Political Science/International Relations

"This book provides an in-depth discussion and analysis of democracy in Europe, with a focus on the new EU member states, and makes an important and original contribution to the debate on the future of European democracy.

Author Paul Blokker seeks to provide a critical reconceptualization of the notion of democratic political culture by developing a ‘multiple democracies’ theoretical approach. He draws on debates in democratization theory and normative political theory, and presents a cultural-sociological approach for the analysis of democratization and democratic regimes. This approach emphasizes the historical and cultural embedment of democracy, identifies a potential variety of ‘ethics of democracy’ that underpin democratic political cultures, and points to the significance of democratic imagination in the interpretation and recombination of such ethics.

The book explores the relevance of this approach by analysing multiple political cultures and their role in the emergence of democratic regimes in three new member states - Hungary, Poland, and Romania - providing a detailed description and analysis of political cultures by means of the analysis of constitutional politics, constitutional texts, and political elite discourses, and the identification of distinct politico-cultural elements that distinguish these societies from each other.

It will be of interest to students and scholars of democracy, European studies, post-communist studies, political theory and comparative politics."

"This special issue of the European Journal of Social Theory engages with a research programme – the ‘sociology of critical capacity’ or, in short, ‘pragmatic sociology’ – that is now increasingly gaining attention and popularity, as well as meeting critique, beyond its original academic context, France. One of the main aims of this approach is to reintroduce a moral-political dimension into sociological research. As argued by one of its
main proponents, Luc Boltanski, '[a] moral sociology should be understood as the attempt to reinsert, in the analysis of the
action of persons in society, the reasons for acting and the moral exigencies that these persons give themselves, or want to give themselves, if not by way of ‘ideals’ '. (Boltanski, 2005: 20)3
Inmanyways, pragmatic sociology can be understood as an attempt at a renewal of the social sciences, not least in its reassessment of the relationship between theoretical knowledge as elaborated by the social scientist and the forms of theoretical knowledge implicated in social practice (cf.Dodier, 1993; Wagner, 1999: 342). As argued by another of themain contributors to the pragmatic approach, LaurentThe´venot, ‘Our concern is to contribute to the development of a science of social life, which does not suffer fromthis ‘‘de´doublement’’, [that is], the splitting in two of the author, between the profession of naturalist researcher of society and that of political and moral philosopher’ (The´venot, 2009: 39)..."

The dramatic changes of 1989 have been widely understood as the confirmation of Western, liberal democracy as the ultimate model of the modern polity. The fact that 1989 was about a dual language that not only emphasized the rule of law and the implementation of rights, but also articulated ideas of democracy alternative to the mainstream liberal-constitutional idea, has not been at the forefront of interpretations of
post-1989 trajectories. This does not mean, though, that 1989 has not had implications for the democratic imaginary and structures emerging in the new democracies. Dissidence
has had important even if less visible implications for democratic imaginary and
structure in ways that are still being played out. It should be recognized that the events
of 1989 and dissident thought also indicated alternative, republican democratic models
that have had implications for the democratic structures emerging in the wake of 1989.
In the contribution, the author will first briefly discuss the one-sidedness of interpretations
of democracy in post-1989 Central and Eastern Europe and, subsequently, highlight
one alternative understanding of democracy that has emerged in some of the
dissidents’ ideas prior to and in 1989, in particular in terms of notions of republican
democracy. Second, the author will discuss some instances—predominantly referring
to the experiences in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland—in which the influence
of dissident ideas on constitutional and legal-institutional transformations, in particular
regarding local self-government and direct democracy, becomes visible.

Keywords: constitutions; direct democracy; dissidence; local self-government;
republicanism

Iceland has recently embarked on an experimental form of constitution-making from below. Iceland is in this a rare – in distinct ways probably unique - example of a popular or citizen-driven constitutionalism. This participatory approach in many ways challenges core assumptions of mainstream, modernist understandings of constitutionalism, such as the idea of constitutionalism as a social phenomenon and practice dominated by legal professionals or that of constitutions as higher laws that are near to impossible to change. At the same time, the Icelandic experience brings to the fore many questions that popular or democratic constitutionalism raises as an alternative understanding and practice of constitutionalism, not least related to the modes and effectiveness of participation, the notion of representation in the constitution-making process, the role of deliberation, as well as the actual, substantive results of participatory constitution-making.

