%0 Journal Article
%T Habermas on European Constitution and European Identity
%A ¨¦va Bir¨®-Kasz¨¢s
%J Journal of Social Research & Policy
%D 2010
%I University of Oradea
%X For the last two decades or so philosophers have been reflecting on a set of practical and political concerns in connection with the new political structural arrangements beyond the nation-state. In this article two essays by J¨¹rgen Habermas shall be examined. An attempt shall be made to tackle Habermas¡¯ philosophical concepts of personal and collective identity as well as the role that a constitution may play in building the post-national constellation. It has been shown that Habermas has normative answers. Firstly, according to him, the fragile balance between the legal order and the particular cultures and traditions of a community has to be protected by the constitutional state. For that reason the political culture has to be ¡°decoupled¡± from the majority culture. Secondly, the democratically structured attempt to achieve shared meaning has to find the delicate balance between the context-transcending universal normative claims and the claims of particular individual and collective life. Thirdly, it is possible to expand legally mediated civil solidarity trans-nationally, across Europe ¨C we may recognize this development as the emergence of European identity ¨C, since the process of democratic will-formation of citizens may get loose from the structures provided by the state if both shared democratic political cultures as well as a European-wide public sphere exist. The European Constitution may have a catalytic function in materialization of these conditions. It has been shown that in his deliberations Habermas tried to find a reflective equilibrium between the normative and the empirical.
%K Habermas
%K EU
%K Constitutionalism
%K Identity
%K Trans-National Solidarity
%K European Constitution
%U http://www.jsrp.ro/content/JSRP-Nr2_BIRO-KASZAS/JSRPNr.2_BIRO-KASZAS.pdf?attredirects=0