The European Crisis in The Context of Cosmopolitization

The European Crisis in the Context of Cosmopolitization
Author(s): Ulrich Beck and Ciaran Cronin

Source: New Literary History , AUTUMN 2012, Vol. 43, No. 4, A New Europe? (AUTUMN
2012), pp. 641-663
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23358661
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The European Crisis in the Context of
Cosmopolitization
Ulrich Beck
drachmas in Greece or even with deutsche marks in Germany?

By theOr time
will such you
gloomy read
scenariosthis
promptessay, willthepeople
a smile because crisis again be paying with
will be a thing of the past and political Europe will have emerged from
it with renewed strength? That we are even asking such questions, that
we are groping around like this in the dark, says a lot about the state
of crisis in Europe and the risk involved in wanting to understand it.
One might think that the impending collapse is prompting reflection
upon Europe. Yet that does not seem to be the case for the type of social
theory that is currently dominant, a theory that floats in universalistic
grandeur with the certainty of a sleepwalker over the depths of epochal
change—climate change, the financial crisis, and the crisis of the Euro
pean Union and of nation-state democracy. This kind of universalistic
social theory, whether it be structuralist, interactionist, Marxist, or critical
or systems theory, is by now outdated and provincial. It is antiquated
because it excludes what we can observe: a paradigm shift of society and
politics in modernity. It is provincial because it falsely absolutizes the
path-dependent experiences and expectations characteristic of Western
European or American modernization, and in so doing it prevents so
ciology from grasping the specificity of this modernization.
It would be too superficial to assume that European cultural, social,
and political thinkers only need to understand other paths to mod
ernization as supplements to our own, so that our image of the world
does not remain incomplete. Rather, it is the case that Europeans can
understand Europe and the European crisis only by "deprovincializing"
ourselves—that is, only by learning to see the world and ourselves with
the eyes of others at the level of methodology. This is what I call the
cosmopolitan turn in theory and research in the humanities and social
science.
The paradigmatic case that I would like to use to explain this cos
mopolitan turn in the present essay is the crisis of Europe in the age
of cosmopolitization. I would like to present the argument in four
New Literary History, 2012, 43: 641-663

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642 NEW LITERARY HISTORY
steps. First, what is meant by "cosmopolitization" in contra

politanism"? And why is it so essential to thematize "cosmo
(and not "globalization") in the humanities and the soc
Second, to what extent do the cosmopolitan turn and the
cosmopolitization open up a new perspective on the curre
crisis? Third, what methodological consequences should we
this? What does cosmopolitization mean as a research prog
fourth, what political consequences can we derive from th
cosmopolitization? As I hope to show, a new social contract
1. We live not in the age of cosmopolitanism bu

age of cosmopolitization
The many meanings of the concept "cosmopolitanism" a

ary. The global debate over cosmopolitanism in cultural st
the social sciences has attracted criticism from the left, th
the center.1 Communitarians—whether on the left or the
objected that cosmopolitanism underestimates the import
munity and collective identity. National conservatives have
cosmopolitanism as "parasitic." Critics on the left have w
constitutes a new form of imperialism or have criticized it
ethnocentrism passing itself off as universal humanism.
My attempt to redefine cosmopolitanism for the globalized w
twenty-first century sets itself apart from these dominant con
that I highlight how my approach differs from universalism
transnationalism, and internationalism. To encapsulate it in
cosmopolitanism, for me, is an idea and a reality—an idea a
of universalism that contains a particularistic dimension
an idea and a reality of globality that includes nationalism
and a reality of transnationalism that does not exclude a
ethnicities and cultures. This conception includes two steps
theory of the "cosmopolitan vision" apart from other theor
First, the sociological turn: the question that now arises is, w
mopolitanism? and less the question, what should cosmopol
Second, the turn at the level of content from either/or to both/
tanism is not the universal antithesis to various forms of p
(nationalism, localism, culturalism, relativism, etc.); cosm
must instead be conceived, deciphered, or reconceptuali
thesis of other theories. Cosmopolitanism transcends the
universalism and particularism, of internationalism and n
and of globalization and localization.

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THE EUROPEAN CRISIS 643
In this sense, I propose to distinguish between cosm

norm and cosmopolitization as a fact. Cosmopolitanism
tive philosophical theories (of European and non-E
cosmopolitization to a research program in social and
that goes beyond methodological nationalism. A cue t
"cosmopolitization" means the (often forced) inclusion
(global) Other. Nothing is more important and helpful
the empirical-cum-analytical meaning of "cosmopolit
examples. First I will use the example of organ transpl
the example of the European crisis.
Fresh kidneys, or the cosmopolitan human condition
Our world is marked by radical social inequalities.3 A

of the global hierarchy are countless people who are t
of hunger, poverty, and debt. Driven by sheer distre
are willing to resort to desperate measures. They sell
their liver, a lung, an eye, or even a testicle, thereb
community of fate of a very specific kind. The fate
the prosperous regions (patients waiting for organs) i
the fate of inhabitants of the poor regions (whose on
bodies). For both groups, something that is literally
stake—life and survival.
The anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes shows in an empirical case

study how the outcasts of the world, those who have been economically
and politically dispossessed—refugees, homeless people, street children,
undocumented migrants, prisoners, aging prostitutes, cigarette smug
glers, and thieves—surrender parts of their bodies to medical transplants.4
Such medical transplants build their organs, literally incorporate them,
into the ailing bodies of other persons (where the latter belong to a so
cial class wealthy enough to pay for the organs of the global poor). The
result is a modern form of symbiosis: the amalgamation of two bodies
spanning unequal worlds mediated by medical technology.
Continents, races, classes, nations, and religions merge in the bodily
landscapes of the individuals concerned. Muslim kidneys purify Christian
blood. White racists breathe with the help of black lungs. The blonde
manager sees the world with the eye of an African street child. A Catholic
bishop survives thanks to the liver removed from a prostitute in a Bra
zilian favela. The bodies of the rich are being transformed into skillful
patchwork assemblages, those of the poor into one-eyed or one-kidneyed
storehouses of spare parts. The piecemeal sale of their organs is thus

