social europe journal vol. 2 no. 4

Volume 2 • Issue 4

Spring 2007

Suggested Donation 5€Social Europethe journal ofthe european left

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Contributions byLowell TurnerDetlev Albers

Henning MeyerMarina Kargalova

Peter BofingerAnatol Lieven

Jo LeinenJan Kreutz

Richard Corbett

Dimensions of theEuropean SocialModel

An initiative by the Party of European Socialists

Social Europe the journal of the european left • Volume 2 • Issue 4 • Spring 2007

Editorial BoardDetlev Albers Chief Editor

Giuliano Amato Italian Interior Minister, Former Prime Minister

Karl Duffek Director Renner Institute

Elisabeth Guigou French MP, Former FrenchEurope and Justice Minister

Zita Gurmai President PES Women

Stephen Haseler Chief Editor

Poul Nyrup Rasmussen President of the PES

Angelica Schwall-Dueren Vice Chair SPD Bundestag Group

Giuseppe Vacca President Gramsci Foundation

Jan Marinus Wiersma Vice President SocialistGroup European Parliament

Henning Meyer Managing Editor

Editorial team

Ben Eldridge & Ian Gardiner Design & Layout

Ruth Davis & Katerina Hadjimatheou Sub-editors

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Jean-Marc Ayrault, Stefan Berger, Antony Beumer, Matt Browne,Proinsias De Rossa, Harlem Désir, Guglielmo Epifani, PatrickDiamond, Antonio Guterres, David Held, Andrea Manzzella,Jacques Reland, Donald Sassoon, Adrian Severin, Martin Schulz,Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Livia Turco, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul,Christoph Zöpel

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Editorial

Henning MeyerManaging Editor

THE EUROPEAN SOCIALModel (ESM) is a sharedpolitical value calling for

the collective protection of liferisks. There are however manydifferent national routes for theimplementation of this valueand each version has got itsstrengths and weaknesses. TheESM thus has many dimensionsthat need to be understood inde-pendently before one can con-ceptualise it on the supranationallevel in any meaningful way.In this issue, we investigate a

variety of thematic dimensionsof the ESM focussing on therole of trade unions, the interac-tion between the ESM andGlobalisation as well as the con-cept of the Social MarketEconomy. By doing so, we alsoinvited some outside views – inthis case from Lowell Turnerfrom Cornell University andMarina Kargalova from theRussian Academy of Sciences –which bring in valuable insightsand prevent the debate frombecoming too Eurocentric. Thefuture of the ESM will dependas much on the wider worldthan on inner-European issues;therefore it is becoming increas-ingly important that politicaldebates about social policy areled on a global scale.Several articles of this issue

were also presented to the 2ndinternational conference on theESM that took place in Rome inMay 2007. Social Europe

Journal was co-organiser of thisconference, but we would liketo thank the people – above allMarco Ricceri from EURISPESand Michael Braun from theFriedrich Ebert Foundation –who did most of the work forthis excellent event. This con-ference also saw the launch ofthe international ‘NetworkSocial Europe’ (further details atwww.global-policy.com/index.php?id=network) whichwill further increase interna-tional cooperation in the studyof the ESM.Additionally to the ESM

related articles, Anatol Lievenstarts our debate about foreignand security policy – whichwill be the focal point of thenext Social Europe issue – withhis outstanding contributionand Jo Leinen/Jan Kreutz andRichard Corbett provide uswith the latest views from theEuropean Parliament on thevital issues of European citizen-ship and the future of theConstitutional Treaty.Last but not least, we have

successfully launched our‘Social Europe Blog’(www.blog.social-europe.eu)which is a new space for up-to-date political debate whereevery reader has a role as com-mentators herself/himself. It isnormally updated several timesa week, so please join ourdebates and make it a livelyplace for political discourse.


ContentsAdvantages of Backwardness: Lessons forSocial Europe from the American Labour MovementLowell Turner

The European Social Model and ParticipationDetlev Albers

Thinking Globally: The Reform of the EuropeanSocial Model is also a Reform of GlobalisationHenning Meyer

A Russian Perspective On The European Social ModelMarina Kargalova

The Social Market Model in a Globalised EconomyPeter Bofinger

On the Marriage of Progress and RealismAnatol Lieven

The Evolution of a European Citizenship:From a Europe of States to a Europe of CitizensJo Leinen and Jan Kreutz

Britain and the Constitutional TreatyRichard Corbett

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THE EUROPEAN UNIONhas many admirersaround the world,

including here in the UnitedStates, in the neoliberal heart-land. Many of us view the idea,if it is not always the reality, ofSocial Europe as a benchmarkfor human-centered economicintegration in a global economy.We look to our ‘old European’friends for inspiration, as weendure the collapse of our ownlame-duck regime and look to abetter future.Yet we know all is not well in

Social Europe. Social democratsand trade unionists struggle toimpose a social model on whatis essentially a project of marketintegration. Social standards areinadequate at the Europeanlevel, even as they are weakenedat the national level. The pagesof this and other journals arefilled with criticism of theunderdeveloped levels of democ-racy, inclusion, legitimacy, and

labour and social standards asthe European project proceeds –or more recently, stalls. Experts,officials and activists call forreforms in all these areas, toembed social rights and stan-dards more deeply in processesof economic integration.It is not my intent to enter

these discussions by way of pol-icy recommendations or sugges-tions for reform. The last thingEuropeans need at this point inhistory is more Americanstelling them how to do things.What I do want to suggest, how-ever, is that progressive reforms,whether in Europe, the U.S., oranywhere else, are dependent toa significant extent on thestrength of trade unions andtheir capacity to promote stan-dards and reform policy, atlocal, national, regional andinternational levels, based notonly on a defense of existingstandards but also on a vision ofexpanded democratic participa-tion in political, economic andsocial decision-making process-es of all kinds. The weakenedinfluence of unions in so manycountries around the world,including Europe, is a majorfactor that has permitted thespread of what Joseph Stiglitzand others have called ‘marketfundamentalism’, and at thesame time limited the potentialexpansion of social standards.

Advantages of Backwardness:Lessons for Social Europefrom the American LabourMovement

Lowell TurnerProfessor of Collective Bargainingat the School for Industrial and LaborRelations (ILR) at Cornell University

147 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

‘Progressive reforms are dependentto a significant extent on thestrength of trade unions and theircapacity to promote standards andreform policy, at local, national,regional and international levels’

Motors. For the most part, how-ever, European-level labourinstitutions have remainedstructures without enoughgrassroots action.Proponents of social Europe

have argued, in the pages of thisjournal and elsewhere, forexpanded social rights, codeter-mination, a better balancebetween democracy and eco-nomic progress, a clearer visionfor the European society of thefuture and its role in the globalarena. These are grand ambi-tions for which success willsurely require sustained strug-gle. Against great opposition ina context of global liberaliza-tion, real breakthroughs areunlikely without the active par-ticipation of large numbers ofEuropean workers and residentsin campaigns for reform. And itis hard to imagine the mobiliza-tion of such participation in theabsence of leadership from revi-talized trade unions.

