Constituting the Social Basis of the EU: Reflections from the European Margins


Abstract


The article addresses significant aspects of the constitution of the European Union’s social basis from the broader perspective of a European space under construction. The specific point of view regards the process of Europeanization through enlargement to the post-socialist Eastern and South European countries, and conditionality as its main instrument. In the light of the five-year moratorium proposed by the Juncker Commission in 2015, the process is examined particularly from its margins by considering the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), i.e. the last country in the ‘Western Balkans’, together with Kosovo, that is not yet a candidate for EU membership. The analysis aims to shed light on two different and conflictual forms of agency: first, the institution building process through accession procedures; second, social dissent patterns and citizens’ mobilization in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The purpose is to analyze if and how these diverse agencies cross borders and soften boundaries to constitute an emerging European society. A constant methodological concern of this study is if and how an ethnography of the process may contribute to the analysis of European integration in its complex, non-linear and often contradictory nature (Kauppi 2013)

DOI Code: 10.1285/i20356609v9i2p691

Keywords: Bosnia and Herzegovina; conditionality; enlargement; Europeanization; social dissent; Western Balkans

References


Altvater, E., Beck U., Bofinger P. and Fischer J. (eds. 2013), Demokratie oder Kapitalismus? Europe in der Krise, Blätter Verlagsgesellschaft mbH; Auflage: 1.

Appadurai, A. (2011), Le aspirazioni nutrono la democrazia, (with the Introduction of de Leonardis. O.), Milano: et al./Edizioni.

Arendt, H. (1958), The Human Condition, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago-London.

Arendt, H. (1990), On revolution, London: Penguin Books.

Balibar, E. (2010), “At the Borders of Citizenship: A Democracy in Translation?”, European Journal of Social Theory 13: 315-322.

Barbier, J.C. and Colomb F. (2014), “The Janus faces of European Policy”, Transfer Vol. 20(1): 23-36.

Bauböck, R. (2010), “Studying citizenship constellations”, Journal of ethnic and migration studies, 36 (5): 847-859.

Bee, C. and Scartezzini, R. (eds. 2009), La costruzione sociale dell’Europa. Processi di europeizzazione della società civile, Sovveria Mannelli: Rubbettino.

Beck, U. (2012), La crisi dell’Europa, Bologna: il Mulino.

Beck, U. and Grande, E. (2006), L’Europa cosmopolita. Società e politica nella seconda modernità, Roma: Carocci.

Bellamy, R. and Castiglione, D. (2013), “Three models of democracy, political community and representation in the EU”, Journal of European Public Policy, 20:2: 206-223,

Bifulco, L. (2015), Il welfare locale, Roma: Carocci editore.

Blokker, P. (2014), “The European crisis and the political critique of capitalism”, European Journal of Social Theory 17(3): 258-274.

Botta, M. and Schwellnus, G. (2014), “Enforcing state aid rules in EU candidate countries: a qualitative comparative analysus of a direct and indirect effects of conditionality”, Journal of European Public Policy, 22(3): 335-352.

Buden, B. (2014), “Zoran Milanović je na strani sile i nepravde”, Lupiga, 19 February 2014; Interview conducted by Ana Benačić i Ivan Kegelj. http://www.lupiga.com/vijesti/razgovor-s-borisom-budenom-prvi-dio.

Burawoy, M., Blum J.A., George S., Gille Z. and Thauer M. (eds. 2000) Global Ethnography: Forces, Connections and Imaginations in a Postmodern World. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Dal Lago, A. and De Biasi, R. (eds. 2002), Un certo sguardo. Introduzione all’etnografia sociale, Roma-Bari: Editori Laterza.

Delanty, G. (1995), Inventing Europe: Idea, Identity, Reality, New York: St Martin’s Press.

Delanty, G. (2014), “Perspectives on crisis and critique in Europe today”, European Journal of Social Theory, Vol. 17(3): 207-218.

Della Porta, D. and Mattoni, A. (eds.) (2014), Spreading protest. Social movements in times of crisis, Colchester: ECPR Press.

de Wilde, P., Michailidou, A. and Trenz, H.-J. (2013), Contesting Europe. Exploring euroscepticism in online media coverage, Colchester: ECPR Press.

Elster, J., Offe, C. and Preuss, U. (eds. 1998), Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies. Rebuilding the Ship at Sea, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Favell, A. (2014) “The fourth freedom: Theories of migration and mobilities in ‘neo-liberal’ Europe” European Journal of Social Theory, Vol. 17(3): 275-289.