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becoming the life insurance of the poor, in which they s

of their bodily existence in order to ensure their future s
the result of global transplantation medicine is the "biopol
citizen"—a white, male body, fit or fat, in Hong Kong or
fitted out with an Indian kidney or a Muslim eye.
In general, the traffic in living kidneys follows the establ
of capital flows from the South to the North, from poor to af
ies, from black and brown bodies to white bodies, and from women to
men or from poor men to affluent men. Women are rarely beneficiaries
of trafficked organs. Thus, the age of cosmopolitization is divided into
organ-selling versus organ-buying countries. At the same time, the global
poor are included and excluded in a very specific sense. They are within
Western bodies—and for this reason are no longer "global others."
This radically unequal cosmopolitization of bodies is occurring word
lessly, without interaction between donor and recipient. Kidney donors
and kidney recipients are mediated by the world market, but they
remain anonymous to each other. Their relationship is nevertheless
an existential one, important for the life and survival of both parties,
though in different ways. The simultaneous inclusion and exclusion
of the distant Other—something I call "cosmopolitization"—does not
presuppose any interaction, any dialogical connection, or any personal
contact. Cosmopolitization, in short, can involve dialogue and direct
communication with the "Other" (in the case of binational marriages),
but it can also take the form of a wordless, contact-free relation (in the
case of kidney transplants).
This case highlights the hallmarks of the human condition at the
beginning of the twenty-first century. The antitheses between national
and international, internal and external, us versus the others remain
intact, but they nevertheless are being overrun by the onward march
of modernity. They are disaggregating and amalgamating into new
forms.5 "Fresh kidneys,"organs transplanted from body to body, from the
global South to the global North, are by no means the exception, but
are emblematic of a sweeping development. In the internal connection
between radically unequal worlds, institutions, and spheres of life—for
example, love, parenthood, family, household, occupation, employment,
and the labor market—are being transformed. The interpénétration of
worlds can be seen every day on the shelves of supermarkets, on grocery
labels, and on restaurant menus; it pervades art, science, and the world
religions, and it is crashing down upon us in the form of global risks
(climate change and the financial crisis).
Globalization is often dismissed in public debates as a buzzword, while
being stylized by others as the new fate of humanity. But both positions

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assume that globalization is occurring somewhere "out the

the nation-states remain unchanged. Cosmopolitization, b
shifts the interdependence and inextricable connection bet
regions beneath the surface of nation-states into our fie
Distinctions between "national" and "international" lose their relevance
when more and more people engage in cosmopolitan forms of work,

love, marriage, life, travel, consumption, and cooking, when the inner
identity and political loyalty of more and more people no longer refer
to just one state, one country, or one homeland but to two or three or
even more simultaneously, when more and more children stem from
binational marriages, grow up speaking several languages, and spend
part of their childhood in one country and part in another or in the
virtual space of television and the Internet.6 Anyone who pronounces
the death of multiculturalism in this situation is ignorant of reality.7 We
are not witnessing the end of multiculturalism, but the end of the mono
culturalism of the nation-state. The interdependence between worlds is
irreversible and it is transforming the nation-states at their foundations.8
2. What does the cosmopolitization of Europe mean?
Approaching Europe from either the perspective of politics or social

science is like entering a hall of mirrors. It becomes larger or smaller
depending on the position of the observer, and its proportions are dis
torted by the slightest movement. Where it begins and where it ends,
what it is and what it should become—there are no clear and simple
answers to these questions. Whether one equates Europe with the
EU and its member states, or whether one means by Europe a larger
geographical and political space, one that includes Russia or Belarus,
for example—Europe does not exist per se, only Europeanization, un
derstood as an institutionalized process of perpetual transformation.
What "Europe" includes and excludes, where its territorial boundaries
are located, which institutional form this Europe possesses, and which
institutional architecture it should possess in the future—none of these
points has been clarified. Europe is not a fixed condition. Europe is
another word for variable geometry, variable national interests, variable
involvement, variable internal and external relations, variable statehood,
and variable identity. This also holds for the institutionalized core of
Europeanization, the EU.

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The European Union as the antithesis of the nation-state sy

the ethics of "never again "
To begin with, the EU must be conceived as the antit

system of nation-states. The EU is not a large nation, a sup
subsumes all of the other nation states into itself. The qu
tive and still largely misunderstood, historically very speci
of the EU resides, for example, in the fact that it involve
non-member-states that want to become members of the E
for example) in an internal reform process of self-Europea
short, Europe is not a pregiven spatial container in which
tion" can unfold, and to date there is neither a conceptua
nor a historical model for the goal of this process. There is
historical and moral starting point: the ethics of "never again.
longer prevent the Final Solution in the past, but we will
Final Solution in the future!
Cosmopolitan Europe is a Europe that is struggling for moral, po

litical, economic, and historical reconciliation. A decisive break with
the past is supposed to bring fifteen hundred years of European wars
to a definitive end. From the beginning, this reconciliation has been
less a matter of idealistic preaching than of concrete realization: the
"happiness without limits" that Churchill imagined means, first of all, a
market without limits, to be realized as a thoroughly profane creation
of interdependencies in the policy fields of security, business, science,
and culture. The adjective "cosmopolitan" stands for this openness and
accords with a critique of ethnonationalism that fights for the recogni
tion of cultural difference and diversity.
The legal dilemmas of an institutionalized cosmopolitanism are made
especially evident by the memory of the Shoah, whose motto is "Never
Again."9 If we ask which documents and proceedings allow us to study and
document this source, we discover, among other things, the Nuremberg
Trials of those responsible for the German Nazi terror. This was the first
international tribunal. Significantly, it was the creation of legal catego
ries and a judicial process beyond the sphere of nation-state sovereignty
that made it possible to comprehend the historical monstrosity of the
systematic, state-organized extermination of the Jews for the first time
in legal categories and judicial procedures, and that can and must be
deciphered as a central source of the new European cosmopolitanism.
Article 6 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal includes
three types of crimes—"crimes against peace," "war crimes," and "crimes
against humanity"—that provided the basis for the condemnation of
Nazi crimes and criminals. Interestingly, "crimes against peace" and "war