National strategies and grass-roots mobilizationThis is where the U.S. labourmovement has lessons to offer.The dubious distinction ofearly, sustained decline hasdriven unions to experimentwith innovation. In the 1980sand 1990s, efforts to build firm-level ‘labour-management coop-eration’ largely failed, both toreform the workplace and torenew union strength.Concessions and cooperationfrom a position of weakness didlittle to revive a continuallydeclining labour movement.More promising since the early1990s have been comprehensivecampaigns based on strategicunion leadership, grassrootsmobilisation and coalitions withother social actors.

tional change, associated, forexample, with the work ofWolfgang Streeck and KathleenThelen, identifies the incremen-tal hollowing out of once stronginstitutions of social policy andeconomic regulation. Over time,incremental changes at thenational level lead to transfor-mation, in ways hardlyfavourable to the building of asocial Europe.In a market economy, labour

and social institutions I wouldargue need periodic revitaliza-tion through pressure from thegrassroots. The social move-ments of the 1960s, for exam-ple, applied pressure thatstrengthened national labourinstitutions, most dramaticallyin Italy but in Germany andother countries as well, andopened the door for a period ofsocial activism in the 1970s atthe European level.One problem for contempo-

rary social institutions and poli-cies of the E.U. is that they havebeen built up over the past 15years without the pressure ofgrassroots mobilization. Forlabour such institutionsinclude, for example, the wel-come expansion of theEuropean Trade UnionConfederation and the spread ofEuropean works councils – butlargely from the top down. In a1996 article in the EuropeanJournal of Industrial Relations, Icalled this ‘structure withoutaction’. The argument, and thehope, was that European-levellabour structures would openthe door for the grassrootsengagement necessary tobreathe life into the new institu-tions. Examples today includerecent Europe-wide actionsorganised through the EuropeanWorks Council at General

In the crisis of decliningunion influence, the UnitedStates has played a vanguardrole. The weakness of labour inthe U.S. has opened the door tothe neoliberal policies devel-oped here and then imposed onthe global economy. Morerecent efforts to revitalise thelabour movement aim, amongother things, to reverse suchpolicies. In suffering uniondecline and grappling for newstrategies, we have whatAlexander Gerschenkron oncecalled the ‘advantages of back-wardness’. Ironically, Europeanunions and social democratscan perhaps derive lessons notonly from our failures but alsofrom our efforts to turn the tide.

Institutional changeWhile employer opposition andgovernment policy drove uniondecline in the U.S., unions mustalso bear responsibility for theirinadequate strategic response.The institutional literature,including its latest ‘varieties ofcapitalism’ incarnation, obscuresthe fact that New Deal institu-tions once incorporatedAmerican unions in a recognizedposition within the politicaleconomy. Labour movementupsurge in the 1930s drove insti-tution building and processes ofinclusion – never as strong aspostwar social partnership rela-tionships in northern Europe butquite substantial nonetheless.What can be won, however, canalso be lost. This is the challengenow facing many Europeanunions, as membership declinesalong with economic and politi-cal influence, even in countrieswhere unions remain anchoredin strong labour institutions.Thus a varieties-of-capitalism

breakaway literature on institu-


public support. Demands target-ed building owners and largecorporate tenants, insisting theytake responsibility even thoughthe workers who cleaned theiroffices were not technicallytheir employees. Pressure camefrom many directions, includingthe ‘shaming’ of wealthy compa-nies and their CEOs.In Denver in 1986, Los

Angeles in 1990, and in manyother cities including a recentbreakthrough victory in largelynon-union Houston, owners andcontractors were brought to thetable and forced to sign manage-ment neutrality agreements.With employer oppositionpushed aside, the union signedup thousands of janitors in eachcity case. The campaigns alsoresulted in spillover: in LosAngeles, for example, theJustice for Janitors victorybecame a launching pad for therevitalisation of the labourmovement, now a powerfulforce in a city where unions hadbeen significantly marginalizedsince the 1980s.In Houston, Denver and Los

Angeles, janitors are largelyLatino, many of them recentimmigrants from Mexico, andthis is also true in other cities.Union organising efforts blend-ed with immigrant rights cam-paigns, offering a mechanismfor the mobilisation of excludedlow-wage workers and theirintegration into American socie-

owners typically sub-contractedthis work and claimed noresponsibility for what in mostcases were the extremely lowwages and poor working condi-tions of the armies of workerswho cleaned their buildings.The key to the campaign was

to frame the issue not simply asunion organising but as a matterof social justice. The lavishwealth obvious in shiny corpo-rate headquarters contrastedsharply with the poverty of thebuilding services workforce.With tactics borrowed from thecivil rights movement, the unionused the campaign to shine abright light on the growing eco-nomic and social polarisation inAmerican society. Details aremany and much has been writ-ten on this case for those want-ing more specifics, but the keyelements include the following.The national union brought

the campaign to local unions incities where conditions seemedright. The national office offeredstrategic guidance and a seriouscommitment of resources –money, staff, advice and othersupport. The local union usedtrained organisers to take theissues to the workers, who oftenresponded with great enthusi-asm. Demonstrations, rallies,support from churches, commu-nity and civil rights organisa-tions: such tactics brought thecampaign into the open to winover local politicians and garner

Organising the unorganised isa central goal of many suchcampaigns. Given intenseemployer opposition to unionsin the U.S., organising here isquite different from ‘in-fill’ inthe U.K. or the recruitment ofunion members by works coun-cilors in Germany. The lattertwo cases assume that unionsalready have a meaningful pres-ence in the workplace, a realitythat is less and less true asemployment expands in weak-union sectors. In retail, hospital-ity, building services and infor-mation technology industries,for example, union presence isgenerally much weaker than inmanufacturing. Private sectorsales clerks, hotel housekeepers,security guards, cleaners andcomputer repair technicians arefar less likely to belong tounions than are skilled factoryworkers, truck drivers, construc-tion workers or public sectoremployees. At the same time,membership density even forthe traditionally unionised isalso dropping, in Europe as wellas in the United States.New strategies to rebuild

union membership are neces-sary, both where unions havebeen strong and especially whereunions are weak. Two examplesfrom service sector organising inthe U.S. illustrate possibilitiesbased on innovative tactics andstrategic, comprehensive cam-paigns. One is ‘Justice forJanitors’, a strategy developed atthe national union headquartersof the SEIU (Service EmployeesInternational Union) when JohnSweeney was president of thatunion in the 1980s. The cam-paign aimed to organise thou-sands of janitors, most of themworking in large office buildings,on a city-by-city basis. Building


