Debating the Debating the European UnionEuropean Union_Shore & Abeles

  • Upload
    xolst

  • View
    213

  • Download
    0

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

  • 8/16/2019 Debating the Debating the European UnionEuropean Union_Shore & Abeles

    1/5

     AT: You have worked extensively on EU-related issues. Tell 

    us about your research and principal findings in this area.

    CS: My first fieldwork in the EU in 1992 explored the

    European Community’s evolving ‘cultural policy’. The

     principal finding was that European policy-makers were

    actively engaged in inventing new symbols for ‘Europeanness’ through the ingenious use of EC-funded

    ‘cultural actions’. Although typically denied, this instru-

    mental use of cultural policy as a tool to promote the EU’s

    integrationist agenda bore striking parallels with the strate-

    gies and techniques used by national elites in the formation

    of European nation-states during the 19th century. Marc

    Abélès (2000) has shrewdly observed that the EU suffers

    from a paucity of rituals and symbols when compared to

    Europe’s nation-states. However, this lack of symbols

    underlies a more fundamental problem: the EU’s chronic

    lack of cultural legitimacy and popular consent. Despite

    enormous advances towards economic and legal integra-

    tion, there is still little tangible sense of belonging or shared

    identity among the putative citizens of Europe. I concluded

    that EU attempts to forge a European identity were prima-

    rily motivated by its search for legitimacy and its need to

    create a European people (or ‘demos’) without which the

    EU’s political system will continue to be perceived as fun-

    damentally undemocratic.

    My later research focused on EU civil servants and the

    ‘organizational culture’ of the European Commission. My

    guiding question was whether the EU had succeeded in cre-

    ating within its own institutional heartlands the kind of 

    ‘European identity’ and culture espoused in its literature. A

    secondary aim was to test the hypothesis that once

    appointed, EU civil servants would undergo a cognitive

    change and become progressively more ‘Europeanist’ intheir allegiance. As I discovered during fieldwork, the local

    idiom for this process was the French term engrenage

    (meaning ‘gearing’ or ‘enmeshing’). I found that national

    officials had indeed melded traditions to create a uniquely

    complex institution – a veritable ‘culture of compromise’ as

    Abélès, Bellier and McDonald have variously portrayed it

    (Abélès et al. 1993, Abélès & Bellier 1996, McDonald

    1996). Just as Jean Monnet predicted, the Commission’s

    institutional structure has functioned as a laboratory for the

    formation of a new type of European identity and subjec-

    tivity. However, I also discovered a more negative dimen-

    sion to this. Those very qualities that were once encouraged

    and esteemed in EU officers (Euro-idealism, political con-

    nections, flexibility, entrepreneurialism, distance fromnational public, elitism, sense of élan etc.) had also given

    rise to what insiders termed the Commission’s ‘parallel

    system of administration’, a system based on ‘pragmatic

    codes’ with little respect for due process. The consequences

    of this were clearly evident in the 1999 Committee of 

    Independent Experts’ report into allegations of nepotism,

    fraud and mismanagement in the Commission. These find-

    ings invite us to rethink the concept of ‘supranationalism’

    and view integration from a class and materialist perspec-

    tive. What we are witnessing in the Commission is the trans-formation of a category into a group with its own

    self-interests and political identity. The implications of an

    increasingly unaccountable Brussels-based transnational

    elite that is transforming itself from a ‘class in itself to a

    class  for  itself’ raises fundamental questions about the

    future of democracy, citizenship and governance in Europe.

    MA: From 1989 to 1992, I did field research on the

    European Parliament. I think this was the first ever anthro-

     pological study of the EU, which at that time was still

    known as the European Community. I undertook the study

    of a European institution because, as a political anthropolo-

    gist, I was interested in how politics is conducted at a

    transnational level. How does it work in this kind of multi-

    cultural institution? Is it possible to create a new type of  public space, shared by people of different cultures,

    speaking different languages, and with widely varying

    national political histories? Looking at the European

    Parliament, one is immediately struck by this cultural diver-

    sity; in some ways it is like a modern Tower of Babel. In

     political debates, the fact that political groupings exist

    within the European parliament does not automatically

    result in mutually agreed positions. These positions are

    often achieved through lengthy negotiations and compro-

    mise, reflecting the differences between national political

    traditions that underlie any apparent similarity of parlia-

    mentary party orientation.

    Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) learn the

    meaning of cultural complexity in a very practical way, and

    they are sometimes confronted with a difficult choice

     between what is best for Europe and what is dictated by

    their national affiliation. Political practice at the European

    level is primarily based on compromise and negotiation. In

     parliamentary committees or in the plenary sessions, there

    is less of a confrontational atmosphere and more a sense of 

     perpetual negotiation between rival powers. MEPs become

    experts in lobbying, bargaining and compromising. This

    generalized culture of bargaining leads to a progressive loss

    of political content, thereby obscuring the traditional oppo-

    sitions which demarcate the political domain.

    Another central issue is that of linguistic pluralism, and

    the way that varying the language of negotiation tends toneutralize political debate. Shifting from one official lan-

    guage to another is a constant reminder of the diversity of 

    traditions and histories which have formed the national

    identities of member countries. These observations also

    suggest that the process of deterritorialization does not nec-

    essarily facilitate the creation of a public space of debate in

    the EU (Abélès 1992). When I finished my study of the

    European Parliament, I was invited by Commission offi-

    cials to undertake research on the issue of identity among

    European civil servants. This gave me opportunity to con-

    duct fieldwork inside the European Commission in collabo-

    ration with Irène Bellier and Maryon McDonald (see

    Abélès, Bellier & Mc Donald 1993). My own research was

    concentrated on the Directorates of Agriculture andRegional Policy. I observed how, within the Commission,

    intercultural contact may actually reinforce national barriers

    rather than generate a common identity. The representation

    of the Commission as a unified entity is challenged by the

    emergence of a plurality of possible orders. Within the

    10 ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY VOL 20 NO 2, APRIL 2004

    Debating the European UnionAn interview with Cris Shore and Marc Abélès

    CRIS SHORE AND

    MARC ABÉLÈSCris Shore is Professor of 

    Social Anthropology at the

    University of Auckland, New Zealand. His email is

    [email protected] 

     Marc Abélès is Director of the

     Laboratory for the

     Anthropology of Social 

     Institutions and 

    Organizations (LAIOS),

    CNRS, Paris. His email is

    [email protected] 

     In the context of the imminent enlargement of the

     European Union on 1 May 2004 and the continuing 

    debate about the nature and role of the European Union

    (EU), ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY invited Cris Shore and 

     Marc Abélès, two specialists on the anthropology of 

     Europe, to give their opinions. Ed.

    ‘Our constitution... is called a democracy because power is

    in the hands not of a minority but of the greatest number.’

    Thucydides II, 37.1

    1. Preamble to The treaty

    establishing a constitution

     for Europe (European

    Convention on the Future of 

    Europe, 2003), compiled by

    Valéry Giscard d’Estaing,

    President of the

    Convention. It was adopted

     by consensus by the

    European Convention on 13

    June and 10 July 2003,submitted to the President

    of the European Council in

    Rome on 18 July 2003.

    Since at the Brussels

    summit (12-13 December 

    2003), Heads of State and

    Government did not reach

    an agreement on the final

    text of the Constitution, the

    IGC will continue in 2004

    under the Irish Presidency

    and it is anticipated that the

    final version will be

    adopted by the

    Intergovernmental

    Conference (IGC), after 

    which it has to be ratified

     by the 15 current and 10

    future Member States of the

    European Union. For the

    full document and

    discussion see

    http://europa.eu.int/futurum/

    constitution/index_en.htm

  • 8/16/2019 Debating the Debating the European UnionEuropean Union_Shore & Abeles

    2/5 ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY VOL 20 NO 2, APRIL 2004 11

    European Commission civil servants struggle with the loss

    of references and the lack of an alternative representational

    structure. However, the effects of cultural pluralism are not

    only centrifugal. Learning relativism, as can be observed in

    Community institutions, is one of the most interesting

    aspects of the process of pluralization. It implies continual

    questioning of methods, ways of thinking and management

     practices which in a national context are assumed to be ‘nat-ural’ and legitimate, and are therefore rarely questioned.

    Through the invocation of a Community interest and ref-

    erence to the European idea, the consciousness of a

    common belonging can be affirmed against what is estab-

    lished as alterity (that of nation-states as opposed to

    Community) and as particularisms (national histories as

    opposed to modernity). This works on two levels. It oper-

    ates as a floating signifier, invoked from time to time or as

    an operational reference.2 It also helps the European Union

    to define itself vis-à-vis its member states. The idea of a

    Community interest only makes sense with reference to the

    future. This is the underlying paradigm of the European

     political process. In this context, the notion of unification

    has no meaning. Rather, we should think of it as a process

    of harmonization, conceived as an endless quest whose goal

    is never quite reached (Abélès 1996). Furthermore,

    Community interest has to be seen from the point of view of 

    the EU. For example, rather than distributing funds on the

     basis of a compromise between the different member states,

    the Commission presents a global plan with priorities set to

    take into account the overall disparities between the

    regions, without yielding to the demands of member states

    which each seek to gain the maximum subsidy. Thus I don’t

    think that the idea of Community interest can be reduced to

    a discourse of power, just as I don’t think that the EU can be

    reduced to the interest of its officials. Even Marx, writing on

    the state and politics in The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoléon, did not accept mechanistic explanations and con-

    spiracy theories which reduced everthing to the actions of 

    an elite concerned only with its own interests.