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crimes" presuppose nation-state sovereignty, and hence c

national outlook, whereas "crimes against humanity," on t
annul national sovereignty and try to articulate a cosmopo
in legal categories; and it is surely not a coincidence that the
and judges at the Nuremberg tribunals had little use for th
new category of "crimes against humanity." After all, this cate
the introduction not only of a new law or a new principle
new legal logic that breaks with the existing nation-state l
national law. To quote from the definition of "crimes again
in Article 6c: "Crimes against humanity, namely, murder, ext
enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts comm
any civilian population, before or during the war, or per
political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in
with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, w
in violation of domestic law of the country where perpetr
The formulation "before or during the war" clearly dis
crimes against humanity from war crimes. This marks the cr
idea of the responsibility of individual perpetrators outsid
law, specifically before the community of nations, befor
When the state becomes a criminal state, the individual wh
must expect to be prosecuted and condemned for his cri
an international tribunal. The formulation "any civilian
annuls the national principal, according to which an oblig
a national border is absolute and freedom from obligation
border is equally absolute, and it replaces it with the legal
cosmopolitan responsibility. This cosmopolitan legal princi
civilians not only against the violence of other, hostile states
tion is already contained in the concept of "war crimes"), b
more extensive and provocative manner against arbitrary acts
committed by sovereign states against their own citizens.
priorities are inverted in accordance with cosmopolitan le
the principles of cosmopolitan law trump national law. Cr
humanity cannot be legitimized through national law nor
prosecuted and condemned at the national level. Taken to
new historical concept of "crimes against humanity" ann
ciples on which national lawmaking and the national admi
justice were based.
A genuine European self-contradiction thus finds mora
political expression in cosmopolitan Europe. Even thou
tions from which colonialist, nationalist, and genocidal ho
were European ones, the scales of value and legal categori
of which these acts were treated as crimes against huma

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global public were likewise European. In this sense, the me

Holocaust becomes a cautionary reminder of the ubiquitou
ization of barbarism.10 The negativity of modernity and t
awareness of it is not a mere pose or an ideology of the tra
expression of the historical invention of a modernity that
into the nation and the state, an invention that unfolded the moral,
political, economic, and technological potential for catastrophe merci
lessly and without regard for self-destruction, as if in nightmarish images
from the laboratory of reality. The mass graves of the twentieth century
testify to this—the world wars, the Holocaust, the atom bombs dropped
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Stalinist gulags, and the genocides. But
there is also an unreflective and intact connection between European
pessimism, the critique of modernity, and a postmodernism that perpetu
ates despair—here one can only agree with Jürgen Habermas. In other
words, the national and the postmodern Europe stand in a paradoxical
relation because the theorists of postmodernity deny that the horror of
European history can be and is being combated with more Europe, with
cosmopolitan Europe. The cosmopolitization of Europe means striving
for institutional answers to the barbarism of European modernity—and
thus abandoning postmodernity which fails to recognize just this.11
"Merkiavelli": Wavering as a disciplinary tactic
Those who think of Europe in national terms not only fail to recognize
reality but also (re)produce the self-obstructions that have become the
essential mark of political action in Europe. This is shown at the mo
ment by the euro crisis. When the euro was introduced, many know-all
economists warned that founding a monetary union before establish
ing a political union was putting the cart before the horse. They were
either unwilling or unable to understand that that was precisely what
was intended! The euro and its foreseeable politically problematic
consequences would force governments and countries trapped in their
national egoisms to extend the political union through the power of
material self-interests—as dictated by the cosmopolitan imperative:
cooperate or bust!
The Europe of the market has in fact contributed to creating the finan
cial and state debt crisis (see Ireland) and the institutional instruments
of the EU are at present being successively devalued by climate change
and financial risks. However, the EU has yet to find an institutionalized
response designed to cope with these crises. In other words, the EU is
unable to act—while the political initiative for surmounting the crises
is now entirely in the hands of the national governments.

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The anticipation of the catastrophe—if the euro collapses, then so does

the EU—has already profoundly transformed the European landscape of
power. When the time comes to make decisions, it is not the EU Commis
sion nor the EU president nor the president of the EU Council who acts,
but the German chancellor. Angela Merkel, however, is neither Angela
Kohl nor Angela Brandt. Chancellor Kohl had stated in his government
program for 1991 to 1994: "Germany is our fatherland, Europe is our
future." And Willy Brandt had asserted during the first session of the
unified German Bundestag: "Germans and Europeans belong together
now and, hopefully, for all time." The national-economic slant which
Merkel has given to this avowal touches a raw nerve, and not only among
Germany's European neighbors. Where Europe is concerned, Angela
Merkel has acted like Angela Bush. Just as US President George W. Bush
used the risk of terrorism to force his unilateral "War on Terror" upon
the rest of the world, Angela Bush is using the European financial risk
to force a unilateral German stability policy upon the rest of Europe.
The political affinity between Merkel and Machiavelli—the Merki
avelli model, as I would like to call it—rests on two mutually reinforcing
components.
First, Germany is the wealthiest, most economically powerful country
in the EU. Given the financial crisis, all of the debtor countries depend
on German willingness to extend credit for their economic survival. But
that is trivial as far as a theory of power goes and is not what constitutes
Merkel's Machiavellianism. Rather, this begins with the fact that Merkel
does not take sides in the conflict raging between pro-Europeans and
Euroskeptics—or, to be more precise, she votes for both opposed posi
tions. She neither shows solidarity with those Europeans (domestic and
foreign) who are demanding that Germany should finally make binding
pledges, nor does she support the party of the Euroskeptics who want
to reject any aid. Instead, Merkel links—and this is the Merkiavellian
point—German willingness to extend credit with the willingness of the
debtor countries to satisfy the requirements of German stability policy.
That enables her to be both things at once, an orthodox champion of
the nation-state and an architect of Europe, and she can play up either
of these two conflicting roles depending on the situation.
Second: how can the contradiction between these positions be over
come in political practice? It can be overcome through what Machiavelli
calls virtù, by which is meant the capability, the political energy, and the
thirst for action to get something done. This is the additional point: what
founds Merkiavelli's power is the desire to do nothing, her wavering, her
art of wavering. The German position of power in crisis-ridden Europe is
precisely this deliberate hesitation, this mixture of indifference, refusal
of Europe and commitment to Europe. Wavering as a disciplinary tactic
is the Merkiavelli method.

