*** MICHAËL FOESSEL, LOUIS LOURME: Cosmopolitanisme et démocratie. Presses universitaires de France (170 bis boulevard du Montparnasse 75680 Paris Cedex 14. Tel: (33-1) 55427262 – Email: contact@puf.com – Internet: http://www.puf.com ). ‘La vie des idées’ series (http://www.laviedesidees.fr ). 2016, 103 pp, €9. ISBN 978-2-13-078549-1.
These days, cosmopolitanism is not how it was at the time of Kant, when it designated an essentially ethical posture unconnected with the exe rise of political power. Clearly, explain philosophers Michaël Fœssel and Louis Lourme at the beginning of the introduction to this book, cosmopolitanism seemed for a long time to be a thousand miles away from democracy since one ‘designates a conception of politics or citizenship which ahs the ‘world’ (cosmos) as its scale, that one takes as a synonym for ‘universal,’ whereas the other forcibly seemed to ‘go back to a local practice of politics, based on a particular people, a demos.’ But what has happened is that now that the world has become, due to globalisation and also the supranationalism incarnated by the European Union, ‘a tangible dimension of collective life,’ cosmopolitanism has surely ceased ‘to be a moral utopia and has become a tangible political horizon.’ It was to verify this that the reports provided at a seminar by Pierre Rosanvallon at the Collège de France in 2016 were devoted, which are published in this book. Two of them have ‘universal’ scope - Louis Lourme, researcher at Bordeaux-Montaigne University, discusses the debate about global justice, and therefore global poverty, n order to analyse issues concerning institutional cosmopolitanism and how global deliberation and decision-making processes could be made more democratic; while Prof. Michaël Fœssel (from the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique) reconsiders the connection between cosmopolitanism and peace by querying the form and legitimisation of what could be a cosmopolitan use of force. Here the author aims to reveal the value of cosmopolitanism in terms of pacification of international relations.
The other two contributions focus on the European Union. In the first, Jean-Marc Ferry considers the possibility of a ‘Kant-style’ cosmopolitan option for looking at European integration, an option that he says would be capable of allowing an escape from problems raised by supranational federalism and national sovereignism alike. Currently holder of the philosophy of Europe chair at Nantes University, he starts from noting (something quite evident) that the European project ‘has been undergoing a severe legitimacy deficit’ for far too long and this must be urgently remedied in n innovative manner, in other words, by refusing both the sovereignist option (‘closing oneself off within the confines of the nation state is the best way to speed up the subversion of States by the markets and politics by economics’) and that of ‘an integrated federal Europe.’ Why does he put both options on the same footing? Because he has a vision of federalism in which there are no European citizens: in his view, ‘it is the intergovernmental method,’ incarnated by the European Council, which did the most in recent years to encourage ‘supranational slippage,’ the result being, in his view, that ‘state supranationalism is the best way of precipitating a detaching of European power from national opinion and therefore of consolidating the anti-European front.’ Rather than wanting to return to the fundamental principle of federalism, the citizen, Jean-Marc Ferry recommends that the road of ‘horizontal integration be taken, based on co-sovereignty of its members, in other words on discussion among states and coordination of their public policies.’ Doesn’t this amount to re-inventing the wheel? This question is all the more legitimate in that among the ideas put forward by the author to bring about an institutional re-balancing is that of setting up a ‘president of the Union’ who would be elected at several degrees, with the parliaments of each member state first meeting in a parliamentary congress to designate one candidate each, the European Parliament then having the responsibility of selecting ten of them and the European Summit finally selecting the winner from among these ten. Once again, citizens do not have a role to play. His call for the establishment of a network of member states’ parliaments, with the European Parliament as the cornerstone, seems more pertinent, as ‘in the current state of things, MEPs do not really represent anybody or anything.’ Many of the ideas argued by Prof. Ferry in this book will irritate readers. There is one, however, that is unlikely to be challenged, namely the idea that has him suggest the ‘establishment of a European structure’ that would ensure that European citizens have ‘transversal minima throughout the European area,’ in the form of minimum health care, education, environmental quality and also income. Unfortunately, in his view, this is the initiative ‘the furthest removed from the plausible at the current time’...
