Habermas
As Jürgen Habermas’ new book "The Crisis of the European Union: A Response" arrived at bookstores, The Global Journal asked Francis Fukuyama to interview the German philosopher, one of the most influential thinkers of our time. In a highly relevant and exclusive discussion, Professor Fukuyama and Professor Habermas articulate Europe’s most pressing issues, such as the building of a more integrated political Europe, its democratic foundations, the role of its citizens and Europe’s future. This unique interview also leads to global governance issues; Europe is still a promising laboratory for ideas on new political orders.
My first question concerns the meaning of European citizenship. Of the two constitutive legs of your new Europe, the one of peoples is at this moment far better constituted, and in fact has been greatly strengthened due to the animosities aroused by the current crisis. The abstract ideal of European citizenship, on the other hand, has always existed since the early days of the EU and finds expression in voting for the European Parliament. But it has very little emotional or substantive content at this point. You speak of “the expectation that the growing mutual trust among European peoples will give rise to a transnational, though attenuated, form of civic solidarity among the citizens of the Union.” (p. 29). But on what will this trust be based?
Allow me to address the normative and empirical aspects of your question separately. The idea of “shared sovereignty” – shared between Europeans in their role as EU citizens and these same people in their role as members of one of the participating nation states – must be developed from the roots of the constitution-building process. This idea has an important implication for how we should conceive of the future shape of a democratized Political Union. If we are to cease shirking the question of the “finalité” of the unification process, we must lay down the correct parameters. A federal state on the model of the United States or the German federal republic is the wrong model; for that would be to set an unrealistically ambitious goal – one more ambitious than is necessary or sensible. There is no need to introduce a new level of federal administration; almost all administrative functions can remain with the member states. And a Commission that would have been transformed into a government would not have to be predominantly responsible toward the European Parliament, as required by the pattern of a federal state. For the purpose of democratic legitimation it would be sufficient that a European government be responsible in equal measure to the Parliament and the Council in which the national governments are represented. From an empirical perspective, your question puts a finger on a sore point. It is true that the citizens will always have closer ties to their nation state than to the European Union; however, the fact that, to date, insufficient mutual trust has developed among the European peoples is also a consequence of the failure of the political elites. The latter have so far evaded all European themes; in their national public arenas, they make “Europe” responsible for unpopular decisions in which they themselves have participated in Brussels. Even more important is that, to date, a European election or a European referendum worthy of the name has never been conducted in any member state; citizens have only voted on national themes and made choices among national politicians, while European issues and tickets were hidden away, as it were. As a result of this irresponsible behavior, the politicians are now facing a dilemma. As soon as the citizens realized in the present crisis how profoundly the political decisions taken in Brussels already impinge on their everyday lives, their interest was aroused. If that suspicious attention to European issues were interpreted in the right way by the citizens, they could become equally aware of sharing a common fate.
Haven’t we been going backwards very rapidly?
One must distinguish the longer-term dispositions from the current events that stirred up emotions. The two-faced way in which the European governments have dealt with the financial crisis over the past two years is scandalous. They negotiate behind closed doors and doctor the results arrived at in Brussels for domestic consumption, out of fear of their own electorates. That foments mutual national prejudices and has corresponding effects on the public moods reflected in opinion polls. On the other hand, Europe has long since become a matter of course for the younger generations. What do you think the opinion polls would look like if the monetary union were to be dissolved? The young people would be flabbergasted if they suddenly had to show their passports and change their money again sixteen times when hitchhiking across Europe.
You place your constitutional project in the context of “a democratic legal domestication and civilization of state power.” This has of course been key to the European project from the beginning.
That’s perhaps too easily said. Here we are dealing with the very first instance of an accommodation of sovereign nation states – moreover, the first generation of particularly self-confident nation states with their own imperial pasts – to the postnational constellation of an emerging world society.

But isn’t the weakness of current European identity due to the fact that it has been described in such largely negative terms, i.e., to be a European means to be against war, against national selfishness, etc., instead of in positive terms, e.g., “I am proud to be member of a European civilization that represents X or Y” as positive values? And if so, how do we define those values and what kind of education project is necessary to give them meaning?