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The means of coercion is not the aggressive invasion

money but, on the contrary, the threat to decamp, to delay or
credit. If Germany does not give its agreement, the debtor cou
inevitable ruin. There is thus only one thing worse than b
by German money—not being overrun by German money.
Angela Merkel has in the meantime perfected this form of "
domination that legitimizes itself via the solemn hymn of
What seems to be the essence of the unpolitical, namel
something, is transforming the landscape of European po
way, the rise of Germany to the hegemonic power in Euro
neously promoted and concealed. This is the artifice of w
is a master and its script actually stems from Machiavelli
Merkel is not supposed to have read him). European risk p
Merkel richly deserves the name "Merkiavelli."
The new German power in Europe is not founded, as in ea
on force as the ultima ratio. It has no need of weapons to im
upon the other states, which is why talk of the Fourth Rei
But for the same reason this power is much more mobile
need to invade and nevertheless it is ever present. Its ext
tential does not stem from the logic of war but from the logi
to be more precise, from the threat of economic collapse.
of refusal—not doing something, not investing, not makin
money available—this multipurpose "no" is the central lever
economic power in the Europe of financial risk. The key to
is a country's standing on the world market and no longer
military strength. Its tempting offer is: better a German e
euro.
Europe through the eyes of others
The perspective hitherto adopted on European cosm

cludes the following question (and I fully include myself
what influence have processes of decolonialization exer
currently exerting on the formation of the EU and its de
here, too, it is the victories of modern, industrial cap
side effects—global risks, crises, and geopolitical shift
1989—that place the foundations of the system of nat
and outside Europe in question.
A somewhat different picture of Europe, however, is cu
from the perspective of the developing countries. It is ma
in power in favor of the postcolonial, developing cou
reflected, for example, in participation in the new G-20 s

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graphical shift in the center of gravity of power in the gl

from the Atlantic to the Pacific; and a creeping demonop
the US dollar as the global reserve currency in favor of
different currencies and bilateral monetary agreements. T
ments are reinforced by the growing importance of Sou
East-South cooperation when it comes to solving economi
and, not least, the loss of moral authority and the model
the former Euro-American center.
The result is that the old, Western-dominated center-periphery model is

on the brink of collapse. In the future, the world will no longer turn pri
marily on the relationship between postcolonialism and Europe. Instead
we must ask: to what extent are we witnessing the beginning of a kind
of "precolonialization" of Europe, the former center, by its excolonies,
in particular China and India? China, at any rate, is currently taking an
increasingly active role in European affairs that is driven entirely by its
own self-interest—ironically not at all to Europe's disadvantage but on
the contrary in support of the euro, and hence of the EU. Sitting on
immense euro reserves, China first helped Greece with a loan of over 3.6
billion euro and purchases of government bonds, and in the meantime
it has also promised Spain similar aid. Needless to say, this amounts to
an immense shift in the global power structure.
3. Cosmopolitization as a research program:

critique of methodological nationalism
The new realities of the postcolonial cosmopolitization of Europe

can be brought into focus only by overcoming the blinkered vision of
a still-dominant methodological nationalism. Such a methodological
nationalism assumes that nation, state, and society are the "natural"
social and political forms in the modern world. It assumes that human
ity is "naturally" segmented into a limited number of nations that are
internally organized as nation-states and that demarcate themselves
externally from other nation-states. It goes even farther and presents
this external delimitation as a central category of political organization
in the context of competition between nation-states. Much sociological
thought to date, indeed the sociological imagination itself, is in fact a
prisoner of the nation-state. And this very methodological nationalism
prevents the social sciences from bringing the process of cosmopoli
tanization in general and of Europeanization in particular into their
analytical field of vision.
Where social actors subscribe to such a belief, I speak of a "national
perspective," where it shapes the perspective of social-scientific observers,

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of "methodological nationalism." And methodological natio

a superficial problem or blemish. It affects both the proced
collection and production and fundamental concepts of m
ogy and political science such as "society," "social inequality
"families," "gainful employment," "religion," "state," "dem
"imagined communities."
A key question raised by methodological cosmopolitanism, by
is: how can units of investigation beyond methodological na
discovered and defined that enable us to capture the compl
and (inter)dependencies involved in cosmopolitization and
them to comparative analysis? What is the point of referen
analysis, assuming that we want to liberate it from the "c
the nation-state, on the one hand, but do not want to tak
abstract concepts of the "world society," on the other? In r
research in such diverse disciplines as sociology, technology
ogy, geography, and political science has developed a la
of concepts, all of which are aimed at breaking open the
"natural" equation of "society/nation/state." Paul Gilroy's
the "Black Atlantic," Saskia Sassen's identification of the "g
Arjun Appadurai's notion of "scapes," Martin Albrow's con
"global age," and my analysis of "cosmopolitan Europe" ar
examples of this line of research.12
The question of the status of the national and the natio
pecially important for methodological cosmopolitanism wh
to defining the units of investigation. The most radical m
option is to replace the national framing of these units b
("replacing the national"). Restricting methodological cosm
in this way, however, would be an inadmissible restriction
and applicability. For research on globalization long ago d
that the nation-state does not disappear entirely even in th
balization but that, on the contrary, its value is enhanced.
This is shown by the example of the global financial risk
devalued the institutional instrumentarium of the EU. The EU has be
come the "lame duck" that could only grow new wings as a result of new
European initiatives on the part of national governments, in particular
Germany and France. It makes sense in this respect to also consider the
possibility that the nation-state could remain powerful even while los
ing its epistemological monopoly. The methodological implications of
this would involve finding new units of investigation that are no longer
coextensive with the national, even though they contain the national.
This embedding of the national in processes of cosmopolitization
can assume extremely diverse forms. The new units of investigation
developed in this variant of methodological cosmopolitanism are cor