‘New strategies to rebuild unionmembership are necessary, bothwhere unions have been strong andespecially where unions are weak’

across a range of large cities.Demands included not only payand benefit raises at unionisedhotels but, most importantly,neutrality agreements whichallow the union to sign upworkers at non-union hotelswithout major employer opposi-tion.By the end of 2006, the cam-

paign had achieved significantsuccess. Beginning in New YorkCity, where hotels are mostheavily unionised, and movingacross the country, UNITEHERE won impressive settle-ments for its members, gainedpublic and political support,and signed up thousands of newmembers. In many cases, theunion also won managementneutrality agreements, openingthe door for many more newmembers in 2007 and beyond.Keys to victory included aninnovative national strategybased on simultaneous cam-paigns across the country, led ineach city by well trained staffcommitted on a full-time basisto the campaign; the active sup-port of religious, communityand other social actors as wellas political organisations andofficials; public support basedon compelling demands forsocial justice; and grassrootsmobilisation, the active partici-pation of both union membersand workers at non-unionhotels, at demonstrations, infor-mational picket lines and inongoing organising efforts.A final example concerns pol-

itics and election campaigns.Although labour’s numbers arelow, unions have over the pastdecade increasingly mobilisedmembers and their families toget out the vote. Together withenvironmental, anti-war, com-munity and local political organ-

actors, especially churches,immigrant rights groups, localpoliticians and elected officials,and with an extensive networkof groups such as the SierraClub, ACORN (Association ofCommunity Organizations forReform Now) and Jobs withJustice, itself a broad coalitionof local unions and social jus-tice organisations.Because many hotel workers

are housekeepers, most of themwomen working for low wageswith few rights, many of themimmigrants or African-Americans, the union was inthis case also able to frame theissue in terms of social justice.Through press conferences,spirited rallies that drew largenumbers of participants andattracted media coverage,through publicity within sup-porting religious, communityand political organisations andby other means, the union wasable to broadcast its message.The great advantages of unionrepresentation were highlighted:for non-union hotels, wages typ-ically not far above the legalminimum with no health careor pension benefits; at unionhotels, even belonging to thesame company and sometimesin the same city, twice thewages with full health and pen-sion coverage and in some casestraining rights as well.Because most large urban

hotels are owned by one of themajor chains, and because prof-its are accumulated at nationaland even global scales, compa-nies had long been able to takestrike losses at single hotels orcities without undue loss. Theunion, therefore, targeted themajor companies – Hilton,Starwood, Hyatt, Marriott –with simultaneous campaigns

ty. In a society of great inequali-ty, not only between rich andpoor but increasingly betweenthe rich and everyone else,Justice for Janitors offers a cam-paign model in which the inter-ests of low-wage workers coin-cide with broader struggles for asocially sustainable society, a‘social America’ if we dare usethat term.A more recent example is the

Hotel Workers Rising campaignof 2006. In the U.S., hotels aretypically organised and collec-tive bargaining takes place on acity-by-city basis, at individualhotels or in some cases with alocal association of hotelemployers (which includessome but not all hotels in agiven city). Thus some Hyatthotels are unionised and somenon-union, and each hotel ineach city confronts organisingcampaigns separately and at dif-ferent times. Extreme decentral-isation makes it extremely diffi-cult for the union to organiseworkers or bargain contracts.Over a period of several

years, the union representinghotel workers, UNITE HERE,negotiated contracts set toexpire in the same year, 2006,in a number of major cities inthe U.S. and Canada, includingNew York City, Boston, Chicago,Los Angeles, Honolulu andToronto. San Francisco wasalready in the midst of a pro-tracted struggle and was thusalso included in the campaign.The union crafted a nationalstrategy, to be implementedcity-by-city, with the implicitthreat of a national strike orrolling strikes at particular firmsor cities, supported by solidarityactions in other areas. In eachcity, the union developedalliances of support with social


efforts to build an OrganisingAcademy in the 1990s. Over thepast two years, the Transportand General Workers Union hasfor the first time hired largenumbers full-time organizers.The T&G has also worked withSEIU in common efforts, toorganise cleaners at CanaryWharf and in other campaigns.In April of 2005, I attended a

remarkable week-long confer-ence called Never Work Alone,hosted in Hamburg by ver.di(the consolidated service work-ers union in Germany) and co-sponsored by the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung and the School ofIndustrial and Labor Relationsat Cornell University, organisedtogether by ver.di and OrKa, asmall consulting firm dedicatedto the spread of organising andcampaigning strategies amongGerman unions. Activist-mind-ed ver.di officials drew on anearlier successful campaign atthe Schlecker drug store chain,a 1994-95 comprehensive effort– led by HBV (the banking,insurance and retail union thatmerged into ver.di in 2001) inMannheim – that looked verymuch like Justice for Janitorsand Hotel Workers Rising in theemphasis on innovative strate-gy, grassroots engagement andcoalition building. Conferenceplanners invited organisers fromSEIU, UNITE HERE and CWA to

to organizing, a parallel expan-sion of innovative organising isalso on the agenda at the AFL-CIO, including unions such asthe Communication Workers ofAmerica (CWA) and the UnitedSteelworkers (USW). And thetwo federations have workedtogether on the political front,each of them devoting massiveresources to voter educationand get-out-the-vote drives inthe 2006 elections, with more tocome in 2008. Both federationsare actively campaigning forEFCA, with its promise to kickopen the door for renewedunion growth.

Transatlantic Social DialogueMy argument is not that theseorganising and campaigningstrategies are directly transfer-able to Europe – any more thanwe can adopt works councilslegislation to strengthenlabour’s hand any time in theforeseeable future. Rather Ibelieve that new strategies,based on innovative activism onthe part of unions and workers,perhaps drawing a few lessonsand some inspiration from cur-rent union efforts in the U.S.,could strengthen unions andthereby help to revitalise thesocial Europe project.The British Trades Union

Congress, for example, used les-sons from U.S. organising

isations, African-American andimmigrant rights groups, inter-net activist organisations andother allies, unions contributedsignificantly to the election of aDemocratic Congress in 2006.And in a break with earlier prac-tice, labour did so conditionally,case-by-case, based on explicitcandidate support for labour’sagenda, from minimum wage toexpanded health care coverageto fair trade (meaning tradeagreements that include basiclabour and social standards).Most importantly for the futureof unions and a litmus test forlabour support, unions demand-ed candidate commitment to theEmployee Free Choice Act(EFCA) legislation, designed toremove major employer-led bar-riers in the way of union organi-sation and growth. In the newCongress, the House ofRepresentatives passed this criti-cal piece of legislation soon aftertaking office in early 2007.Although our current presidentwould never sign such a bill, thegroundwork is laid for a betteroutcome after the 2008 elections– for which unions will mobiliselike never before. Again keys tosuccess are national strategy andresources, local mobilisation,and broad alliances with otherorganisations.A final note: many European

unionists and social democratsare puzzled by the 2005 labourmovement split, resulting intwo major federations, the AFL-CIO and Change to Win (CTW).That story is too long to tellhere. But the reality is thatalthough SEIU and UNITEHERE (the unions that ledJustice for Janitors and HotelWorkers Rising) are CTWunions and that federation hasmade the strongest commitment