    Officers of the Commission, caught in a continuous

    round of negotiation, responsible for managing an entity

    deprived of territory, seem to national officials and other 

    interlocutors like a species of disconnected, rootless mutant,

    whose actions can nevertheless influence the political evo-

    lution of member states. The culture of compromise gener-

    ates a ‘bizarre’ universe (Abélès & Bellier 1996). No claim

    to power is made, but the pursuit of harmonization and

    rationalization is pushed to the limit.

     AT: What, in your view, are the most important questions for anthropologists to focus on in relation to the European

    Union?

    CS: Importance depends on one’s perspective. My per-

    sonal interests lie in the fields of political anthropology and

     public policy. With that bias in mind, the key question

    anthropologists working on the EU might ask is ‘what

    exactly is the EU, and what is it  for ?’ (Or what does it

    imagine it is for?) Interestingly, these questions also trouble

    EU scholars and politicians. The result has been an industry

    of theoretical posturing and neologisms purporting to cap-

    ture the unrepresentable uniqueness of this hybrid political

    entity: ‘post-national formation’, ‘supranational polity’,

    ‘ sui generis’, ‘part-formed political system’, ‘multi-level

    system of governance’, ‘a network of networks’ etc. As

    Abélès notes (2000: 35), Jacques Delors once famously

    quipped that the European Union is ‘un objet politique nonidentifié’ (‘an unidentified political object’). Yet this ambi-

    guity is deliberate. It helps to avoid some uncomfortable

     parallels and circumvents the awkward question of state-

    hood: namely, is the EU becoming a ‘state’? At what point

    do its growing powers (or ‘competences’) lead it from the

    chrysalis of transnational governance to fully-fledged state-

    hood? Some might argue that a political system that has its

    own citizenship, single currency, central bank, integrated

    economy, Court of Justice, draft Constitution, police and

    security system and common army already qualifies as a

    state, federal or otherwise.

    Anthropologists could contribute valuable comparative

    insights into the way this debate has been conducted (or dis-

    cursively managed) in different EU member states. Why,for example, are British government elites (unlike those in

    continental Europe) so reluctant to engage in a proper 

     public debate over what Joschka Fischer (2000) termed the

     political ‘finality’ of the integration process, or to allow a

    referendum on this major constitutional issue? If the EU’s

     project is not leading to a federal state, what is its political

    trajectory? Here, recent anthropological perspectives on

    state formation and governance can make a major contribu-

    tion to our understanding of what is at stake (cf. Abrams

    1998, Carter 1994).

    Other key issues for anthropologists include demo-

    graphic changes in Europe, the EU’s aging population and

    its implication for social service provision, immigration,

    employment and mobility. The practicalities of integration

    also raise fascinating questions about inter-cultural commu-

    nication, diplomacy and translation. Equally important are

    debates about regionalism, minorities, education, citizen-

    ship, and the future of the nation state, all of which increas-

    ingly reflect a European dimension.

    MA: Europe means a change of scale, which as a conse-

    quence leads to the deterritorialization of Community prac-

    tices. The clearest expression of this deterritorialization is

    the nomadism of the members of the European Parliament,

    who are always migrating between Strasbourg and Brussels,

    if they are not at a meeting somewhere else in Europe. The

    lack of a centre and the blurred boundaries make it difficult

    for those who desperately seek some anchorage to establishlandmarks or any sense of identity.

    Jacques Delors’ description of Europe as ‘un objet poli-

    tique non identifié’ has been echoed among political elites.

    It reflects the tension that arises when the reality of a polit-

    ical process leading towards greater integration meets the

    impossibility of offering any representation of a putative

    completion of the European project. The failure to identify

    what might be seen as a ‘political Europe’ (a new sort of 

    nation-state? a federation? a post-national government?)

    can be interpreted in two ways. For many politicians and

     political scientists, this situation reflects only conjectural

    difficulties, which can be overcome. But the anthropologist

    must consider not only the difficulty of finding an adequate

    term to designate the future shape of Europe, but also therefusal to adopt a clear position on this point. In all the

    speeches, reports and literature produced by EU political

    actors, this indeterminacy has become commonplace.