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respondingly diverse. An example is the concept of a "tr

political regime."13 This refers to new forms of transnational
building that have developed in the context of a series of
tory problems such as climate change, the Internet, and
of transnational companies. These institutions organize t
interactions whose boundaries are not defined by nationa
rights but by a specific regulatory problem. In this way, t
highly diverse and extremely variable groups of actor
private) and they extend across different territorial levels
cal regimes are often the most appropriate unit of investig
analysis of transnational politics.
Here it is decisive that these new institutions do not replace
state but are instead integrated with it. The nation-states
in new transnational regulation systems and one of the mo
tasks is to study the specific importance they acquire in
of these institutions. For, where the nation-state remains d
can often be observed in current international climate ch
whether in Copenhagen or Cancun, the transnational level
of atrophying into a mere "stage" on which national issues are
4. A new contrat social for Europe
Are we heading toward a post-European age, a paradoxic

small-state particularism in the age of globalization? Has
threat and insecurity become so overwhelming that the "o
becoming attractive and people are fleeing into the future
teenth century? Or might what feels like a sense of shock at
of the European Community mark the beginning of a hi
away from a Europe dominated by the nation-state to a t
European politics and society?
Even if we were to construct the most magnificent, most be
most wonderful Europe imaginable, what good would it be
do not want it? What political guise must Europe assume in
transformed, in the eyes of its citizens, from a bogeyman
that lies close to their hearts? So that its death would mea
of oneself? So that it becomes something worth living and str
and, not least, worth voting for? The catastrophe threatening
been analyzed from the perspective of political institutions, th
elites, governments, and the law, but not from the persp
individual. What does Europe mean for individuals and wh
for a new social contract for Europe can be developed on th
is the issue to be posed in the final section of the essay.

200.135.196.251 on Wed, 10 Aug 2022 16:21:50 UTC
An approach for a possible answer can be found in Rousse

cally in his Social Contract, which appeared two hundred and f
ago. In this work, Rousseau showed, in an outline that ha
of its fascination, how human beings, when they overcom
nature (state of nature), can achieve a communal freedom
through a contrat social (social contract). Taking up Rousse
developing it further, in what follows I would like to devel
that Europe needs a new contrat social in four steps.
(1) More freedom through more Europe
Europe is not a national society and it also cannot become

society because it is composed of democratically constitut
societies. And in this national sense, Europe is not a societ
ropean "society" must rather be conceived as a "postnation
national societies." The task is then to find a form of Eur
that, by virtue of its communal strength, legally protects eve
in every national society and that at the same time enriches an
the freedom of every individual by bringing him or her to
individuals with other languages and political cultures.
The French sociologist Vincenzo Cicchelli has conduct
on the young generation of Europeans, examining what u
and what separates them—and how they can orient themse
unsettled times.14 His study makes it clear why Europe, un
social space of experience, represents an increase in liberty
ity for the younger generation: "Everywhere in Europe y
are becoming aware that, although the culture of their native
certainly important and constitutive for their identity, it is n
for understanding the world. Young people want to becom
with the other cultures because they sense that cultural, p
economic questions are closely connected with globalization
they have to contend with diversity, with cultural pluralis
long learning process involving tourism and humanitarian
travel, but it also involves taking an interest in the cultura
of the others at home, their cinema, television series, nov
arts, and clothing."15
According to this analysis, young people experience Europ
as a "double sovereignty," as the sum of national and Europ
nities for development. Contrary to what is often expected,
describe their identity as an independent European identi
is only a European. Young Europeans define themselves in
instance in terms of their nationality and then as European

200.135.196.251 on Wed, 10 Aug 2022 16:21:50 UTC
without borders and with a single currency offers them o

for mobility of a kind that has never existed before—in a
of enormous cultural wealth, with a plurality of languag
museums, food cultures, etc.
However, Cicchelli's study also reveals how this European experience
is becoming rather fragile in the wake of the current crises. Mutual
recognition is increasingly being undermined by the return of old
rivalries and prejudices, for example between southern and northern
Europe. A further striking fact is that the world of Brussels institutions
seems distant, abstract, and opaque to the younger generation. Their
experience is of a Europe without Brussels. "The problem was not the
lack of the feeling of Europe but the fact that there are at least two such
feelings. There is the good feeling of the overwhelming majority who
no longer want to be without the great European freedoms. And there
is the uncomfortable feeling, often of the same people, that in distant
Brussels a parallel universe exists that is disconnected from their lives."16
Why is this individual experience of a lived Europe practically absent
in the current controversy over the euro crisis and the European crisis?
The chief reason is that European integration is mainly conceived, not
only in politics but also in research on Europe, in a one-dimensional, in
stitutionally oriented way. The growing together of Europe is conceived as
a process that occurs vertically—from the top down—between European
institutions and national societies. The question of how individuals experi
ence Europe plays no role in this analysis. Europeanization then means,
on the one hand, the formation of supranational institutions (public
bodies, the European Commission, financial union, etc.) and, on the
other, the repercussions of this supranational institution formation on
national societies—for example, the adjustment of national norms and
institutions to European guidelines. Therefore, vertical Europeanization
means the integration of the nation-states at the level of institutions.17 In
this view, the house of Europe is empty of people. Nobody lives there.
And the absurdity of this view is that nobody notices!
As Cicchelli's study shows, this institutional side and perspective re
main opaque and alien even for the Europe-hardened "Erasmus genera
tion."18 Their lived Europe points to a second, horizontal dimension that
is screened out of conventional politics and research on Europe. This
obliviousness to a European society of individuals can be explained by
the fact that it does not feature in the institutional perspective of verti
cal integration, whereas, conversely, vertical integration is absent from
the experiential horizon of individuals.
Here it also becomes clear what characterizes the concept of society
shaped by Europe, in contrast to the concept shaped by the nation-state.