‘New strategies, perhaps drawing afew lessons and some inspirationfrom current union efforts in theU.S., could strengthen unions andthereby help to revitalise the socialEurope project’

U.S. in this area. Union organis-ing drives that target such work-ers are a potentially powerfulmechanism for social inclusion.Contrary to popular belief,organisers in the U.S. havefound that immigrants andwomen are in fact more recep-tive to joining unions thannative-born white male workers,when unions reach out to them.This is also consistent withwhat we know about native-born African American workers,who have long been the mostreceptive population group inthe U.S. when it comes to unionorganisation.While low-wage workers are

most in need of union represen-tation and the civic integrationthat unions can offer, unionorganising and collective bar-gaining are also much needed inmid-range jobs, in health care,education, transportation, con-struction, telecommunications,light manufacturing and more.Strategies must be appropriatefor particular industries andoccupations, but comprehensivecampaigns of one kind or anoth-er have clearly demonstratedpotential at many levels in theU.S. Thus efforts to organisenurses, bus drivers and flightattendants often look quite likethe campaigns aimed at janitorsand hotel housekeepers. It mustbe said that neither these norany other strategic approacheshave yet reversed the decline ofthe American labour movement.Innovative organising and cam-paigning efforts, however, havebreathed new life into themovement and offered the bestchances for a revival of mem-bership and influence.The main point of this article

is not to suggest that Europeanunions adopt organising and

benchmark by which otherstrategies are evaluated. Theheightened priority on member-ship growth is new for IG Metall,as it would be for manyEuropean unions. Aided byexport strength and renewedeconomic growth, there are sig-nificant signs of success. Theactive training of works coun-cilors and union members torecruit new members parallelsthe American emphasis onorganising the unorganised, in afar more favourable context thatincludes institutional supportand a tradition of union strength.This is the kind of strategy thatmany more European unionscould be taking.An important point to repeat

here is the emphasis, in theUnited States, on organisinglow-wage workers. This makesgreat sense in the U.S. given thevast ‘low road’ portion of oureconomic structure (fromunprotected day labourers toWal-Mart ‘associates’). Hereagain we have the advantages ofbackwardness, for what is nowalso a growing concern inEurope as inequality thereincreases. Union organising canraise the low-road threshold,improve living standards formillions of underpaid workers,and promote broader socialintegration. Especially impor-tant in the U.S. case is that somany of these low-wage work-ers are women, immigrants andfrom racial or ethnic minorities.In the previous issue of SocialEurope, Jürgen Habermas calledfor policies of inclusion for thegrowing numbers of immigrantand migrant workers and fami-lies in countries throughout theEuropean Union and incidental-ly mentioned that Europeanscan learn something from the

share experiences and offer les-sons from their own successesin the U.S. It was clear thatver.di officials in attendance,including the national vice pres-ident, were impressed. Ver.disubsequently hired its first full-time organisers, to target build-ing security guards in Hamburg,and invited an SEIU organiserto spend a year working withthem on the campaign.Such experiences have also

laid the groundwork for nascenttransnational campaigns toorganise workers in buildingservices (cleaners, securityguards and maintenance work-ers), food service (for cafeterias,workplaces, schools, stores),hotels and retail stores, aimed atmultinational corporations doingbusiness on both continents.Although breakthroughs taketime, organising and campaign-ing strategies offer possibilitiesfor strengthening labour move-ments on both sides of the pond.

Labour and the revitalisation ofsocial EuropeNone of this is meant to implythat unions in the U.S. do nothave more to learn fromEuropean unions than you dofrom us, from social policy tolabour institutions and labourmarket regulation. In most coun-tries, European unions havemuch stronger institutionalanchors on which to buildrenewed union growth, if andwhen this becomes an organisa-tional priority. In Nordrhein-Westfalen, for example, IGMetall has developed an innova-tive strategy based on proactiveplant-level negotiation, ‘besserstatt billinger’ initiatives, andmember recruitment. The region-al union in NRW considers thelatter to be most crucial, the key


sion of internal markets andexternal influence but popularlegitimacy and support as well.In the development of newapproaches that combine strate-gic leadership, grassrootsengagement and broad socialalliances, European unions andother social actors just may finduseful lessons from the crisis-driven innovations of theircounterparts across the sea.

campaigning strategies devel-oped by unions in the U.S.,except where such approachesmake sense to leaders andactivists. Rather, the centralargument is that active grass-roots participation, in political,economic and social reformprojects, is an essential compo-nent for the revitalization ofsocial Europe, and in suchefforts innovative unions havean important role to play.Transparency, electoral andinstitutional reforms, a constitu-tion with clearly defined socialrights, stronger directives andregulations for social and labourissues – all of these are impor-tant. Coming largely from thetop down, however, suchreforms are unlikely in them-selves to relaunch a project ofEuropean integration thataddresses not only the expan-


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Independent Thinking from Polity

EuropeAn UnfinishedAdventure

Zygmunt BaumanBauman argues thatdespite the oddsEurope still has muchto offer in dealing withthe great challengesthat face us in the twenty-first century.Through sharing its own hard-wonhistorical lessons, Europe can play a vitalrole in moving from the Hobbesian-likeworld in which we find ourselves todaytowards the kind of peaceful unificationof humanity that was once envisionedby Kant.

2004 | 160 pages978-0-7456-3403-6Pb | £12.99

Europe in the Global Age

Anthony GiddensThe author argues that reform of the European social modelis a matter of urgency and has to go hand in hand with thequest to regenerate economic growth. Life-style change hasto be brought into the heart of what ‘welfare’ means andenvironmental issues must be directly connected to othercitizenship obligations.

2006 | 176 pages | 978-0-7456-4012-9| Pb | £12.99

Global Europe, Social Europe

Edited by Anthony Giddens, Patrick Diamond& Roger LiddleWhat future is there for Europe’s cherished social model? Howwill the EU deal with the competitive pressures coming fromIndia, China and other industrialising countries? In this volume,leading contributors from a range of countries offer answers tothese questions.