    In fact I think that what is happening today is a displace-

    ment of politics outside of the boundaries of the nation-state,

     Fig. 1. Cartoon by Garland 

     suggesting an evolutionary

     progression from racism to

     supranationalism.

    2. ‘Floating signifier’ is a

    term used by Lévi-Strauss to

    denote an idea which is

    essential but at the same timesufficiently vague that

    merely invoking it has a

     particularly powerful effect.

    The concept is used as an

    index, as something instantly

    recognizable.

        G    A    R    L    A    N    D

  • 8/16/2019 Debating the Debating the European UnionEuropean Union_Shore & Abeles

    3/5

    Abélès, Marc 2000. Virtual

    Europe. In Wilson, T. &

    Bellier, I. (eds) An

    anthropology of the

     European Union, pp.31-

    52. Oxford: Berg.

     — 1996. En attente

    d’Europe. Paris: Hachette.

     — & Bellier, Irene 1996. La

    Commission Européenne:

    Du compromis culturel à

    la culture politique du

    compromis. Revue

     Française de Science

     Politique 46(3): 431-455.

     — , — & McDonald,

    Maryon 1993. ‘An

    anthropological approach

    to the European

    Commission’.

    Unpublished report for the

    European Commission

    Forward Studies Unit.

     — 1992. La vie quotidienne

    au Parlement européen.

    Paris: Hachette.

    Abrams, Philip 1998. Notes

    on the difficulty of studying the state. Journal 

    of Historical Sociology

    1(1): 58-89.

    Appadurai, Arjun 1996.

     Modernity at large:

    Cultural dimensions of 

     globalization.

    Minneapolis: University

    of Minnesota Press.

    Bellier, Irène & Wilson,

    Thomas 2000. Building,

    imagining and

    experiencing Europe. In

    Bellier, I. & Wilson, T.

    (eds) An anthropology of 

    the European Union, pp.1-

    27. Oxford: Berg.

    Borneman, John 2003. Is theUnited States Europe’s

    Other? American

     Ethnologist . 30(4): 487-

    492.

     — & Fowler, Nick 1997.

    Europeanization. Annual 

     Review of Anthropology

    26: 487-514.

    Carter, Donald 1994. The art

    of the state: Difference

    and other abstractions.

     Journal of Historical 

    Sociology 7(1): 73-102.

    Fischer, Joschka 2000.

    ‘Confederacy to

    federation: Thoughts on

    the finality of European

    integration’. Speech

    delivered at Humboldt

    University, Berlin, 12

    May.

    www.jeanmonnetprogram.

    org/papers/00/joschka_fis

    cher_en.rtf 

    12 ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY VOL 20 NO 2, APRIL 2004

    a shift which needs to be considered beyond the typologies

    of traditional political science. I use the concept of ‘virtual

    Europe’ in an attempt to demonstrate the specificity of a

     process which is self-generated without really becoming

    institutionalized in the classical form of a state. What is

    interesting is that virtual Europe is self-generating from the

    top, and seeks to create a citizenry from nothing. Cris Shore

    is right to see this as a search for legitimacy on the part of 

    those who govern the EU, and there is also some justifica-

    tion for criticizing the practices of senior officials. But this

    could be applied to other bureaucracies, national as well assupranational. From the anthropological point of view, I am

    more interested in the process itself and the elaboration of 

    concepts which could help us to analyse it. This is why I

    have rejected the tendency of political science to flatten all

    that is unique about the construction of Europe in their typo-

    logical discourse.

    The lack of tradition, together with the inability to grasp

    its own past, make Europe unique compared to other kinds

    of communities, especially those traditionally studied by

    anthropologists. First, there is the problem of communi-

    cating a homogeneous vision of Europe and developing a

    European citizenship (Shore 1993). Second, there is the lack 

    of European ritual and symbolism (Abélès 1996). Third,

    there is the permanent quest for a harmonization whichcould be concretized in the production of common notions

    and concepts. All these issues go to the core of what is

    thought of as Europe-building (Shore 2000), and its struc-

    tural failures and incompleteness. Europe has to be studied

    as a process, not as a product (Borneman & Fowler 1997,

    Bellier & Wilson 2000); it cannot be reified within the cat-

    egories of community and identity. The impact of Europe in

    terms of harmonization, and the way European political

     practice has begun to influence national approaches to pol-

    itics, reveals that, as an emerging ‘unidentified political

    object’, Europe encroaches deeply into very old and per-

    haps obsolete perceptions of identity rooted in territory. It

    suggests that deterritorialized Europe, virtual Europe

    (Abélès 2000), might not change people’s identity but might

    radically alter their view of their own traditions. Even if 

    there is no word in the political vocabulary to describe

    Europe (as post-national, supranational, post-state, or multi-

    governmental), it appears that Europe as an emerging form

    generates significant changes in our conception of politics

    and of identity.