Favell, A., Guiraudon, V. (eds. 2011), Sociology of the European Union, London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Ferrera, M. (2004), “Verso una cittadinanza sociale aperta. I nuovi confine del welfare nell’Unione Europea”, Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, I: 95-126.

Ferrera, M. (2005), The Boundaries of Welfare. European Integration and the New Spatial Politics of Social Protection, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Fossum, J. E. (2009), “Citizenship, Democracy and the Public Sphere”, in Rumford, C. (ed.), The Sage Handbook of European Studies, London: Sage publications.

Fraser, N. (2013), Fortunes of Feminism: From State-Managed Capitalism to Neoliberal Crisis, London and New York: Verso.

Habermas, J. (2001), The Postnational Constellation, MA: MIT Press.

Habermas, J. (2013), “Demokratie oder Kapitalismus?”, Blätter für Deutsche und internationale Politik, 5/2013: 59-70.

Habermas, J. (2012), The Crisis of the European Union, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Habermas, J. (2015), “Warum Merkels Griecheland-Politik ein Fechler ist”, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 22 Juni 2015. http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/europa-sand-im-getriebe-1.2532119.

Hannerz, U. (2003), “Being there … and there … and there!: Reflections on multi-site ethnography”, Ethnography 4(2): 201-216.

Heidbreder, E. G. (2014), “Why widening makes deepening: unintended policy extension through polity expansion”, Journal of European Public Policy, 21/5: 746-760.

Hessel, S. (2010), Indignez-vous! (Pour une insurrection pacifique), Indigène éditions, "Ceux Qui Marchent Contre Le Vent", Montpellier, Octobre 2010.

Hessel, S. (2011), “Indignes-Vous! Time for Outrage!”, The Nation, 7-14 March: 15-19.

Hobolt, S. B. (2014), “Ever closer ir ever wider? Public attitudes towards further enlargement and integration in the European Union”, Journal of European Public Policy, 21/5: 664-680.

Inglehardt, R. (1970), “Cognitive mobilization and European identity”, Comparative Politics 3(1): 45-70.

Kaldor, M. and Selchow, S. (2013), “The bubbling up of subterranean politics in Europe”, Journal of Civil Society, Volume 9, Issue 1: 78-99.

Kauppi, N. (ed.) (2013), A political sociology of transnational Europe, Colchester: ECPR Press.

Kazaz, E., Papić, Ž. and Dmitrović, T. (2014), “Protesti u BiH – čemu vlast vodi ‘gušenjem zahtjeva i energije gradjana?”, Sarajevo: IBHI; in Oslobodjenje, 21. Juni/Lipanj 2014: 28-29.

Martinelli, A. (2013), Mal di nazione. Contro la deriva populista, Milano: Università Bocconi Editore.

Michnik, A. (2009), “Annus mirabilis”, IP Global, German Council of Foreign Relations, Vol. 10, Winter.

Mujkić, A. (2014) “Bosnian Days of Reckoning: Review of the sequence of protests in Bosnia and Herzegovina 2013-14”, (Working paper).

Nash, K. and Fraser, N. (2014), Transnationalization of the Public Sphere, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Offe, C. (1997), Modernity and the State. East, West, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

Offe, C. (1994), “Designing Institutions for East European Transitions”, IHS Reihe Politikwissenschaft No. 19: 1-25 (www.ssoar.info).

Outhwaite, W. (2014), “The future of European democracy”, European Journal of Social Theory, Vol. 17(3): 326-342.

Petrović, T. (2012), Yuropa. Jugoslovensko nasleđe i politike budućnosti u postjugoslovenskim društvima, Beograd: Fabrika knjige.

Piketty, T. (2013), Le capital au XXIe siècle, Paris: SEUIL.

Recchi, E. and Kuhn, T. (2013), “European’s Space-Sets and the Political Legitimacy of the EU”, in Kauppi 2013, pp. 191-222.

Rumford, C. (2002), The European Union. A Political Sociology, Oxford: Blackwell.

Rumford, C. (2008), Cosmopolitan Spaces. Europe, Globalization, Theory, London: Routledge.

Rumford, C. (ed.) (2009), The Sage Handbook of European Studies, London: Sage.