In the second ‘European’ contribution, Prof. Etienne Balibar takes as his starting point the noting of a ‘de-democratisation’ process in Europe, operating at both national and supranational level. In his view, the European Union has moved from the stage of ‘virtual federalism’ to one of ‘pseudo-federalism,’ since the conflicts registered in recent years have tended to ‘maximise centrifugal forces and reasons for contradiction, rather than creating a common interest,’ the strongest states having boosted their capacity to ‘unilaterally impose or at least block political directions from the whole if they do not suit their interests.’ He draws the conclusion that democratic representation is now monopolised at national and pan-European level ‘by political classes that are no longer subject to sufficient control from those who mandated them to act as representatives of the people.’ Hence his discerning of a ‘sort of law of reciprocal decomposition of democratic procedures’ which he proposes can be got round by offering ‘all European citizens democratic progress rather than the conservation or a minima preservation of the partial or unfinished democracy that they enjoy at present.’ Michel Theys
*** BRIAN MICHAEL GOSS, MARY RACHEL GOULD, JOAN PEDRO-CARANANA (Eds.): Talking Back to Globalization. Texts and Practices. Peter Lang (29 Broadway, 18th floor, New York, NY 10006, USA. Tel: (1-212) 6477706 – Fax: 6477707 – Email: info@peterlang.com – Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). ‘Intersections in Communications and Culture’ series, No. 33. 2016, 389 pp, €33.04, £26, $42.95. ISBN 978-1-4331-2966-7.
Globalisation is a portmanteau word. The globalisation viewed by one has nothing in common with the globalisation endured by another. In the introductory chapter whose revealing title shows that it aims to find out how this concept ended up being ‘washed up on the Shores of Neoliberal Globalization,’ the book’s editors, all three of whom lecture in communication, the first two in American universities and the third at Complutense University in Madrid – lucidly point out in essence that a well-educated man from Madrid with a good job and therefore social status, is more likely to see opportunities in globalisation than an inhabitant of a small town or village cut off from the world and fighting to survive. Basically, there are as many different globalisations experienced as there are citizens on the planet. Not to mention the fact that the concept has two sides to it at the same time, like the euro, which is both ‘the paradigm of a technocratic success of globalization as the currency used daily by more than 300 million people (...), many of whom have been historically hostile to each other,’ and also serves German exports which benefit from a ‘transnational euro that is artificially devalued vis-à-vis the national Deutschmark it supplanted.’
It is to gain a clearer picture of the various accepted meanings of the concept that the authors set about in these pages, all being of the view, however, that current globalisation emerged from the expansion of neoliberal capitalism that supplanted ‘the post-World War II Fordist 'compromise' between capital and labor,’ which the selected epigraph bears witness to: ‘This volume is dedicated to all of the people and organizations (...) who blunt the ferocious oscillations of globalization by making common cause with the vulnerable, the vagabond, the refugee, the stubbornly unrealistic aspirant, the traveler, the human rights abuse victim, among other players.’ In practice, the book is divided into three sections. The first takes the form of interviews with two experts from the media sector, who examine the ins and outs of globalisations, which has fed the rising power of chauvinism. The second section brings together indications on the way globalisation has insinuated itself in the media, whether old or new – television films, online travel web pages, the blues and ‘the political valences of Portuguese neofado.’ Finally, in the third section, experts look at how universities are changing in Europe, ‘campaigns to shape journalistic practice during the Cold War’ and, much more topical, the ideology that animates the Facebook experience. (MT)
*** PAVEL ZGAGA, ULRICH TEICHLER, JOHN BRENNAN (Eds.): The Globalisation Challenge for European Higher Education. Convergence and Diversity, Centres and Peripheries. Peter Lang (42-50 Eschborner Landstraße, D-60489 Frankfurt. Tel: (49-69) 780700 – Fax: 78070550 – Email: frankfurt@peterlang.com – Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). ‘Higher Education Research and Policy’ series, No. 4. 2016, 389 pp, €56, £44.80, 72, $95. ISBN 978-3-631-67299-0.