200.135.196.251 on Wed, 10 Aug 2022 16:21:50 UTC
Even if young people feel themselves to be members of a

nation, to be Polish, French, etc., their attitude toward life
less essentially shaped by the liberties of being able to m
hindrance across borders from one country to another as
course. Here Europe is experienced as a mobile society of
more freedom through more Europe.
The national concept of society, by contrast, means a so
is bound to a specific territory, with clearly demarcated
borders, a law that holds for all citizens, a relatively unifor
common education system, an official language, etc. Indivi
ence the Europeanness of European societies, by contrast,
freedom, openness, and permeability of national borders, i
of cultures, languages, legal systems, types of economy, form
In this sense, young people experience a cosmopolitan Euro
national differences and antagonisms are mixing and becom
(2) More social security through more Europe
A new social contract must preserve this major European fre

being impaired by a national longing for new clarity and n
However, this defense of the status quo does not go nearly
The European society of individuals is at the same time al
by risk capitalism, which dissolves prevailing moral milieu
belonging and of social security, on the one hand, and ge
risks, on the other. Individuals should also be able to feel that not all
of the risks of the world, and especially not those of banks and states
threatened with bankruptcy, are being dumped onto their shoulders, but
that something exists that deserves the name "European Community,"
because it takes the renewal of social security in these unsettled times as
its program and guarantees it. Then the auspicious concept "European
Community" would stand not only for the experience of freedom and
for the maximization of risk, not only for a epicurean Europe but also
for a social Europe: more social security through more Europe!
The financial crisis, which was not triggered by individuals but by
banks and the European response of austerity politics, represents a mon
strous injustice in the eyes of its citizens. It is these citizens, ultimately,
who have to pay for the crazy sums pulverized by the banks, and it is
often the poor citizens who pay in the hard currency of their existence.
Perhaps the tables can be turned: instead of bailouts for the banks, a
"social parachute" for a Europe of individuals—this could make Europe
more credible and more just in people's eyes, and more important for
their own lives.

200.135.196.251 on Wed, 10 Aug 2022 16:21:50 UTC
Ralf Dahrendorfs prognosis of the "end of the social dem

is in this sense obsolete.19 On the contrary, it is being decided
Europe whether the mobilizing force of global risks is goin
the image of social and environmental democracy from t
of welfare-state routines, opening it up to a European di
forming it into a vision that individuals from many nation
together to realize, by forming cross-border social protest, In
Facebook movements outside and inside the political syst
Until now, the idea of social security was conceived nat
exclusively within the framework of the nation-state and i
by parties and unions oriented to and organized within the
Such a close coupling meant that, in the age of globalizatio
was forced on the defensive in two respects. On the one ha
the prisoner of a conception of politics characteristic of the n
because it made the national welfare state its goal. On the
with the end of the Cold War and the end of competi
communism and capitalism, there is, for the time being,
to tame capitalism through social democracy. However, th
the financial and euro crisis, which has aggravated the in
all societies dramatically, has fundamentally transformed
situation. The social question has become a global quest
only hollow answers involving the nation-state are being offe
virtually or actually a prerevolutionary situation (to use the o
The new social contract designed to win over individual
ropean cause must answer the question: how can we recon
the realistic Utopia of social security so that it does not e
at present, in one of two dead ends—either the defense o
welfare-state nostalgia or the reforming zeal of neoliberal
How can we awaken Europe's and the world's social and en
conscience and shape it into a Europe-wide, indeed a worldw
protest movement that unites irate Greeks, unemployed Sp
the middle classes who are staring into the abyss—forming
subject to implement the social contract? How can we squa
of elevating European politics to the level of transnationa
the same time winning national elections?
(3) More democracy through more Europe
The foundation of a new social contract for Europe is n

seau believed, a volonté générale (common will) that transcend
interests and is absolute. Rather, it is the recognition that old

200.135.196.251 on Wed, 10 Aug 2022 16:21:50 UTC
that were assumed to be eternal are collapsing, and t

ready-made answers to key biographical and political q
rope of individuals—and that this is not a defect but e
of freedom. European society, understood in this way,
social and political ideas, the like of which exists now
counts in large-scale politics, as in individual lives, is u
native futures and thereby, in a spirit of curiosity and ex
overcoming the dread of the past and responding effectiv
of the present.
The European project—enemies becoming neighbors—
of failing. Many Europeans feel like Helmut Kohl, who
rent German chancellor: "That lass is destroying my
can no longer endure the cultural hegemony of the E
are demanding: stop your whining! At this decisive m
Schmidt, Jürgen Habermas, Herta Müller, Senta Berger
Richard von Weizsäcker, Imre Kertész, and many other
transcendence of a Europe of empty pieties, Europe wi
and for the foundation of a down-to-earth Europe, a E
a Europe from below—and not only in word but also
ing Europe." The idea is that a voluntary European ye
everyone, not just the younger generation and the ed
but also retirees, the employed, and the unemployed, t
Europe from below, in another country and in another
This would not be work geared to securing the immed
life, but a mode of action aimed at political participati
ing that creates connection and cohesion in the Europ
Imagine that this voluntary European year is already
Schuster, 44, a bank employee in Lüneburg, spends a y
in an environmental project in Athens, and he learns
how difficult, but also how enticing, it can be to work to
European environmentalism within a Greek microcos
acquaintances and formed friendships in the process.
the pension of the mother of a Greek friend was cut s
neighbors moved out because they could not pay the re
his street had to close, and how the dignity of people was
by the austerity measures. On returning to Germany,
hear the moaning about the "skint Greeks" in the me
daily life. While in Germany the Greeks are commonly
above their means, he has witnessed the opposite—na
more Greeks are sinking into poverty.
Brigitte Reimann from Passau, 28, an unemployed teache
in a project in Warsaw that has undertaken to write a G

200.135.196.251 on Wed, 10 Aug 2022 16:21:50 UTC
tory book. She receives a very friendly welcome. Yet at c