     AT: What are the implications of EU enlargement? How

    might it affect the status of Europe’s ethnic minorities and 

    the Franco-German alliance?

    CS: EU enlargement opens up a new phase of uncertainty

    for the EU. The prospect of a Union of 450 million citizens

    stretching from the Arctic to the Mediterranean and theAtlantic to the Urals throws into question not only issues of 

     boundaries and borders (where does ‘Europe’ begin and

    end? Should Turkey be allowed in?), but the coherence of 

    the EU project itself. The traditional assumption that

    Europe’s cultural unity resides in its shared Graeco-Roman-

    Christian heritage is increasingly hard to sustain – and

    rightly so, as this was always an essentialist myth. Yet the

    danger is that in its quest to construct a populist European

    identity, Islam or the United States will be reified as

    Europe’s salient ‘Other’. While the EU may aspire to the

    ideals of inclusive multiculturalism, the dislocating effects

    of ‘fast capitalism’ unleashed by the rush towards integra-

    tion have undoubtedly fuelled a revival of cultural funda-

    mentalism (Stolcke 1995), ‘integralism’ (Holmes 2000) and‘essentialism’ (Grillo 2003). For Europe’s ethnic minorities

     – particularly ‘third country’ nationals and ‘economic

    migrants’ from Mahgreb or former Soviet-bloc states – the

    result of these processes is often increased racism and xeno-

     phobia (Shore 1997a).

    Enlargement makes institutional reform imperative. A key

    challenge will be how to accommodate the new member states

    without bankrupting the Union. Most of the new and aspirant

    countries have GDPs far below the EU average and will

    qualify for major assistance from the EU’s regional funds. The

    contribution member states make to the EU budget will need

    to be substantially increased, which will invariably generate

    acrimony. At a more mundane level, enlargement poses huge

    logistical problems for interpreters and translators in the

    European parliament. The linguistic combinations will mul-

    tiply exponentially. We may even see construction work started on a new, larger parliament building.

    Enlargement also places strains on the Franco-German

    alliance, weakening France’s traditional dominance over the

    Union (and at the same time strengthening Germany’s eco-

    nomic influence), while forcing us to rethink the purpose – 

    or ‘telos’- of European integration. Recent attempts to

    ‘deepen’ integration by constitutionalizing the acquis com-

    munautaire (the corpus of existing EU laws and treaties) and

    imposing tight fiscal and borrowing constraints on Euro-

    zone member states were initiated precisely because of fears

    that an enlarged Union of 25 member states would be

    unworkable and would inhibit momentum towards ever 

    closer integration. Germany and France’s refusal to abide by

    the Stability and Growth Pact they had imposed on othershas inevitably fuelled resentment from smaller member 

    states who suspect that a ‘two-speed Europe’ will mean that

    different rules apply for the larger states.

    Finally, enlargement presents problems for the ‘European

    vision’. As originally conceived, the ‘European idea’ was to

    create supranational institutions that would bind Germany

    and France together in a process that would make war 

     between them impossible. As Monnet described it, by trans-

    ferring sovereignty over nuclear power, iron and steel pro-

    duction, France and Germany would be gripped in an

    embrace so tight that neither side would be able to raise a

    fist against the other. However, this narrative no longer ani-

    mates or legitimizes the EU project. As Mark Leonard

    (1998) suggests, the EU needs a new narrative to give it pur-

     pose and popularity.

    MA: The inability to define what will  be the ultimate

     boundaries of Europe is symptomatic. Only a politically

    integrated Europe could define the precise extent and limits

    of European enlargement. The prospect of a completed

    Europe does not fit with the ‘spillover dynamics’

    (engrenage) idea developed by Jean Monnet and the EU pio-

    neers (cf. Keohane and Hoffman 1991). Such a view would

    mean a radical change in the global conception of Europe-

     building. I think the majority of the member states prefer to

    keep a margin of indeterminacy. For example, currently they

    will not admit Turkey as part of Europe, but they are not

    closing the door. This pragmatism which characterizes the beginning of the 21st century could be summed up in the

    French phrase ‘On verra bien! (We’ll see!)’. Tomorrow is

    another day. At the same time, as enlargement proceeds it

    raises some very specific issues. How will regional inequal-

    ities be dealt with? What will it mean in terms of redistribu-

    tion of wealth? Who will pay for increasing the structural

    funds? For example, if more funding is given to the less-

    advantaged Eastern European regions to ensure better inte-

    gration, southern regions will receive less. But we already

    know that the main contributors to the EU budget, such as

    France and Germany, are reluctant to give more, since they

    are also aware that it will be increasingly difficult to obtain

    subsidies from the regional funds.

