

“Eastern” ornaments of the 11th‐13th centuries in the Sami areas: Origins and routes

Ornaments of east‐European origin found at Viking Age and Early Medieval sites in northern Scandinavia have been analysed by many Scandinavian scholars. In the Scandinavian context, the presence of these import items has given rise to many theories concerning inter‐ethnic relations and the function of these ornaments as markers of ethnicity. In this paper, the Soviet scholar N. A. Makarov offers an analyses of where these “eastern” ornaments could have been produced and what their distribution patterns in these areas may reveal about the origins of and contact routes between various peoples.     

Audience perspectives on the European dimension in Aarhus 2017 events: impacts of EU cultural policy

Abstract

The EU’s cultural policy of creating a recognisable, common European identity is exemplified by the EU’s cultural programme, European Capitals of Culture (ECOCs), whose official purpose is to highlight similarities and differences across European cultures to generate a greater sense of European identity among the citizens of Europe. To date, there has been little qualitative investigation of how ECOC attenders perceive the representation of European culture in the events and what they think about using ECOC events to promote Europeanisation. In this article, I use the methodology of intercept interviews at four Aarhus 2017 events to explore these two aspects. Findings indicate that the inclusion of European culture in Aarhus 2017 events often went unnoticed by the event attenders, and there was uncertainty about what European culture might actually comprise. Instead of perceiving ECOC events as promoting Europe, event attenders tended to interpret Aarhus 2017 events within a local, national or international framework, with ECOC events perceived as promoting tolerance and intercultural understanding. The findings are discussed in relation to the value of ECOC as a political-cultural initiative for generating European citizens’ identification with the EU.     

Defining competences for future geography students in relation to low carbon societies

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the results of an analysis of the most important skills and competences that will be important in the coming years for future geographers involved in assessing and managing low-carbon societies. The analysed information was extracted from a questionnaire answered by professionals working in low-carbon management in three European countries (Finland, Poland and Catalonia, Spain). From the results, we have identified not only the most requisite abilities and skills, but also differences between countries on a European scale. Among the findings, we would highlight the general agreement that “soft skills”, as opposed to “hard skills”, are critical for future professionals addressing policies in relation to low carbon societies.     

Extreme right parties in Western Europe: the case of the Italian Northern League

Abstract

This article argues that voters of the Italian Lega Nord have been radicalized in recent years, shifting from an intermediate ‘centrist’ position to the extreme right. Data from both national and European mass surveys (e.g. Italian National Election Studies and European Electoral Studies) provide additional support for this shift from left to right and the accompanying changes in criteria (i.e. immigration, democracy, civil rights, European integration, and politics), indicating that Lega Nord voters have evolved into a body that fits the new extreme-right concept well.     

Performing Inequality in Mediterranean Diplomacy

Abstract

Early modern Mediterranean diplomacy was marked by multiple and contrasting claims to superiority which derived from competing normative orders. These practices are the focus of the first part of this paper, which shows how claims to superiority were performed in the practice of diplomacy and how stable and pacific relations could be maintained within a context of competing normative orders. Instead of privileging the religious divide between Islam and Christianity, the paper suggests that a better understanding of how multiple universalisms interacted with each other in practice may better explain the apparently paradoxical durability of pacific relations between Muslim and Christian rulers in the wider Mediterranean area of the early modern period. The second part reframes the transformations in Franco-Tunisian diplomatic practice from the late eighteenth century onward within the context of a global history of growing imbalances. The espousal of definitions of sovereignty derived from the European ius gentium to the exclusion of all others led to a redefinition of who had the rights and honors to engage in foreign relations. The early modern pluralism evolved into an increasingly unequal bipolarity, finally resulting in the economic, military and symbolic predominance of allegedly ‘civilized’ European powers over the ‘uncivilized’ rest.