Solidarisation and its limits: the EU and the transformation of international society

Abstract

The literature on international societies has widely recognised that the EU has formed a regional international society that has transcended the rules of Westphalian statecentred pluralism. However, the analysis of the consequences of this transcendence for global international society has so far been limited. For the most part, such studies have focused on the EU as a normative power, and even within that literature, there is much more attention given to the question of whether the EU acts as a normative power rather than to the consequences of its actions. This is intriguing given that Ian Manners, who originally coined the term, thought of the EU's ability to fundamentally transform the pluralist international society as the ultimate litmus test of normative power. In this paper, we want to explore this question further. Our argument is that the EU contributes to a solidarisation of international society, and we will show this in relation to two cases, human rights and regionalisation. However, we will also argue that this contribution is not unambiguous. Instead, it is characterised by internal contradictions and tensions.

Hatásköri problémák az Egyesült Királyság kilépése esetén

“…(Ahrens, 2019:265-266;Diez-Manners-Whitman, 2011) Ezt támasztja alá az Európai Unióról szóló Szerződés 2 (a továbbiakban: EUSZ) 2. cikke, amely szerint az EU egésze "az emberi méltóság tiszteletben tartása, a szabadság, a demokrácia, a jogállamiság, valamint az emberi jogok" tiszteletén alapul. Ehhez mintegy hozzátartozik az is, hogy az EU erősíteni kívánja ezt a regionális nemzetközi társadalmat (Ahrens-Diez, 2015), többek között olyan vívmányokkal, mint az uniós polgárság intézménye vagy a szupranacionális intézményi rendszer. (Diez-Whitman, 2002:51) Nem véletlen, hogy az EU hatással van egyébként az elsődleges intézményekre is, csakúgy, mint a nemzetközi szervezetek.…”

Is the migration crisis a solidarity crisis?

“…There are also many authors who have raised the question whether there is a solidarity crisis in Europe, and especially related to the Euro and economic crisis that began in 2007 (Brunkhorst, 2011;Offe, 2013). Some authors have argued that the EU has a transformative impact on reshaping international society as a form of solidaritisation (Ahrens and Diez, 2015). In the area of migration and asylum, authors have argued it is necessary to combine solidarity within Europe and solidarity of Europe with the rest of the world (Karagiannis, 2007) and with the refugees (Karageorgiou, 2016).…”

Postmodern EU? Integration between Alternative Horizons and Territorial Angst

“…Part of the problem of ordering practices is that the EU is embedded in an international society that may be ‘solidarizing’, in the sense that sovereignty is being re‐shaped as responsibility, but at the same time, states with their territorial foundations continue to be the core constituents of this society. Through its advocacy of multilateralism, its support for global governance institutions and its promotion of the strengthening of a global legal framework, and in particular the International Criminal Court, the EU has contributed to this solidarization of international society, yet it has not really found a way out of the territorial order of this society (Ahrens and Diez, ). Its strategy therefore has been one of mitigating the consequences of territoriality, while increasingly pursuing policies that do not substantively question the underpinning logic.…”