    In addition to economic disparities, there is the issue of religious and cultural heterogeneity. Despite the threat of a

    revival of fundamentalisms, it is worth noting that the

    enlargement may lead to identities becoming more fixed. It

    will be interesting to see how educational programmes and

    exchanges between the new and older member states will be

  • 8/16/2019 Debating the Debating the European UnionEuropean Union_Shore & Abeles

    4/5 ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY VOL 20 NO 2, APRIL 2004 13

    developed.

    Obviously the most complex challenge concerns the polit-

    ical future of Europe. It will be necessary to choose between

    intensive and extensive integration of the different compo-

    nents. The extensive model would imply a sort of ‘Europe à

    la carte’, with countries grouped into an inner circle which

    would share not only the same currency but also a common

    international strategy and some common policy, and a more

     peripheral group which would participate only in the

    common market. The alternative, the intensive model, would

    involve increasing integration of all the member states, and

    would mean sharing the same rules and being governed by acommon set of economic and political institutions. As yet no

    choice has been made: we are living under the regime of 

    what I have termed ‘virtual Europe’, and it will be difficult

    to retain this indeterminacy in the long term.

     AT: What about Europe’s role in the world – its responsi-

    bilities towards the East, the Islamic world and Africa, its

    neighbours? And its relation to NATO and the US?

    CS: ‘Economic giant, political pygmy’ was an epithet

    traditionally applied to Germany, but it might also describe

    the EU today. Many EU political leaders would like to

    redress this and harbour visions of an EU superpower to

    rival the US (which is increasingly how Washington sees it

    [cf. Borneman 2003]). The unilateralist policies of the Bushregime have increased the distance between the US and the

    EU (or ‘old Europe’ as Donald Rumsfeld provocatively put

    it), fuelling a new wave of anti-Americanism. Yet despite

    this growing concern to contain American power, a

    European foreign and security policy worthy of the name

    remains elusive and remote. The problem is that Europe’s

    divergent national interests prevent it from acting collec-

    tively and decisively on the world stage, as the crises in

    Bosnia and Iraq demonstrated. Contrary to EU official his-

    toriography, it is NATO, not the EU, that has guaranteed the

     peace in Europe since 1948. Yet NATO today is doubly

    undermined – first by a US administration that chooses to

    ignore it and flout international law, second by EU adven-

    turists who wish to create a Euro-army and independent

    military capability.

    The question rarely asked is how the EU would behave if 

    it were a superpower. Economically speaking, it already is – and the record is not encouraging. The collapse of the

    World Trade talks at Cancún was due largely to the intran-

    sigence of the EU’s negotiators (notably Commissioner 

    Pascal Lamy) and the EU’s continuing refusal to open up its

    markets to Third World producers. The EU bears a great his-

    torical responsibility towards Africa, its neighbours and the

    developing world, but here too, particularly in the fields of 

    immigration and asylum policy, its record is poor. In a

    recent speech to the European Parliament, Kofi Annan

    delivered a scathing attack on ‘fortress Europe’ and its

    ‘dehumanizing’ policies towards immigrants that are

    leading many to their deaths. Paradoxically, MEPs gave him

    a standing ovation. That said, the EU’s record on overseas

    aid is good. However, those achievements are outweighed by the damaging effects of its antiquated Common

    Agricultural Policy.

    MA:As an anthropologist, I don’t claim to have any spe-

    cial competence in geopolitical matters. And this question

    involves a shift from an analytical to what Max Weber has

     Fig. 2. In December 2000 the

    Council of Europe formally

    accepted ten countries – 

    Cyprus, the Czech Republic,

     Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,

     Hungary, Malta, Poland,

    Slovenia and Slovakia – into

     EU membership as of 1 May

    2004, following approval by

    current member states and 

    ratification by the electorate

    in the candidate countries. A

    Treaty of Accession (2003)

    was signed in Athens on 16  April 2003. Bulgaria and 

     Romania are set to join in

    2007. Turkey's progress

    towards meeting the

    accession criteria will be

    assessed in 2004, with a

    report and recommendation

    to be issued before the end of 

    October. In December 2004

    the Council of Europe will 

    decide on whether to open

    accession negotiations with

    Turkey.