Following on from a research programme involving six university institutes in Europe, in this monograph nineteen researchers look in fifteen chapters at the state of higher education on the European continent. Aided by Bologna, Erasmus and Tempus, the sector has been confronted over the past thirty years by urgent calls for Europeanisation, globalisation being another reality that has led to change. In these pages, it is, however, basically the rising power of a Europe of higher education that is assessed. In the first section, issues such as the quality of education this gives rise to, the mobility that is encouraged, the convergence and diversity it allows and the political ideas underlying this Europeanisation process are examined. Two authors point out that the European Union, with its penchant for the knowledge economy, tried ‘causing the approximation of the academic sphere and the economic sector,’ the Commission also having the tendency to see European universities as ‘ossified institutions that function in an old and outdated fashion rooted in the ideas and context of the 19th century.’ Considering the Erasmus programme, another contributor observes that intra-European mobility seems to be growing more slowly than the arrival in Europe of students from other regions of the world. Other, often critical, examinations are made of what is now the common practice of global ranking of universities, their diversification and the impact of European policy guidelines in Albania, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia. The second part looks at questions relating to ethics, values and societal aspects against a backdrop of universities becoming ‘enterprises’ and students ‘consumers.’ Several authors thus focus on the privatisation processes in the United Kingdom, one of them explaining that success on the jobs market depends more on the university where you studied rather than the type of degree you acquired, depending therefore on your family’s social status. The situation in the Netherlands and Poland is also addressed. Finally, in the third section, new trends and challenges are looked at that are emerging in higher education in Eastern Europe in general and south-East Europe in particular. (PBo)
*** VINCENT KAUFMANN, ANDER AUDIKANA: Mobilité et libre circulation en Europe. Un regard suisse. Editions Economica (49 rue Héricart, F-75015 Paris) and Fondation Jean Monnet pour l’Europe (Ferme de Dorigny, CH-1015 Lausanne. Tel: (41-21) 6922090 – Fax: 6922095 – Email: secr@fjme.unil.ch – Internet: http://www.jean-monnet.ch ). ‘Les Cahiers rouges’ series, No. 216. 2017, 127 pp, €22. ISBN 978-2-7178-6920-0.
This book arises from a paradox. On 9 February 2014, the Swiss said ‘no’ to greater mobility by calling for a reduction in immigration from the European Union and ‘yes’ to greater mobility by endorsing a fund for developing rail in the Swiss confederation. A Spanish Basque researcher specialising in analysis of public transport policy, Ander Audikana, and a Swiss professor of urban sociology and analysis of mobility, Vincent Kaufmann, therefore wanted to answer a question they view as essential – how to govern mobility. In these pages, they make a systematic analysis of mobility as a ‘political’ object by mobilising urban research literature, which leads them from the beginning to the end to consider ‘the European continent as a ‘European Metropole,’ a gigantic metropolis displaying the stigmata pf segregation and exclusion, of gentrification of centres, of urban spread, of the secessionism of gated communities and lifestyle conflicts, of questions of living together and e diversity.’ Secondly, they quiz the European integration process. First by sketching out the connection between mobility and the composition of a new political community and then by analysing the action instruments drawn up by the Union’s public authorities in order to take action on mobility. In the light of the Swiss experience, they finally analyse socially and politically controversial situations developing around issues of mobility, interviewing in this connection heads of the five main Swiss political parties. The preface to the book was written by Prof. Clive H. Church (University of Kent), who points out that the book provides interesting elements of analysis ‘on the pertinence of the Swiss experience for the United Kingdom, beyond the huge geographical differences – often ignored by pro-Brexit admirers of the Swiss vote – which make comparisons very difficult.’ The preface also mentions with concern that the most likely of the scenarios put forward by the authors is a ‘return to borders’ based in his own country by a ‘xenophobic turning in on itself’... (PBo)