Romanian constitutional democracy is once again experiencing a period of great turmoil. In the early 2000s, Romanian democracy seemed to get closer to the idea of a Rechtsstaat and the rule of law, and what in general could be called a form of ‘legal constitutionalism’ or ‘new constitutionalism’, after a troublesome phase of a limited role of the constitution in Romanian democracy, if not in the form of ‘constitutional nationalism’[1]. However, by 2012 it has become clear that the Romanian constitution mostly takes the form of a façade constitution, largely (ab-)used by political forces for distinct power games. In this, the old Romanian theory on ‘forms without content’ (formele fără fond) that was used at the end of the 19th century to criticize superficial experiences with modernization in the form of Westernization seems to be once again a realistic description of Romanian – in this case constitutional – reality. The theory indicates a large gap between ‘legal Romania’ and ‘real Romania’, and thus a distance between imported or transplanted constitutional/legal institutions and wider society and its forms of interaction.[2] Not only has a weak culture of constitutionalism emerged, but what seems worse is that a constitutional language is distant from societal interaction, and mostly abused for narrow political purposes. Constitutional values seem to fail to inform wider society in terms of a civic and political orientation to constitutional values and public debate on the foundations of Romanian democracy.

The ideas of the rule of law and constitutionalism have become an intrinsic part of any process of democratisation around the world. This was equally the case in the radical changes that occurred in East-Central Europe (ECE) around the year of 1989. The adherence in the region to a form of “new constitutionalism” has been frequently seen as an indispensable contribution to the processes of democratisation. However, in this too little attention has been paid to the dilemmas, tensions and perverse effects that may emerge in the institutionalisation and practice of new constitutionalism, not least in terms of an enduring tension between constitutionalism as an ordering and stabilising device and democracy as an uncertain and indeterminate process of verification of public views on the common good. The experiences in ECE since 1989 with regard to new constitutionalism are ambiguous. It is undeniable that an emphasis on a higher law with entrenched rights and robust constitutional review has involved important “corrections” of certain outgrowths of democratic politics and in this prevented forms of “tyranny of the majority” or the endangering of the guarantee of universal rights. But it is equally true that new constitutionalism has been adopted at a price, not least with regard to the emergence of more widespread, publicly shared constitutional cultures as well as in terms of underexplored potentials of democratic constitutionalism and endorsement of civic engagement in the region. Democratic dilemmas and perverse effects have emerged in terms of domestic tensions, in particular regarding democratic debilitation, but also stem from tensions with legal orders beyond the national arena.

The modern European state is increasingly the subject of not only normal political critique and contestation, but of contestation in constitutional terms. The questioning of the modern constitutional state -i.e. a unit that joins territory, jurisdiction, and citizenry -has set in a few decades ago, and in some cases this process is now accelerating due to the recent global economic crisis. Whereas in the post-1945 period, territorial governance was firmly embedded in the national constitutional order, in recent times the fundamental linkage between territorial governance and the nationstate, including its dominant modes of governance, are increasingly contested. What is novel and significant, is that contestation is frequently using the language of constitutionalism. Main assumptions of modern constitutionalism are being questioned: the state as ultimate constitutional arbiter; the nation-state as the 'natural' territorial unit for governance; the constitutional order as a closed legal and expert system. The project will comparatively investigate distinct trajectories of constitutional change, and, more importantly, the different forms of constitutional politics, in a number of European countries. Constitutional politics is engaged with by a variety of actors, some of whom make innovative proposals for pluralistic, participatory, or even cosmopolitan, constitutional orders. In the last two decades, a cross-disciplinary debate has started to address new forms of constitutionalism as well as multi-level governance. The focus is, however, on novel forms of post-state constitutionalism -for instance, regarding international lex mercatoria, human rights regimes, and supranational governance -as well as on sub-national constitutionalism and non-state legal regimes. There is, however, a glaring absence of systematic and comparative reflections on, and analyses of, the way in which constitutionalism itself is being contested by a variety of actors as well as the object of proposals for (radical) change. What is more, no systematic work has been done on potential shifts in the understanding of constitutionalism or the emergence of innovative views.