        W    W    W

     .    E    R    U    O    P    A .    E    U .    I    N    T

  • 8/16/2019 Debating the Debating the European UnionEuropean Union_Shore & Abeles

    5/514 ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY VOL 20 NO 2, APRIL 2004

    defined as a normative point of view. What can be observed

     by any European citizen is the increasing competition

     between Europe and United States. A politically and mili-

    tarily integrated Europe would counterbalance the US hege-

    mony. In one sense, European enlargement could reinforce

    this hegemony because some of the countries which are

    already EU members, as well as some of the newcomers

    from Eastern Europe, seem to be simultaneously part of 

    Europe as an economic space and protected by NATO in a

    geopolitical space, under US leadership. The tensions which

    arose around the Iraq war highlighted a real divide betweenthose who are working to build European autonomy and

    those who will always prefer the subordination of Europe to

    US power. The issue of Europe’s responsibilities towards the

    East, the Islamic world and Africa is, in my opinion, closely

    connected to the question of its relations with the US.

    Indeed, one can easily see how Europe could play a specific

    role in these regions, provided that it is able to develop spe-

    cific forms of cooperation and to assert its independence in

    international policy and foreign affairs. The emergence of a

    common European position in the WTO world trade negoti-

    ations (even if the media, particularly in the US, stressed the

    failure of the Cancún talks) is a very important step towards

    affirming the role of Europe as a global actor.

     AT: The draft EU constitution has been hotly debated.

    What are your views on this?

    CS: The debate around the EU constitution produced

    much heat, but little light. Indeed, given the level of public

    confusion, the draft constitution was probably not debated

    enough. In the UK, voters were constantly told by their gov-

    ernment that the EU constitution was unimportant. Jack 

    Straw and other ministers insisted that it was a mere

    ‘tidying-up exercise’. To audiences on the continent, the EU

    constitution was portrayed very differently. Giscard

    d’Estaing, the former French President who chaired the

    Constitutional Convention that produced the draft, even

    compared that assembly’s deliberations to those of the

    drafters of the United States Constitution at the Convention

    of 1789 in Philadelphia. The President of France and the

    German Chancellor declared jointly in November 2001 that

    the Convention was a ‘vital step in the historic European

    integration process’ that should create a ‘federation of 

    nation states’. These statements went down well with

    German and French audiences. In Britain they provoked a

    frenzy of accusations in the right-wing press that the UK’s

    existence as an independent sovereign state is under threat.

    Is the EU constitution therefore a mere simplification of 

    existing treaties, or a step towards the United States of 

    Europe? My reading suggests the latter. ‘The

    Constitution… shall have primacy over the laws of the

    Member States’ (Article 10); ‘the Member States shallexercise their competence to the extent that the Union has

    not exercised, or has decided to cease exercising, its com-

     petence’ (Article 11); ‘Member States shall actively and

    unreservedly support the Union’s foreign and security

     policy’ (Article 15). These articles define the balance of 

     power between Brussels and the nation-states, and de facto

    and de jure they will transform the EU into a single state

    (federal, post-colonial, or whatever one chooses to call it).

    In the end it was the row over voting weights for Poland and

    Spain that captured the headlines, but that, sadly, was a

    diversion that allowed the main provisions of the draft con-

    stitution to pass without comment.

    MA:Here again Jacques Delors’ definition of Europe as

    an unidentified political object is particularly apposite. Thisis not the first time that European constitutionalists and

     politicians have attempted to complete the institutional

    design of Europe. The most noteworthy attempt to propose

    an overall structure for the EU was a report entitled ‘Reform

    of Treaties and Achievement of European Union’ (1982),

    drawn up by Altiero Spinelli for the Committee of 

    Institutional Affairs of the European Parliament. This report

    suggests an explicit federalist orientation, alongside rein-

    forcement of the power of the European Parliament, but the

    Draft Treaty has never been ratified by the member states.

    What happened with the draft constitution reflects the same

    difficulty. What is at stake is the acceptance by nation-states

    of a supranational sovereignty. Until now, acceptance of 

    European dynamics was based on one unspoken condition:

    that Europe would never be completed as a juridical and

     political reality which could threaten political systems basedon the idea of national sovereignty. If we are to compare

    what happened with the draft constitution and the rejection

    of Spinelli’s proposal, we must bear in mind that today, with

    the single market and the creation of a single currency, things

    have changed dramatically. ‘Virtual Europe’ has proved a

    very efficient way of operating and of overcoming the var-

    ious challenges to European integration. But there is now an

    increasing need for European governance not only at the

    economic level, but also in the context of globalization and

    to meet the claims of US hegemony. I think that we have

    entered a new period of Europe-building, and that the issue

    of European power and European governance will be central

    in the next years and over the coming decade.

     AT: How would you sum up the anthropology of Europe

    as practised in the past, and where it might go in the future?

