Books and special issues - Page 2

Rainer Nickel is the editor of a new volume which investigates new approaches to supra- and transnational juridification. The book explores the theoretical concept 'conflict of laws' developed by Christian Joerges and is based on a workshop held in Florence in September 2007 celebrating his farewell from the European University Institute. The editor is a member of RECON’s WP 9, which examines the conditions and prospects of democratization in European transnational legal and political arrangements. 

Ulrike Liebert and Hans-Jörg Trenz, coordinators of WP 5 – Civil Society and the Public Sphere, are the editors of a new volume which appeared on Routledge in November 2010. They examine whether and how civil society can contribute to making democracy work in normative democratic theoretical perspectives.

Jürgen Neyer and Antje Wiener are the editors of a new volume on the political theory of the European Union. Along with their contributors, the editors attempt to create a more decisively interdisciplinary theoretical approach to studying the EU within the wider world-political context. The book brings together scholars in a range of disciplines across the social sciences, many of whom actively contribute to different RECON work packages.

Migration as a key category of sociology has gained importance in the 21st century. In this book, Dariusz Niedźwiedzki shows the significance of migration in the analysis of contemporary forms of human spatial mobility. The author is member of RECON’s WP 8 - Identity Formation and Enlargement. 

This book explains the emergence and functioning of three forms of governance structures within the context of the European integration and constitutionalisation process: comitology, (regulatory) agencies and the Open Method of Co-ordination. The author Poul F. Kjaer is member of RECON’s WP 9 - Global Transnationalisation and Democratisation Compared. 

For the first time in human history, we witness the development of a political order that is not based on a culturally homogenized people, or brought about by coercion and brute force. In this book, Erik O. Eriksen deals with the fact that a new political order has arisen in Europe, an order which has transformed the Westphalian order. The nature of the European Union is a large and contentious issue, but nevertheless it is one which has brought to the fore the question of whether post-national democracy is possible. Are we now witnessing the third transformation of democracy – to a post-national form – succeeding the transformations to the city-state and to the nation state?

The discourse-theoretical argument on democracy is often criticised for being utopian, in that it provides a blueprint for a just political order and misses institutional reality in actual democracies. In a new book on Campus, Daniel Gaus argues that this criticism is based on a misreading of Habermas’ theory. The author is a member of RECON’s WP 1, which sets out RECON’s theoretical framework and develops indicators to test three different models for reconstituting democracy in Europe. 

Ulrike Liebert and Hans-Jörg Trenz, coordinators of WP 5 – Civil Society and the Public Sphere, are editors of this recent special issue of Policy and Society. They map new developments in the interdisciplinary research field of European civil society and review recent contributions from political science, sociology and law, which are concerned with the pervading empowerment of the institutions of European multi-level governance.

François Forêt is the editor of a new volume on politics and religion in France and Belgium. The book explores the question of the Christian heritage of Europe with a comparative look at two countries, and is the result of a workshop held in Brussels in January 2008. The author is a member of RECON’s WP 5, which analyses how civil society and the public sphere shape the democratic reconstitution of Europe. 

This book, edited by the RECON researchers Julio Baquero and Carlos Closa, takes an interdisciplinary approach and seeks to draw on the lessons of history, while shedding new light on the current and future challenges that the European Union faces. The authors are members of RECON's WP 2, which analyses the impact of the dual processes of EU constitutionalisation and Europeanisation of national constitutions on the reconstitution of democracy in Europe.

A new book by François Foret was recently published with Presses de Sciences Po Paris. The book examines the question of legitimacy after the failure of the European constitutional project. The author is member of RECON's WP 5 on Civil Society and the Public Sphere. 

A new book on Cambridge University Press explores the contested meanings of norms in a world of increasing international encounters. Antje Wiener argues that cultural practices are less visible than organisational practices, but are constitutive for politics and need to be understood and empirically ‘accounted’ for. The author is member of RECON's WP 6 - The Foreign and Security Dimension.

A volume presenting the first comparative study on the political communication related to the EU’s constitutional treaty was recently published on Dykinson. The book is edited by RECON researchers Hans-Jörg Trenz, Agustín José Menéndez and Fernando Losada and is the result of the research project 'Building the European Union’s social constituency'.  

To many, the rejections of the Constitutional Treaty by Dutch andFrench voters in 2005 came as a shock. However, given the many tensions and the many unresolved issues it was quite unsurprising. The challenges facing the Constitutional debate go to the core of the European integration process as they have to do with the terms on which to establish a post-national political order.

Utilising  the  concept  of  political  representation,  the  book scrutinises  women’s  legislative  presence  and  highlights  the opportunities  and  obstacles  to  parity  democracy  in  this  region  of Europe. Two of the authors, Yvonne Galligan and Sara Clavero are key researchers in RECON's WP 4 - Justice, Democracy and Gender.

What lessons can be drawn from the failure of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe to gain legitimacy? This question has been explored by an international research team at the University of Bremen, headed by Prof. Ulrike Liebert, co-leader of RECON’s WP 5 – Civil Society and the Public Sphere.

A new book, edited by John Erik Fossum and Philip Schlesinger, was recently published by Routledge. The book The European Union and the Public Sphere focuses on what the prospects are for a 'citizens' Europe' and places particular emphasis on the notion of a European public sphere, that is, a communicative space that might enable and engender the formation of a transnational or a supranational public.

A new edited volume with contributions from several RECON partners and with extensive comments by Jürgen Habermas was recently published with Suhrkamp (in German). The book is edited by Peter Niesen and Benjamin Herborth (Johann Wolfgang Goethe University).