While a political dimension was perhaps not at the forefront of the sociology of critical capacity of Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot, as most prominently articulated in On Justification (2006), it can be argued that their work engages with important questions regarding the political and politics. In this chapter, I will make the political dimension in French pragmatic sociology more explicit, and will particularly explore a certain ‘politicization’ of pragmatic sociology in some of the more recent works of Luc Boltanski. This is done particularly with an eye to what I see as a normative dimension in pragmatic sociology that links it with (radical) democratic theory. It seems particularly fruitful to expose this normative dimension by reading Boltanski’s On Critique (2011) together with the works of radical democratic thinkers, such as Claude Lefort and Cornelius Castoriadis, the latter who have both contributed significantly to an understanding of politics and particular the notion of the political. The attempt is here to bring out dimensions that are shared in the works of Boltanski, Lefort, and Castoriadis, and that concern not least issues of uncertainty or indeterminacy, the relation between the world and reality, as well as reflections on the political form of society.
In the chapter, I will first discuss the notion of the political, and how it relates to pragmatic sociology, and subsequently engage in a close reading of in particular Boltanski’s On Critique with the help of insights from Lefort and Castoriadis. In the concluding section, I will briefly explore how the three authors deal with what seems to be an age in which politics is in significant decline.

The democratic nature of the European integration project is contested, and contestation and dissent seem to be on the increase, or at least becoming more visible, with the current economic crisis. A European project confined to transnational market-making is found wanting in terms of social competence as well as civic-democratic enablement. It seems undeniable that the attempts by the European Union (EU) to enhance its democratic standing have so far had limited success. For a political sociology of European democracy, an increasing gap between a European society and the formal-political world of the EU raises a host of significant and interesting questions. The article will tie in with some of the recent sociological studies that focus on European democracy, civil society, and social movements, and will contribute to the delineation of a specifically political-sociological approach to European democracy. The approach will link political theory with sociological insights, the latter in particular taken from the sociology of critical capacity as developed by Boltanski and Thévenot and others. Such an approach seems particularly useful in terms of the sociological exploration of different forms of critique and various repertoires of justification regarding the European polity, not least those expressed by ‘anti-political’ and dissenting movements.

Abstract. The objective of the paper is to analyse Romania's experience with modernity by identifying and distinguishing two projects of modernisation in Romanian history, ie the liberal and the fascist one. Both projects are understood as competing projects confronting basic problématiques of a political, socio-economic, and cultural nature.

The revolutions of 1989 have predominantly been understood as the confirmation of Western, liberal democracy as the ultimate model of the modern polity. Here, it is however argued that there is more to 1989 than the mere collapse of the communist world as the direct alternative to Western modernity. 1989 has had subtle implications for rethinking democracy.

In the literature on emergent populism and nationalism in post-communist Eastern Europe, two main assumptions regarding the origins of the phenomenon can be distinguished. One line of argumentation holds that the unexpected resurgence of populism and nationalism after the collapse of the communist regimes is a direct result of the'valley of tears' that characterizes the post-communist transformation from a communist, centrally planned system, to a democratic, market society.

In the paper, it is argued that democratization in Central and Eastern Europe involves important forms of differentiation of democracy, rather than merely convergence to a singular–liberal-democratic, constitutional-model. One way of taking up democratic differentiation in post-communist societies is by analysing the constitutional documents of the new democratic orders, and the constitutional politics leading to the foundational documents.

Abstract. The 'return to Europe'of the new member states of the European Union is widely seen as a reunification of the 'European family'. In this, the profound processes of transformation that these societies are experiencing are mostly understood as a continent-wide process of convergence. But such far-reaching processes of change have equally shown to involve forms of differentiation, in particular in terms of political and cultural diversity.

Abstract The article discusses the status and role of politics—in its various facets—in the pragmatic sociology of critique. We focus on a number of different dimensions of politics—politics-as-justification, politics-as-distribution, politics-as-constitution, and politics-as-defiance—that can said to be of importance for a pragmatic sociology of critique, but that have not all been taken up equally in this approach.

Abstract: The paper discusses the significance and role of subnational democracy in the context of new European democracies in flux. In a context of fragile democratic traditions, the displacement of national sovereignty, and increasing civic adverseness to national politics, local forms of representative and direct democracy might–in advantageous circumstances–help to re-attach citizens to the democratic process.

Abstract In a political reading, 1989 has been predominantly interpreted from a liberal point of view, and its impact has primarily been taken as strengthening the liberal-democratic idea of a political community. The year 1989 is, however, not reducible to a mere confirmation of a universal status of liberal democracy, rather, a reverse reading—ie, the recognition of the emergence of innovative, radical democratic ideas and practices from the East—is equally important to do full justice to the complex events of 1989.