2006 | 320 pages | 978-0-7456-3935-2| Pb | £16.99

http://www.polity.co.uk

What are the Core Principles ofthe European Social Model?The so called ‘Bremer proposal’for a new Party Programme ofthe Social Democratic Party ofGermany (SPD) defines so clear-ly and briefly the core princi-ples of the European social andsocietal model that I want touse them for this article. I amsure that the entire German EU-Presidency, including theChristian Democracy part,agrees on these principles too.In the ‘Bremer proposal’ it issaid: ‘A developed and capablestate, welfare systems for theprotection of fundamental liferisks, developed public services,stipulated work conditions aswell as Participation and Co-Determination rights foremployees are essential for allwelfare states in Europe.’It is mostly undisputed that

both a developed and capablestate and robust welfare sys-tems need to be included intothe European social model.Also, public services and stipu-lated work conditions are nor-mally counted in. Participationand Co-Determination rightsfor employees on the otherhand do not attract so muchattention. In the Anglo-Saxonarea, they are sometimes com-pletely ignored. This articlewants to explicitly argueagainst such a shortcoming.

I deliberately focus mythoughts regarding the rele-vance of Participation in theEuropean context on the ques-tion about the joint characteris-tics of the European socialmodel. Hence, I am primarilyinterested in finding out whatwould be the advantage whenthe principles of Participationand Co-Determination would beextended into all parts ofEuropean welfare states.Furthermore, which advantageswould be gained when a con-sensus on such a step in termsof common objectives and activ-ities could be reached amongthe different parties involved,notably the European tradeunions? And finally, what kindof societal benefits could beexpected on the EU level aftersuch a consensus?From this European angle, I

want to begin outlining someprinciples of Participation as itis understood in Germany afterBremer labour economistWolfgang Däubler had createdthe striking phrase ‘basic rightof Participation’.

Excursus: the German ExampleThe special place theParticipation principle receivesin Germany must be linked toGermany’s social history in the20th century. Only when onelooks at the revolutionary onset

The EuropeanSocial Model andParticipation*

Detlev AlbersProfessor of Politics atBremen University


*In the English translation I use the word ‘participa-tion’ for the term ‘Mitbestimmung’. Only when I referto the equal representation of capital and work inadvisory boards of big companies, I use the word‘co-determination’, which catches more precisely theoriginal meaning of the German word ‘Mitbestimmung’.

value despite some rivalry-relat-ed problems; together with advi-sory boards they comprise sen-ior managements of almost allbig companies (since 1976 equalrepresentation of capital andlabour has to be guaranteed inall big incorporated companiesalthough some exceptionsapply). Apart from works coun-cils, there are staff councilswith roughly the same rights oneach level of the state – in everyfederal ministry and administra-tion, in all 16 states and in morethan 16.000 municipalities.Works councils and staff coun-cils are normally closely linkedto individual trade unions aswell as to the Confederation ofGerman Trade Unions (DGB).They are used by the unions astheir organisational basis incompanies and administrations,whereas the councils can bene-fit from the fighting power ofthe unions.The negative side however

cannot be ignored. For years,business associations havefought against equal representa-tion in advisory boards. EUdirectives on European incorpo-rated companies, relocations ofcompanies and cross-borderfusions threaten to undermineGermany’s Co-Determinationprinciple. I will come back tothat point later. Moreover, theParticipation rules for the work-ing as well as the corporatelevel include a number of short-comings, loopholes and infuriat-ing concessions made to thecapital side. One should alsonot keep quiet about the recentcases of outrageous corruptionsof some works councils repre-sentatives by corporate manage-ments. Of course, such caseswill be picked by Co-Determination’s opponents to

thus to the state – from munici-palities to state level – as well.The foundation of the Federal

Republic of Germany in 1949was overshadowed by the ColdWar and Germany’s division.Also, broad majorities of people,for example in Hesse and NorthRhine-Westphalia, voted infavour of the immediate nation-alization of the primary indus-tries when in each state referen-da on the state constitutions tookplace. Even, the Western alliesstrived for a vast unbundling ofthese core industries. Onlyagainst such a backdrop, one canunderstand how in 1952 anagreement on co-determinationbased on equal representation inadvisory boards of the coal andsteel industry could be achieved.This historical compromisebetween Konrad Adenauer andHans Böckler soon became thesymbol of the Participation prin-ciple in Western Germany.Considering Participation in

Germany from a European per-spective, however, we can onlyproperly understand its estab-lishment in today’s FederalRepublic by examining a num-ber of further developmentswhich have happened in themeantime since 1952. The divi-sion of interest representationbetween works councils andtrade unions has proved its

of the Weimar Republic in1918/1919 and at the new begin-ning of Germany’s secondrepublic, our federal republictoday, which emerged after thecatastrophes of Nazi Germany, itbecomes clear how such exten-sive employment rights couldevolve in Germany. It alsoexplains why strong structuresof interest representation andsocial partnership, which after 6decades of dramatically econom-ic upheaval and expansion stillexist and even could partly beextended over time, developed.After the collapse of the

German empire in 1918 andalso indirectly as an answer tothe October Revolution inRussia, a double structure ofinterest representation withincompanies, so called workscouncils, which are elected byall employees and are bound tothe ‘well-being’ of companies,and trade unions, which areresponsible for all questions oncollective bargaining policy, wasestablished. Although an all-embracing council conceptquickly appeared impracticable,it nevertheless was obvious thatthe right to participation shouldnot only be applied to privateeconomy. Instead theParticipation principle shouldalso be applied to all publiccompanies and administration,


‘EU directives on European incorpo-rated companies, relocations ofcompanies and cross-border fusionsthreaten to undermine Germany’sCo-Determination principle’

employees, which has been bor-rowed from democratisationprinciple, and accession to tradeunions in civil society.After having established the

general value of the GermanParticipation principle, itsadvantage for a EU facing cur-rently the above mentionedproblems is that the GermanParticipation form could berealised as a qualitativeimprovement of industrial rela-tionship independent fromnational income per head. Forexample when West-Germanyintroduced Participation in thecoal and steel industry, livingstandard was not higher astoday in Poland or CzechRepublic. Accordingly, excuses,like Participation could not beintroduced, applied orenhanced because a country isnot ready for such a step yet orbecause a country already pos-sesses enough wealth, could notbe made. Considering thesestrategic aspects, one must saythat there is no other principlethan the Co-Determination andParticipation principle whichwould better suit best-practice-comparisons, mutual learningprocesses, or in the EU jargonso-called ‘open methods of coor-dination’.At this point, we need to have

a look at the different experi-ences made by the civil soci-eties of the Western and EasternEuropean states and at theirtoday’s situations. Generally inthe new EU member states,there is hardly a powerful, self-confident trade union organisa-tion to find. Reasons for that arethe decade-long control of thestate apparatus by the commu-nist party, later often obscure‘rope team’ parties, the decade-long absence of independent