Rumford, C. (2013), The Globalization of Strangeness, London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Rumford C. (2014), “The Strangeness of Europe: Towards a Theory of Society”, Lecture at International scientific conference Towards a European Society? Boundaries, Borders, Barriers, 13-15 June 2014, Zagreb.

Sassen, S. (2014), “Abbiamo chiuso un sogno in un bunker”, la Repubblica, 8 maggio 2014.

Scartezzini, R. (2007), European citizenship: theories, arenas, levels, Indiana University, Nomos.

Scartezzini, R. and Milanese, J. O. (2005), L’allargamento dell’UE nello scenario geopolitico europeo, Milano: FrancoAngeli.

Sedelmeier, U. (2011), “Europeanisation in new member and candidate states”, Living Reviews in European Governance, Vol. 6, No. 1. http://www.livingreviews.org/lreg-2011-1

Sekulić, T. (2011), “L'università e le integrazioni europee: le nuove sfide dell'agire accademico” in Rebeggiani E., La Minerva ferita. Crisi e prospettive dell’università in Italia, Napoli: Liguori editore: 123-134.

Sekulić, T. (2014), “Ethnocratic Discourse and Transnationalisation of Democracy ” Pregled 1-2: 11-16.

Sekulić T. (2016), “Enlargement of the EU to the “Western Balkans” and the process of Europeanisation”, (Forthcoming).

Shaw, J. and Štiks, I. (eds. 2013), Citizenship after Yugoslavia, London and New York: Routledge.

Sloam, J. (2013), “Voice and Equality’: Young People’s Politics in the European Union”, West European Politics, 36(4): 836-858.

Smith, D. E. (2005), Istitutional Ethnography. A Sociology for People, Oxford: AltaMira Press.

Soysal, Y. (2001), “Changing boundaries of participation in European public spheres: reflections on citizenship and civil society”, in Eder K. and Giesen B. (eds), European citizenship between national legacies and postnational projects, Oxford: Oxford University Press: 159– 179.

Streeck, W. (2013), Tempo guadagnato. La crisi rinviata del capitalismo democratico, Bologna, il Mulino.

Supiot, A. (2010), L’Esprit de Philadelphie. La justice sociale face au marché total, Paris: Éditions du Seuil.

Štiks, I.(2014), “Slovenske vstaje so vsem v velik navdih”, Mladina 9, 28 February 2014, interview conducted by Nidžara Ahmetašević. http://www.mladina.si/154378/igor-stiks/

Therborn, G. (2013), “Questions to the Sociology of Europe”, European Societies, 15(3): 309-311.

Therborn, G. (2014a) “New Masses? Social Basis of Resistance, New Left Review, 85 Jan-Feb 2014: 7-14.

Therborn, G. (2014b), “The fractured social space of Europe”, European Societies, 16(4): 477-479.

Urbinati, N. (2014), Democracy Disfigured: Opinion, Truth and the People, Harvard University Press.

Van Ingelgom, V. (2014), Integrating indifference. A comparative, qualitative and quantitative approach to the legitimacy of the European integration, Colchester: ECPR Press.

Vidali, D. S. (2013), “The ethnography of process: Excavating and re-generating civic engagement and political subjectivity”, Ethnography Vol. 15(1): 12-31.

Wallace, H. (1993), “Deepening or widening: problems of legitimacy for the EC”, in S. Garcia (ed.), European Identity and the Search for Legitimacy, London: Pinter.

Wimmer, A. and Glick Schiller, N. (2002), “Methodological nationalism and beyond: nation-state building, migration and the social sciences”, Global networks 2(4): 301-334.

Zielonka, J., Europe as Empire: The Nature of the Enlarged European Union, New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Živanović, M. (2014), “Ovo nisu protesti Bošnjaka, Srba i Hrvata, ovo su protesti ljudi!”, Buka, interview conducted by Bursać D. http://www.6yka.com/novost/51175/prof.-dr-miodrag-zivanovic-

ovo-nisu-protesti-bosnjaka-srba-i-hrvata-ovo-su-protesti-ljudi

Žižek, S. (2009), First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, London, New York: Verso.

Žižek, S. (2014) “Anger in Bosnia, but this time the people can read their leaders’ ethnic lies”, The Guardian, 10 February 2014.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/10/anger-bosnia-ethnic-lies-protesters-bosnian-serb-croat


Full Text: PDF

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.
کاغذ a4
Bookmark and Share


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 3.0 Italia License.