eBook Democracy in Europe ePub

Dorizius

This is a most impressive book. Drawing lessons from the American experience of creating a continental, federal union and inspired by 19th Century French liberals such as Tocqueville and Guizot, Siedentop takes a skepticial (but sympathetic) look at the current project to create a "United States of Europe". The book is grand (even majestic) in its scope and (deliberately) provocative in its claims. The author is a political theorist and intellectual historian, which is the key to its appeal. There are countless books on the EU out there, written by political scientists and economist, full of arcane details and figures. This book, by contrast, is written from a larger perspective, drawing on the author's apparently vast knowledge of European social, cultural and intellectual life. The style is engaging and straightforward. The book will appeal most to journalists and very senior bureaucrats, I think. (Judging by the endorsements on the cover, this is indeed the case.) It will probably be judged too sweeping and general by most academic specialists and too intellectual and abstract by most ordinary readers. It is a work of popular scholarship or "high journalism", in the highest and best sense of that term. There is still an appreciation for such things among British journalists (although it is diminishing), unlike their American cousins, for whom this book will probably seem far too substantial to engage their attention for long. The principal villains of the piece are the French elites, who (the author alleges) have so far successfully imposed an elitist, centralist, statist vision on the construction of the European Union. The Germans have been too politically weak and self-absorbed to resist this aggressive French agenda, and the British are trapped in their own social and constitutional ancien regime, unable to offer any practical alternatives to their traditional rivals. So Siedentop turns to American federalism for an alternative conception of how the New Europe should develop. He is a Tocquevillian liberal who favors decentralization spiced with Rousseauian democratic republicanism. One of his principal complaints about the debate on Europe is that economics has completely eclipsed the political, resulting in a union that is politically retarded and dangerous (one of his favorite words). At the very least, his assessment of the many dangers on the road to union in Europe deserves very serious consideration. Hopefully, it will help to raise the standard of debate on its future course.
Overall, a highly stimulating, engaging, insightful book that no one who is even remotely interested in the future of Europe can afford to overlook.

ℓo√ﻉ

In a European context sometimes dominated by the endless and tediously ideological debate "Social Model versus Ultra-Liberalism", Siedentop's contribution is refreshing in it's high mindedness and breadth of scope. In this sense he can claim to follow in Tocqueville's footsteps.

In the European Union and the United States he sees the flag bearers of the ideals of Occidental Liberalism in its classical sense, of the principles of the Enlightenment. In particular he emphasises the importance of Individualism and Christianity's role in its appearance in Europe. Individualism he contrasts with Tribalism. Whereas in an Individualistic society the Individual is the indivisible "atom", in a Tribal society the Family (in a sense closer to Extended Family, or Clan) is the atom. Examples of Tribal or Clannish societies are Sicily or the Middle East. They are places where classical Liberalism does not yet prevail. Examples of Individualistic societies are the US and Western Europe. They are places where classical Liberalism prevails.

Siedentop takes this as the starting point and then argues for what he believes is the best way to preserve and advance what he considers as the Great Western Liberal Project. He supports this first general and rather abstract part of the book with very interesting historical arguments.

The value of the book therefore resides mostly not in the actual solutions and directions it proposes (a European Senate, the EU as a Federal superstate modeled on the US, avoiding French dirigisme) but in the way it frames the problems. In other words the questions raised are far more interesting than the answers.

Among the recurring themes in the book is the argument against French dirigisme, centralisation and bureaucratic unaccountability. It is a compliment to the depth of his political and historical thought (especially as an American living in the UK) that he does not mean this as an attack on the French system *in France*, but a warning against a transplant to Brussels. He simply claims that while French society has had ample time to adapt to a strong, heavy handed government, notably by evolving a strong and extremely active and implicated civil society, European society has not. European civil society and citizenry do not yet have the leverage to counterbalance the excesses of an overly bureaucratic, non-transparent central government.

The French system however, has the advantage that it is able to act when needed, and this is no small virtue, especially in view of recent shameful cases of Euro-paralysis such as in the Bosnian genocide.

Another easy criticism one can bring is the fact that Siedentop presents the Family as evil and as an obstacle to the inevitable march of progress. This will likely not make him many friends in many EU countries such as notably Poland, Italy, or soon, Romania. He should have probably toned down his anti-family rhetoric, in the same way that he toned down his anti-dirigiste rhetoric.

The Big Questions emerging at the end of the book are two:

How can we find a compromise between paralysis and unaccountability? The French system can act, but it can often lose touch with the people resulting in violent uprisings (some people may call these "system failures", other people may simply call them "feedback").

How can we find a compromise between the family (as in heartwarming Italian Restaurant advertising) and the family (as in brutal Iraqi or Pakistani tribal wars), or equivalently between individualism as freedom and individualism as alienation.

Overall the book is a valuable contribution to the European debate and essential reading for anyone who cares about the future of the European Project and of the Western world in general.

Chinon

I bought this book because I believed it would be an American's recommendations to a rising European Union.
Instead, it is a British book written by an American who has become more or less British who tries to show the British that they have something to offer Europe if they came to believe more in the British way themselves.
There are some interesting thoughts in Siedentop's book, but on the whole, I thought it was rather boring and irrelevant to me as a Dane.