Participation within theEuropean Integration ProcessSince the accession of theMiddle and Eastern Europeancountries to the EU, the EU hasbeen confronted with chal-lenges, with which on that scaleneither a democratic state nor ademocratic entity like a statehave dealt so far. The hugewealth and poverty gap betweenthe EU member states (per headas well as on national average)is unprecedented in the Union’shistory. The EU must thereforemore than ever look for possi-bilities and mechanisms tostrengthen and enhance socialcohesion among its citizens.The old ‘richer’ member statescan not wait in times of globali-sation till the new ‘poorer’member states caught up.Material redistribution betweenold and new member states,which is of course indispensa-ble, is severely constrained.A particular strength of

Participation lies in that point –although I want to add that I donot want to suggest the othercountries copying the Germanexperience. However, we haveto analyse the democratic con-struction logic behind theGerman example so that we canreveal its ‘European addedvalue’. In my opinion, one gen-eral European added value ofthe German Participation princi-ple is that it links a strong formof institutionalised and for-malised employees’Participation in companies andpublic administration to tradeunion organisations based onvoluntary membership. By com-bining these two elements aspecial duration of interest rep-resentation has been created,namely the combination ofParticipation rights for all

question the whole principle ofParticipation.In sum, we can say: The

fundamental idea behindParticipation in both the pri-vate and public sector inGermany is inseparably linkedto other elements of the welfarestate, for example to publicservices. ‘Democracy shall notend in front of companies’doors’ – this slogan is almostunquestioned in Germany. Onecould add to that slogan:democracy shall also count forstate administration by givingtheir employees Participationrights too. The principle ofParticipation has often servedas a link to other parts of civilsociety, notably education andmedia. For example, the socalled ‘group university’ aroseout of the student movement of1968 as a till then unknownform of institutionalParticipation of students andemployees in universities’ self-administration. Initiatives aim-ing at editorial Participation inthe media, for instance in theweekly journal ‘Der Spiegel’,headed in the same direction.But let us go back to our actu-

al topic, Europe’s social struc-ture and Participation. In thefollowing paragraphs, I want todeal with the employees’Participation rights as part ofthe European social modelaccording to three aspects: first-ly, the importance of theParticipation principle withinthe European integrationprocess; secondly, its relevanceas regards to globalisation andthirdly, Participation’s contribu-tion to the ecological question.In conclusion, I want to developa number of proposals derivingfrom the examination of thethree aspects.


porters of absolute economicglobalisation of jeopardisingcompetition, building protectivebarriers against internationalcompetitions and thus hinderingthe triumphant success of inno-vation and ‘productive destruc-tion’ in the global economy.In our globalised era, we

nevertheless need Participationas a consequence of ESM.Participation as well as ESM areable to create the necessaryspace for preserving social cohe-sion. In fact they are motivationand driving force behind aneconomy, which is not only con-trolled by the market and thequest for profit. This is alreadytrue for each of two elementsalone. When the EuropeanSocial Model and Participationsupport and complement oneanother, they even become moreimportant for the economy. Iwill explain this argument in thefollowing paragraph.It is unquestioned that from

an economic point of viewevery aspect of Europe’s socialstructure is a huge expense fac-tor. Moreover, globalisationincreases the value of locationfactors. The respective tax rev-enue, the financing of the wel-fare system and public services– all are taken into accountwhen unit labour costs are cal-culated. The competition istherefore stronger than ever.Nonetheless, Europe’s goodsand services can withstandinternational competition sincein terms of innovation or macro-economic productivity theyhave a lead over American andAsian competitors. The focus ofthe Lisbon strategy is to guaran-tee that lead in the future.Employment rights including

the right to strike, trade unionfreedom (right to organise), col-

rested longer in the benefit ofnationalisation than it was thecase in Germany, Austria or theNordic countries.Since the completion of the

single market and the introduc-tion of the Common EuropeanCurrency, it has become appar-ent that European trade unionsneed to move together.Otherwise, loss of social signifi-cance in their countries andinevitably in the entire EU aswell is unstoppable. This leadsto the question whether theabove outlined combination ofinstitutionalised and tradeunions’ participations on boththe economic and governmentallevel should not become one ofthe central joint objectives ofEuropean employee unions.This would not mean to intro-duce the exact same form of theGerman institutionalised andtrade unions’ Participation tothe other EU member states butonly some of its basic princi-ples. The word ‘combination’does already imply that.

Globalisation and ParticipationThe fact that the Europeansocial model and theParticipation principle are to thesame extent challenged by glob-alisation shows how much theybelong together. Indeed, theyboth have been accused by sup-

trade unions (except for Poland)as well as recent traumatic pri-vatisation experiences. Thesanctioned Participations of athird of employees in big com-panies’ advisory boards in mostof these countries do unfortu-nately not carry weight againstthe above mentioned problems.The establishment of a far-reaching Participation culture inthe new EU member states,which would include both theprivate and public sector, there-fore must be accompanied by astrengthening of their tradeunions.In the West European coun-

tries, the situation looks totallydifferent. There, the tradeunions mostly have a proudorganisation history which haslasted over generations. In thesecountries, the trade unions’ his-tory is intimately connected toseveral pillars of the EuropeanSocial Model; often the intro-duction of the social model hadoriginally emerged from tradeunions’ self-help initiatives. Theidea of institutionalised partici-pation forms however did nothave many supporters amongthe British and Romance tradeunions. In those countries, wor-ries to lose the ability to manageconflicts with capital and stateprevailed. Also, the hope of theBritish and Romance countries


‘The fact that the European socialmodel and the Participation principleare to the same extent challenged byglobalisation shows how much theybelong together’

able to anticipate the answer tothat question. Nevertheless, Idare to set up the hypothesisthat a fundamentally important,never used, element of interna-tional solidarity is included inthat question.

Sustainability and ParticipationI reach the last point of my arti-cle. Is there a positive correla-tion between the ecologicalquestion and the Participationprinciple as part of theEuropean Social Model? Theexistence of such a relationshipshould be proved by investigat-ing the debate over today’s andtomorrow’s most importantchallenge to sustainability –human caused climate change.It would go beyond the scope ofthis article to dwell on thedetails of the recent dramaticreports of climate researchers.Beyond all details, however, theconclusion of the former WorldBank economist Sir NicholasStern takes effect, who suggest-ed in his report presented toBritish government in October2006 that ‘ climate change pres-ents a unique challenge for eco-nomics: it is the greatest andwide-ranging market failureever seen’.We need to draw conse-

quences from this acknowledge-ment and map out strategieswhich will prevent such fatalmarket failure. In doing so,overlapping points to theParticipation principle willemerge. The prevention of mar-ket failure is the actual startingpoint for both climate protec-tion and Participation, althougheach context is a completely dif-ferent one. Of course, that doesnot have to mean much. Thechance that a common alliancebetween climate protection and

to settle the arguments, theEuropean level must be used toagree together on an optimalparticipation concept. TheEuropean Works CouncilDirective and the EuropeanCompany Statute (SE) are onlyfirst (albeit important) steps toattain such a concept. The com-petences of European workscouncils need to include realParticipation rights besides theinformation and hearing rights.Also, the election proceduresshould be simplified and thequorum needed for the estab-lishment of a council should belowered.The European Company