she senses that German economic austerity measures
memories of militant German imperialism. On one o
neighbor blurts out the question: "What exacdy was y
doing at that time?" She looks at him and answers: "My
14 years old when the war ended." Her interlocutor is
a moment and quiedy says: "Sorry."
These anecdotes exemplify how a voluntary Europe
eryone is intended to be "social." The aim is neither
social work in the conventional sense. The goal is rat
situation of others—their fears, hopes, disappointmen
miliation, and anger—comprehensible through social r
individuals, encounters, joint action, conversations a
and shared involvement. In other words, it is a matter of action out of
which a cosmopolitan outlook develops. Rebuilding European institu
tions (economic government, fiscal union, firewall, Eurobonds) will not
be sufficient to master the crisis afflicting Europe. Monetary "rescue
parachutes" alone will not save Europe. The malaise is rooted in the fact
that we have a Europe without Europeans. What is missing, the Europe
of citizens, can only develop from below, out of civil society itself. This is
why we need a voluntary European year for all. This voluntary European
year offers its own answer to the question: what does Europe mean for
individuals? It makes the active participation of individuals possible and
in this way it establishes an often decidedly critical connection between
one's own life and action and the (as it seems to many) technocratic
nirvana called Brussels.
Expanding the political union to include a common taxation, econom
ic, and social policy must come with a democratic guarantee that makes it
attractive for national citizens to become political citizens of Europe. This
democratic guarantee can simultaneously assume a variety of forms—for
example, equipping the European parliament with the right to take legis
lative initiatives, directly coordinating the different parliaments with each
other, or electing an EU president through European-wide polls held
on the same day. However, the aim of deepening European democracy
in this direction encounters a virtually insurmountable obstacle in the
existing structure: expanding European democracy without a European
currency, European taxes, and European budgetary sovereignty is im
possible and European budgetary appropriations that do not expand
European democracy remain technocratic and authoritarian.
More democracy through more Europe thus needs revenue sources of its
own. There would have to be something like a European tax or a euro
tax that flows directly to Brussels, with the European parliament decid

200.135.196.251 on Wed, 10 Aug 2022 16:21:50 UTC
ing how it should be used. If we adopt the standpoint

ask what this means, it becomes immediately clear tha
a "European solidarity surcharge" modeled on the G
ity surcharge," a European value-added tax, etc. And
oriented European tax would be legitimate only if it
achieved the goal of taming unfettered risk capitalism
financial transactions, for example, or a banking tax
levy on corporate earnings.
This sounds hopelessly Utopian and naïve. I agree wit
mas when he writes: 'The rediscovery of the German n
new mode of short-term politics without a compass, a
of politics and the media into a single class may expla
lacks the stamina for such a major project as European
then comes the twist: "But looking upwards at the politica
media may be to look in completely the wrong direct
motivations which are currently lacking can only come fr
within civil society itself. The phase-out of atomic ener
of the fact that the things which are taken for grant
culture, and hence the parameters of public discussio
without the dogged, subterranean work of social movem
(4) European spring
We have witnessed an Arab spring and then a hot A

lowing the example of the Arab spring that has shaken
worldview of the "American way of life." Can there an
European spring? A European protest movement agains
austerity policy uniting the frustrated, unemployed, h
poverished from all European countries via the Intern
How was it possible for the call to "Occupy Wall Street
people not only in other US cities, but also in London
Brussels and Rome, Frankfurt and Tokyo? And the p
come only to protest against a bad law or for a partic
against "the system" as such.
What used to be called the "free market economy" an
"capitalism" once again is being placed under the m
exposed to fundamental criticism. Why is the world su
pay attention when "Occupy Wall Street" claims to spea
nine percent of those who have been overrun against
of profiteers? Will they also be ready to listen when i
are Europe"—report their suffering as the collateral da

200.135.196.251 on Wed, 10 Aug 2022 16:21:50 UTC
austerity policy in person? Who could trigger the Europ

Those who form the new underclass; those who cannot affo
insurance; those whose retirement benefits were cut; tho
to take out loans in order to be able to study. It is not the
nor the outcasts, nor the underclass, but individuals from
of European society who will protest in the public square
as they are already doing in Athens, Madrid, Rome, and Fr
What could be the source of the power of the European
The euro crisis has stripped neoliberal Europe of legitimac
is an asymmetry of power and legitimacy. There is a surp
and a dearth of legitimacy on the side of capital and the
dearth of power and high legitimacy on the side of the pr
is an imbalance that the European movement could use to
its core demands—for example, for a global tax on finan
tions—in the enlightened self-interest of the nation-state
their own narrow-mindedness, and for Europe. An exemplary,
and powerful alliance between protest movements and the
of the nation-state architects of Europe would emerge to impl
Robin Hood tax, an alliance capable of making the politic
leap into a world in which state actors would be able to ac
ally within and beyond national borders.
The following insight may be helpful against the reflex to d
idea as hopeless: the chief adversaries of the global financ
not those who are currently pitching their tents on the p
and before the cathedrals of finance throughout the wor
important and indispensable they may be. The most conv
tenacious opponent of the global financial sector is—the
cial sector itself.
All of this may sound like Hölderlin's hymn to hope, like the reassur
ing promise "Where there is danger, salvation grows too." Brought up
to date and applied to Europe, this would have to say: where there is
danger, rescue parachutes grow, too. But, as we can currently see, the
converse also holds: where there are rescue parachutes, danger also
grows. For, to date, attempts to master the euro crisis have led to both
the deepening of the euro crisis and a German Europe.
University of Munich
Translated by Ciaran Cronin
NOTES
1 It may well be the most important interdisciplinary and international debate of the
decade. The following special issues of English language specialist journals and collect

200.135.196.251 on Wed, 10 Aug 2022 16:21:50 UTC
NEW LITERARY HISTORY
can be cited as just some representative of this debate: Public Culture 1

Theory, Culture & Sodety 19, no. 1-2 (2002); British Journal of Sociology
and 61, no. S (2010); European Journal of Social Theory 10, no. 1 (2007); D
3 (2008); Maria Rovisco and Magdalena Nowicka, eds., The Ashgate Researc
Cosmopolitanism (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011); Gerard Delanty, ed., Rout
of Cosmopolitanism Studies (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012).
2 Ulrich Beck, The Cosmopolitan Vision, trans. Ciaran Cronin (Cambridge
3 Ulrich Beck and Angelika Poferl, eds., Große Armut, großer Reichtum: Zu
alisierung sozialer Ungleichhdt (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2010).
4 Nancy Scheper-Hughes, "The Last Commodity: Post-Human Ethics
Traffic in 'Fresh' Organs," in Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics and Ethics a
Problems, ed. Aihwa Ong and Stephen J. Collier (Maiden, MA: Blackwell,
5 This is precisely what is meant by "reflexive modernization": the
radicalized modernization are undermining the institutional legal, politi
social foundations and dichotomies of the first modernity of the nation-
The Reinvention of Politics: Rethinking Modernity in the Global Social Order, tra
(Cambridge: Polity, 1997); Beck, Wolfgang Bonss, and Christoph Lau,
Reflexive Modernization: Problematic, Hypotheses and Research Program
Culture & Sodety 20, no. 2 (2003): 1-33.
6 Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim, Distant Love, trans. Rodney Liv
bridge: Polity, 2013).
7 As did British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Federal Ch
Merkel.
8 Beck and Daniel Levy, "Cosmopolitanized Nations: Reimagining Collectivity in World