    CS: I would distinguish between anthropology in Europe

    (which includes the tradition of European ethnographic and

    folklore studies), and the ‘anthropology of Europe’, which

    addresses more geopolitical and historical issues, including

    European modernity, the history of the idea of Europe, and

    the project (and ideology) of European integration. In both

    these areas Europeanists have made a substantial contribu-

    tion to anthropological theory and methods (for example, in

    debates on patron-client relations and class, political move-

    ments, nationalism and modern states, borders, ethnicity

    and disputes, the politics of language, identity formation,

    ‘transitional’ societies, and EU institutions, to mention but

    a few). In future, I believe European anthropology will

     become less spatially fixed and more EU-focused, not least

     because the EU has become such a pervasive factor in

    everyday European life. For me, the process of 

    ‘Europeanization’ (Borneman & Fowler 1997, Bellier &

    Wilson 2000), and the cultural relations and social patterns

    it generates, are among the key research issues for the

    anthropology of Europe today

    MA: I think everybody would agree that in Europe, as in

    the rest of the world, we don’t practise anthropology today as

    we did two or three decades ago. As a consequence of global-

    ization, anthropology’s traditional object has been completely

    redefined. It is no longer the study of the ‘Other’; there is nolonger a ‘great divide’ between ‘them’ and ‘us’, between the

     periphery and the centre. This means that the anthropology of 

    Europe, as of other cultural areas (a concept which needs to be

    critically reconsidered), has to review its concepts and

    methods (Marcus 1998, Holmes 2000). In Europe, as in more

    exotic regions, there was a real fascination with rural commu-

    nities, traditions, symbols and perennial values. You could say

    that the European field was exoticized and folklorized. The

    emergence of urban anthropology, and the increased aware-

    ness of change and conflict, have transformed anthropological

    approaches to Europe. Anthropologists have to focus on the

    ‘global production of locality’ and ‘post-national formations’

    (Appadurai 1996). Europe-building can be thought of as a

    ‘laboratory’ in which experiments are conducted into new per-spectives in post-national politics and the difficulties of 

    inventing, if not a ‘people’, at least an idea of what a new kind

    of multicultural public sphere might look like. Understanding

    this emerging ‘unidentified’ object represents a true challenge

    for anthropologists.!

    Grillo, Ralph 2003. Cultural

    essentialism and cultural

    anxiety. Anthropological 

    Theory 3(2): 157-173.

    Holmes, Douglas R. 2000.

     Integral Europe: Fast-

    capitalism,

    multiculturalism,

    neofascism. Princeton

    University Press.

    Keohane, R. and Hoffmann,

    S. (eds) 1991. The new

     European Community.

    Boulder: Westview Press.Leonard, Mark 1998.

     Rediscovering Europe.

    London: Demos.

    Marcus, George E. 1998.

     Ethnography through

    thick and thin. Princeton:

    Princeton University

    Press.

    McDonald, Maryon 1996.

    ‘Unity in diversity’: Some

    tensions in the

    construction of Europe.

    Social Anthropology 4(1):

    47-60.

    Shore, Cris 1993. Inventing

    the ‘People’s Europe’:

    Critical perspectives on

    European Community

    cultural policy. Man

    28(4): 779-800.

     — 1996. Transcending the

    nation-state? The

    European Commission

    and the (re)-discovery of 

    Europe. Journal of 

     Historical Sociology,

    9(4): 471-494.

     — 1997a. Ethnicity,

    xenophobia and the

     boundaries of Europe.

     International Journal on

     Minority and Group

     Rights 4(3/4): 247-262.

     — 1997b. Metaphors of 

    Europe: Integration andthe politics of language.

    In Nugent, S. & Shore, C.

    (eds) Anthropology and 

    cultural studies, pp.126-

    159. London: Pluto Press.

     — 1997c. Governing

    Europe: European Union

    audiovisual policy and the

     politics of identity. In

    Shore, C. & Wright, S.

    (eds) Anthropology of 

     policy, pp.165-192.

    London: Routledge.

     — 2000. Building Europe:

    The cultural politics of 

     European integration,

    London: Routledge.

     — 2003. Corruptionscandals in America and

    Europe: Enron and EU

    fraud in Comparative

    Perspective. Social 

     Analysis 47(3): 147-153.

     — 2004. Whither European

    citizenship? Eros and

    civilisation revisited.

     European Journal of 

    Social Theory 7(1): 27-44.

    Stolcke, Verena 1995.

    Talking culture: New

     boundaries, new rhetorics

    of exclusion in Europe.

    Current Anthropology

    36(1): 1-24.