Statute offers an acceptablesolution in order to protect theinterests of companies withbranches in countries whichhave broad Participation rights.Nevertheless, it is a strictlydefensive approach. We have tostrive for company constitution,which are based upon the prin-ciple of equality between capitaland work. Such constitutionshould be made obligatory forall European companies at acertain scale. Of course, the EUdirectives on cross-border merg-ers and relocation of companyseats have to be orientated onsuch company constitution too.Before I leave the topic of

‘globalisation and Participation’,I want to raise a question whichdoes not address the people inEurope, but rather people fromother continents. Is it not thecase that for example people inSouth- and North America,Russia, China and India wouldbecome more attracted to theEuropean Social Model as awhole when employee rightswithin the European SocialModel would be strengthened? Ido not want and I am also not

lective bargaining autonomy aswell as Participation rights incompanies and public adminis-tration do not come for free.However, they offer the price-less advantage to give everyone– workers and organisedemployees – decisively moreopportunities of Participationand self-determination. As aresult, advantages in competi-tion arise which exceed thecosts of employment rights.Since it is obvious that with

the proceeding of the globalisa-tion process the external pres-sure on Europe’s economy willincrease, we need all availablesynergy effects, which evolvefrom the interaction of theESM’s material and immaterial(for example improved employ-ment rights) elements.Hence in a first step, all

employees’ Participation rights,which vary widely between theEU member states, should belifted to the level of theParticipation right in the highestdeveloped country. This shouldnot only be a demand of theEuropean trade unions but inthe self-interest of the wholeEU. In Germany, for example,every crucial decision onParticipation, like in 1952 theagreement on Co-Determinationbased on equal representationin advisory boards of the coaland steel industry and in 1976the extension of equal represen-tation in the Participation law,was supported by a broad politi-cal spectrum, which did notonly include social democratsand trade unions but theChristian democratic union too.Whilst the social argument

need to be separately fought ineach member state and due todifferent national backgroundsthere can be various ‘road maps’


and Participation. Both are inde-pendently of each other legiti-mated. The protection of our liferesources and the responsibilityfor our future demand sustain-ability. Participation is basedupon human dignity and democ-racy. This is not a disadvantagebut rather holds potential thatsustainability and Participationcould strengthen and stabiliseeach other. It is essential to usethis potential.

ConclusionThe objective of my interven-tion was to determine the validcore of the Participation princi-ple within the European SocialModel and thus basically for allEU welfare states. I am aware ofthe fact that we are still at thebeginning of a real intensiveEuropean exchange of ideas asregards certain aspects. A broadconsensus amongst tradeunions, which can only emergefrom a joint opinion on strategicobjectives of Participation, is forthat indispensable.But this alone is not enough.

If ‘ownership (of the means ofproduction) obligates and itsuse should serve the collectivegood’ , as it is said in theGerman Basic Law and hopeful-ly soon in a European constitu-tion, Europe-wide Participationrights are in the interests ofeconomy and entrepreneurshiptoo. In the end, the strengthen-ing of the European SocialModel and therefore of theParticipation principle is a com-mon interest of the EU’s societyand politics. We have to per-suade the European politicaland societal protagonists of thenecessity to embark on commoninitiatives, especially in view ofthe challenges which lay infront of us.

Participation could arise fromtheir hostile stance against purebusiness logic might be opposedby the danger of an excludinginstrumentalisation of one prin-ciple against the other one. InGermany, for example, weremember well when employeesworking in the energy industrystrongly supported building anew nuclear power plants inorder to guarantee their own aswell as new jobs. Only after theChernobyl catastrophe a newunderstanding slowly emerged.A difficult learning process isdemanded to accept that sus-tainability must take priorityover productivity and faith intechnology.Yet, in the long run, the

chances, which will evolve fromthe joint support of both climateprotection and a strongParticipation position, will out-weigh. This can be provedwhen considering the individ-ual action programmes forreduction of global warmingand their implementations. Itdoes not matter whether onewants to increase the use ofrenewable energies, improveresource and energy efficiency,or save energy in general; italways depends on initiatinginnovations, drastic conversionof production and changing theway of life. Such measures canbe easier and faster implement-ed when they are not imposedonly by company management,government or by external fac-tors but supported, even some-times started and pushed for-ward, by a conscious and com-petent work force. Thesechances will enhance improvedparticipation rights.Of course, there is no exclusiv-

ity in the relationship betweenthe principles of sustainability


Henning MeyerManaging Editor of Social EuropeJournal (www.social-europe.eu) andHead of European Programme at theGlobal Policy Institute in Londonwww.global-policy.com


IN THE EUROPEAN year ofequal opportunities thereform of the European

Social Model (ESM) is at the topof the political agenda. Taxdumping, international competi-tiveness and the right balancebetween economic flexibilityand social security are the cen-tral points of debate. On a gen-eral level however the discus-sion about the reform of theEuropean Social Model suffersfrom a structural shortcoming:it is too much focussed onEurope itself and thus omits toadequately consider the impor-tance of the global framework.The diverse appearances of

the European Social Model,with its varied financial con-cepts and steering mechanisms,make the discussion about itsreform very complex. This com-plexity also causes the introvert-ed character of the debate.Questions such as whether one

should emulate moreScandinavian welfare policiesor whether ‘flexicurity’ is thesilver bullet to combine labourmarket flexibility and social jus-tice are necessary but not suffi-cient points of discussion. A toointroverted debate implicitlyaccepts global pressures on theEuropean Social Model whereasthe reflection of these pressuresneeds to be an integral part ofthe reform itself.Of course commentators such

as Anthony Giddens, who arearguing that there are globalisa-tion-independent challenges forthe ESM, for instance ageingsocieties and home-grown poli-cy mistakes, are right – andthese problems have to be dealtwith too. But I do not think, asGiddens does, that we are indanger of focussing on the glob-alisation issue too much.1 Theimpact of the current globalisa-tion process on the social orderis dramatic. Nobel Prize win-ning economist Joseph Stiglitzdescribes the present discussionas follows: ‘The globalisationdebate has become so intensebecause so much is at stake –not just economic well-being,but the very nature of our socie-ty, even perhaps the very sur-vival of society as we haveknown it’.2 If this statement iseven half true, one must have avery close look at these global

Thinking Globally: TheReform of the EuropeanSocial Model is also aReform of Globalisation