Risk Society," Theory, Culture & Sodety 2013 (forthcoming).
9 Thus here it is no longer only a matter of the fact of cosmopolitization, but also of
the norm of cosmopolitanism.
10 Daniel Levy and Natan Sznaider, The Holocaust and Memory in the Global Age, trans.
Assenka Oksiloff (Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press, 2006).
11 However, the historical and ethical principle of the "never again" became pluralized
long ago: never again Hiroshima, never again colonialism, never again communism, never
again dictatorship, never again Fukushima, never again 9/11, etc.
12 Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consdousness (London: Verso,
1993); Saskia Sassen, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
Univ. Press, 1991 ) ; Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization
(Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1996); Martin Albrow, The Global Age: State and
Sodety beyond Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press, 1997) ; Beck and Edgar Grande,
"Europas letzte Chance: Kosmopolitismus von unten," Blätter für deutsche und internationale
Politik 50, no. 9 (2005): 1083-97; Beck and Edgar Grande, Cosmopolitan Europe, trans. Ciaran
Cronin (Cambridge: Polity, 2007).
13 Edgar Grande, "Vom Nationalstaat zum transnationalen Politikregime—Staatliche
Steuerungsfähigkeit im Zeitalter der Globalisierung," in Entgrenzung und Entschddung: Was
ist neu an der Theorie reflexiver Modernisierung?, ed. Beck and Christoph Lau (Frankfurt am
Main: Suhrkamp, 2004), 384-401.
14 Vincenzo Cicchelli, L'esprit cosmopolite: voyages de formation des jeunes en Europe [The
Cosmopolitan Spirit: Education Travels of Young People in Europe] (Paris: Presses de la
Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 2012).
15 Isabelle Rey-Lefebvre and Vincenzo Cicchelli, "'Die Pfade werden kurviger.' Der
französische Soziologe Vincenzo Cicchelli über die Jugend Europas, was sie eint, was sie
trennt—und woran sie sich in diesen unsicheren Zeiten orientieren kann," Süddeutsche

200.135.196.251 on Wed, 10 Aug 2022 16:21:50 UTC
THE EUROPEAN CRISIS
Zeitung, May 31, 2012, 15. Originally published as "Les jeunes Eur
science qu'ils doivent se frotter au pluralisme culturel," Le Monde,
16 Daniel Brössler, "Das gefühlte Europa," Süddeutsche 'Zeitung, Ju
17 Beck and Edgar Grande, Cosmopolitan Europe, trans. Ciaran Cronin
2007).
18 "Erasmus" is the name of a fellowship that permits students to study in different
European universities.
19 Ralf Dahrendorf, Die Chancen der Krise: Über die Zukunft des Liberalismus (Stuttgart:
Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1983), 16.
20 Gesine Schwan, interview by Rainer Vogt, "Europa in der Krise: 'Wir können uns nicht
abkoppeln,'" SPD [website of Sozialdemokratische Partei], June 6, 2012, http://www.spd.
de/aktuelles/72918/20120606__gesine_schwan_zu_europa.htmlysessionid=AA52314F4451
33581FC1363BAECD7851 (Accessed November 2012).
21 On this, see Beck and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, "Wir sind Europa! Manifest zur Neugründ
ung der EU von unten," Die Zät, May 3, 2012, 45, and www.manifest-europa.eu.
22 Jürgen Habermas, The Crisis of the European Union: A Response, trans. Ciaran Cronin
(Cambridge: Polity, 2012), 137.
23 Zygmunt Bauman, Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Morality (Oxford: Blackwell,
1995).

ff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff on Thu, 01 Jan 1976 12:34:56 UTC

The European Crisis in The Context of Cosmopolitization

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drachmas in Greece or even with deutsche marks in Germany?

New Literary History, 2012, 43: 641-663

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steps. First, what is meant by "cosmopolitization" in contra

1. We live not in the age of cosmopolitanism bu

The many meanings of the concept "cosmopolitanism" a

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In this sense, I propose to distinguish between cosm

Fresh kidneys, or the cosmopolitan human condition

Our world is marked by radical social inequalities.3 A

The anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes shows in an empirical case

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becoming the life insurance of the poor, in which they s

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assume that globalization is occurring somewhere "out the

when more and more people engage in cosmopolitan forms of work,

2. What does the cosmopolitization of Europe mean?

Approaching Europe from either the perspective of politics or social

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The European Union as the antithesis of the nation-state sy

To begin with, the EU must be conceived as the antit

Cosmopolitan Europe is a Europe that is struggling for moral, po

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crimes" presuppose nation-state sovereignty, and hence c

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global public were likewise European. In this sense, the me

"Merkiavelli": Wavering as a disciplinary tactic

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The anticipation of the catastrophe—if the euro collapses, then so does

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The means of coercion is not the aggressive invasion

Europe through the eyes of others

The perspective hitherto adopted on European cosm

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graphical shift in the center of gravity of power in the gl

The result is that the old, Western-dominated center-periphery model is

3. Cosmopolitization as a research program:

The new realities of the postcolonial cosmopolitization of Europe

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of "methodological nationalism." And methodological natio

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respondingly diverse. An example is the concept of a "tr

4. A new contrat social for Europe

Are we heading toward a post-European age, a paradoxic

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An approach for a possible answer can be found in Rousse

(1) More freedom through more Europe

Europe is not a national society and it also cannot become

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without borders and with a single currency offers them o

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Even if young people feel themselves to be members of a

(2) More social security through more Europe

A new social contract must preserve this major European fre

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Ralf Dahrendorfs prognosis of the "end of the social dem

(3) More democracy through more Europe

The foundation of a new social contract for Europe is n

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