Offe Europe Entrapped

1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7456-8755-1
Verlag: John Wiley & Sons
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 104 Seiten, E-Book

Today Europe finds itself in a crisis that casts a dark shadowover an entire generation. The seriousness of the crisis stems fromone core political contradiction at the heart of the Europeanproject: namely, that what urgently needs to be done is alsoextremely unpopular and therefore virtually impossible to dodemocratically. What must be done - and almost everyone agrees inprinciple on the measures that would be needed to deal with thefinancial crisis - cannot be sold to the voting public of the coremember states, which so far have been less affected by the crisisthan those on the periphery, nor can the conditions that coremembers try to impose be easily sold to voters in the deficitcountries.
The European Union is therefore becoming increasingly disunited,with deepening divides between the German-dominated'core' and the southern 'periphery',between the winners and the losers of the common currency, betweenthe advocates of greater integration and the anti-Europeans,between the technocrats and the populists. Europe finds itselftrapped by the deepening divisions that are opening up across theContinent, obstructing its ability to deal with a crisis that hasalready caused massive social suffering in the countries of theEuropean periphery and is threatening to derail the very project ofthe European Union.
In this short book, Claus Offe brings into sharp focus thecentral political problem that lies at the heart of the EU andshackles its ability to deal with the most serious crisis of itsshort history.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Offe, Claus

Inhaltsverzeichnis

* List of Abbreviations
* Preface
* (1) Democratic capitalism and the European Union
* (2) The nature of the crisis
* (3) Growth, debt and doom loops
* (4) No return to square one
* (5) In search of political agency
* (6) Finalitées: Bases of identification with European integration as a political project
* (7) The configuration of political forces and preferences
* (8) Germany's leadership role for Europe: a non-starter - Framing the crisis
* (9) "Thin" citizenship: The ugly face of the EU system of rule
* (10) Redistribution across state borders and social divides
* Afterword

Über Autor(innen)

Claus Offe is Professor of Political Sociology at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. He is author of numerous books, including Contradictions of the Welfare State, Disorganized Capitalism, Modernity and the State, and Reflections on America: Tocqueville, Weber and Adorno in the United States.