Jan Werner Müller, a younger professor of political science at Princeton university, recently rebutted the frequently heard accusation of the “failure of European intellectuals” with an argument that I find convincing. The expectation that the intellectuals should construct a “grand European narrative,” a European “identity,” with the aid of a new founding myth remains captive to a “nineteenth-century logic,” he argued. After all, the now well-studied history of the “invention” of national consciousness by historiography, the press, and school curricula during the nineteenth century, in view of its horrible consequences, does not provide an inviting example. We in Europe are still coming to terms with forms of ethnonational aggression – as is shown, even within the EU, by the example of Hungary. This is why I think it is sufficient to cite a couple of concrete demographic and economic statistics to remind ourselves of the diminishing weight of Europe in the world and to ask ourselves whether we must not pull ourselves together if we want to remain in a position to defend our cultural and social forms of life against the leveling force of the global economy – and, most importantly, to maintain a certain amount of influence on the international political agenda in accordance with our universalistic conceptions.
But doesn’t your proposed refounding require a rethinking of the full meaning of citizenship on a European level?
You are quite right. But don’t underestimate the integrative effects of a conflictual past. Europeannations share a history of conflicts and reconciliations; that may well serve as a resource for constructing a common political culture. Certainly, the memory politics of nation states works both ways: divisive in the nationalist reading, integrative in a reflective reading. But imagine a campaign focusing on the alternative between either “more” or “less” Europe – the mere topic would solicit a mutual perspective- taking which might, in the best case, promote the efforts of leading media to relate national views and to compare them with one another. Moreover, with regard to a polarizing campaign on Europe’s alternative futures we must not forget the integrative effects of such a competitive process itself. Notwithstanding their common commitment, pro-European parties are still divided along familiar lines. While one side wants to secure democratic backing for a more effective pursuit of market liberalism, the other side aims to furnish the European Union with a supranational authority that they want to use for a desired regulation of markets – something which is possible, if at all, only on a continental scale. This debate would per se promote the European cause, because the programmatic liberal/social-democratic split would for the first time cut across the lines of national alliances; it would open the door for a European domestic policy and provide a stimulus for the formation of a European party system.
It seems to me that the broader issue of integration has been broached on a member state level in response to fears of the failure of efforts to integrate Muslim minorities, but that the definitions of citizenship are being drawn in more rather than less particularistic ways. Is there a way to take hold of this conversation and “Europeanize” it?
I would expect, on the contrary, that the nations that meet the postcolonial challenge of the tolerant inclusion of their Muslim cultures at home, as it were, will also more readily open themselves up to each other within the European context as a result of this advance in liberalizing their own societies.
I know that your book is written from the standpoint of normative theory, rather than as a practical guide for contemporary leaders. But I wonder what your assessment is of the likelihood that Europe could go for constitutional revision and have a real debate over these issues anytime soon. My strong impression is that there is very little grassroots support for the deepening of Europe at the moment, either in the north or the south of Europe, which is why no one wants to reopen the constitutional question right now.
Your description is true under current conditions. But the situation is extremely labile. You should not forget that the resolution on the so-called Fiscal Compact already represents a major step in the direction of a coordination of economic policies at the European level. This has triggered a dynamic that is now in turn putting the governments under pressure to take action. The political class will not be able to keep key European issues off the agenda much longer. The familiar segmentation of European politics from national arenas has already been undermined: National parliaments and courts are alarmed; and the national media are increasingly led to reveal the domestic impact of the fiscal arrangements to “save” the credibility of states and banks. An additional incentive is the perception of a striking aspect of this crisis: for the first time the collapse of the financial system, which is at the same time the most highly-developed sector and the greatest beneficiary of global capitalism, has been averted, or at least retarded, only by the involuntary contributions of citizens in their political role as tax-payers. To be sure, this dynamic can also drive the nations further apart. But one way or the other it will not be possible to continue the status quo in the familiar technocratic vein.
You call for a similar refounding of the United Nations as an organization, like the EU, of both states and citizens. But institutionally, what would actually give voice to citizens in authoritarian countries like China and North Korea, given that they have no voice in the selection of their own leaders? And how will these countries react if somehow the UN starts sponsoring their own critics?
I’m sure we can agree that, if the economists did not manage to predict the second global economic crisis even approximately, making a prognosis about such a complex formation as international politics in the emerging global society would be pure charlatanism. Perhaps certain empirical trends are discernible and corresponding political challenges can be anticipated. I would make a distinction between rare movements of oppressed peoples and social classes, with their ambivalent but in the long run often progressive effects, and normal government action that has continuously to respond to systemic – in the first instance, economic – problems. Let’s first examine the latter aspect.
During the past three decades, a new kind of need for coordination has developed in the course of the globalization of the markets and communication networks in a world society that is emerging as a result of this process. This need can no longer be met by the rapidly spreading international organizations. These organizations are based on international treaties and are incapable of promoting the kind of policies that could reverse the major global threats. They are not su£cient to regulate the financial markets, to stave off the threats of climate change and ecological imbalances, to control the risks of large-scale technology, and to steer the distribution conflicts over diminishing resources such as oil and water into peaceful channels. I¤do not even speak of reversing the trends towards growing social inequality within national societies and across the globe. Coming to grips with these problems calls for the construction of new institutions capable of pursuing a global domestic policy. In¤the hour of greatest need in November 2008, the group of G-20 nations meeting for the first time in London did in fact pass astonishing resolutions for regulating the financial markets – but why have they remained without consequences?
The global implementation of human rights is an entirely different matter; this normative progress is generally achieved through struggles, perhaps driven by unresolved systemic problems. History also unfolds in this dimension, as has been demonstrated in typically ambivalent, but scarcely predictable, fashion by the rebellion in the Arab countries.
Isn’t the failure of the Security Council to act on Syria an indication that humanitarian intervention is far from being a consensual act of international police power (p. 61), but still a profoundly political decision that will be sharply contested into the future? And therefore that such human rights violations are still very far from being recognized as universally shared moral sensibilities?
What impact the, by now unanimous, political pressure will have on the brutality of the Assad regime remains to be seen. In this case it can hardly be said that the moral reactions of the international community are divided. It is rather the case that the UN as presently constituted is too weak to impose its will in the strategically deadlocked situation in the Middle East. The case is similar with North Korea and Iran. On the other hand, it is hard to predict whether the changed constellation of the world powers that is currently evolving – namely, a multilateralism that is beginning to replace the supremacy of the superpower – will promote the protracted reform of the world organization, or whether even the level of weak willingness to cooperate that we have already achieved will be undercut.
FF bookI very much appreciated your discussion of the genesis of the modern understanding of human dignity, which corresponds to mine: that it is rooted in a Christian moral perception; was secularized and universalized by Kant; and is inextricably linked to recognition. One of the characteristics of Western concepts of dignity, however, is the sharp line drawn between the moral status of human beings and that of the non-human natural world. This stood in sharp contrast to many Eastern religions, which tended to place both human and non-human nature on a continuum, in which the former lost its special privileged status while spiritual characteristics were even attributed to inanimate objects. This led both to a lower level of protection of human rights, but a greater sense of responsibility for non-human nature. We in the West now seem to be moving in, so to speak, Eastern direction in blurring the line. I wonder how you react to this; whether and how that bright line can or should be eroded.
That is an extremely interesting question. The intercultural discourse over human rights has indeed got under way over the past twenty years. My impression is that the West with its Christian-Jewish heritage (and the Arab world?) could benefi t from a good dash of the kind of “communitarianism” we know from the civilizations of the East shaped by Buddhism and Confucianism. Western capitalism needs a corrective to the selective libertarian, at least liberal-individualist interpretation of liberties. I defend the position that we should stress the co-originality of liberal and democratic civil rights as well as the systematic connection between these classical civil rights and the social and cultural basic rights. As to your question, I would like to differentiate between a dubious spiritual reenchantment of nature, on the one hand, and the desirable unearthing of buried moral sensibilities vis-à-vis tormented natural creatures, on the other. Don’t the Asian civilizations also have to take the step, albeit in their own manner, accomplished by Western modernity with the transition from metaphysical-cosmological worldviews to postmetaphysical thinking? In our culture this step provided the foundation for a non-instrumental relation to science – to science as an integral component of our self-understanding – and, on the other hand, for a rational understanding of morality and law. Morally sensitive treatment of animals and plants, and of nature as a whole, does not depend on religious and metaphysical worldviews, after all – in other words, it does not depend on projecting the I-You relation of linguistic communication onto the world as a whole.