‘A too introverted debate implicitlyaccepts global pressures on theEuropean Social Model whereasthe reflection of these pressuresneeds to be an integral part of thereform itself’

vital political mechanisms – theinterventionist nation state –without providing substituteregional and global governancearrangements. Negative conse-quences for the principle ofdemocratic accountability andthe role of social partners arealso obvious. This comparisonalso explains why in a game –played almost exclusively to therules of economic globalisation– we have all too often seensocial objectives on the losingside. The social climate hasworsened in recent years – asocial climate change if youwish so – with deterioratingconditions for social policies.More recently however,

increasing resistance against thedescribed character of economicglobalisation has developed.This is because its failures – notjust in social issues – have beenmore and more revealed. TheUK government’s Stern reportcalled the problems of globalclimate change the ‘biggest mar-ket failure in history’.10 Othercommentators forcefully pointto globalisation’s unkept prom-ises to the developing world.11

Political theorists such as theformer German developmentminister Erhard Eppler fightagainst the marketisation ofsociety and statehood.12 Andthere are also attempts to makeimportant financial players suchas hedge-funds more transpar-ent.13 The suspicion of largeparts of Europe’s populationtowards economic globalisationhas been evident for some time.In a nutshell, the dislocations

of economic globalisation arebecoming more and more appar-ent. Against this backdrop,there are signs of a secondphase of globalisation in whichthe shaping of the process is

justice and a set of politicalmechanics to implement thisidea.What is economic globalisa-

tion and what are its conse-quences? Economic globalisa-tion has brought down ‘artificialbarriers to the flows of goods,services, capital, knowledge and(to a lesser extent) people acrossborders’.6 But ‘while nationaleconomies taken together cangain overall from increasedtrade, the gains are highlyuneven. There are clear winnersand losers, both between andwithin countries. (…) Nationalgovernments may protect andcompensate those who are vul-nerable as a result of structuralchange, but increased demandson and costs of the welfare statetend to be resisted by employersin the trading industries vulner-able to global competition’.7 The‘[p]olitical space for the devel-opment and pursuit of effectivegovernment and the accounta-bility of political power is nolonger coterminous with adelimited national territory’.8

And ‘[t]he enhanced position ofcapitalism (…) has resulted inthe state losing its predomi-nance as a site of governance.9

The comparison of thesecharacterisations shows veryclearly the underlying problem:a social value consensus likethe European Social Model isnot incorporated in economicglobalisation, driven forward byinternational trade and profit-seeking financial markets. Farfrom it! Welfare policies are toooften – wrongly – considered aseconomic obstacles and under-mined. Economic globalisationnegatively influences the socialjustice aim of the ESM by pro-ducing increasing inequalitiesand at the same time weakens

issues if a real reform (preserv-ing the substance and character)rather than the adaptation of theESM is the aim. Globalisationputs the very society the ESMseeks to establish under greatpressure.Whereas ‘globalisation’ in

general consists of many levels,most questions of the ESMreform debate originate in theissue of economic globalisation.The preservation of welfare sys-tems combined with sustainedor even increased competitive-ness in the global economy isthe objective that determinesreform proposals. But this effortis like squaring the circlebecause the values dimension ofthe European Social Model con-flicts with the contemporaryspirit of economic globalisation.To reveal this incompatibilitywe have to characterise andcompare the two concepts.What is the European Social

Model? The European SocialModel in its most basic sense isbest understood as a Europe-wide shared political value ofsocial and risk protection ondifferent levels based on thenotion of ‘social sustainability’.The operational application ofthis shared value admittedlylooks quite different acrossEurope.3 On a minimum levelhowever, the European SocialModel requires a developed andinterventionist state, free andcompulsory education, a robustwelfare state and the limitationor containment of differentforms of inequality.4 A widerdefinition includes also a rolefor the social partners and the‘principle of democracy’ in thepolitical as well as socio-eco-nomic sphere.5 The EuropeanSocial Model hence is theexpression of a notion of social


first 50 years was the orderingof its internal affairs, the nextdecades will be much moredetermined by Europe’s role inthe wider world15 – not leastbecause internal affairs aremore and more interdependentwith the wider world. Againstthe background of the aboveargument, it becomes clear thatEurope’s social ideals need to bea core element of the conti-nent’s engagement in the widerworld if the ESM is to be pre-served and globalisation turnedmore socially sustainable.Globalisation can be a very

good thing and it is crucial notto become hostile towards theidea in general but to deal withits shortcomings and developpolitical solutions where neces-sary. The current globalisationdeficiencies clearly necessitate anew politics of redistribution tocontain the growing inequalitiesdriving societies apart.‘Economic theory does not saythat everyone will win fromglobalisation, but only that thenet gains will be positive, andthat the winners can thereforecompensate the losers and stillcome out ahead’.16 This meansthat globalisation will only real-ly work for all, if mechanisms ofredistribution are used to bal-ance increasing inequalities.The creation of new redistribu-

sation debate and the reform ofthe European Social Modelurges us to think about ‘socialsustainability’ and a ‘socialmodel’ in broader terms. Itforces us to find ways to recre-ate the notion of social justiceand the necessary politicalmechanics on a European andglobal scale. We have to startthinking seriously about howsuch ‘global social politics’could look like in detail andhow its implementation couldwork. We know that ‘globalsocial politics’ would need both,the right policy mix and thenecessary institutions on allpolitical levels to implementthese policies. Currently there isa lack of both ingredients. Inthe few cases where we havesupranational political institu-tions – for instance on theEuropean Union level – socialpolitics are underdeveloped.And in most cases – especiallyon the global level – even effec-tive political institutions them-selves are absent.So, where does the debate

currently stand in Europe?Having just passed the 50thanniversary of the Rome Treaty,the European Union is lookingfor a renewed sense of purpose.I think Peter Mandelson is rightwhen he argues, that whilstEurope’s big achievement in its

central.14 Globalisation as suchis welcomed but the politicalscope of action has to be wonback to give societal demandsthe necessary power of decision.Under these circumstances,

the discussion about the reformof the European Social Modelcannot be led in an isolated andinward looking manner. The toooften separated European andglobal reform debates need to bemerged because they determineeach other. An idea of ‘reform’that is only focused on Europeis too short-sighted. Not onlythe described influence of theglobalisation debate on theEuropean discourse is true butalso vice versa the fact thatEurope is important for reform-ing globalisation. The Europeandebate is relevant because theEuropean Union, as the mostsuccessful supranational gover-nance system, teaches impor-tant lessons at the global leveland because the concept of‘social sustainability’, which isthe basis of the European SocialModel, must also be introducedin the global circumstances ifthe negative consequences ofglobalisation are to be con-tained.The conflict between the val-

ues of the European SocialModel and the current characterof economic globalisation aswell as their reciprocal meaninghave to be understood. If this isdone it becomes clear that thereform of the European SocialModel must also be a reform ofglobalisation and vice versa. Asimple adaptation to the imper-atives of current economic glob-alisation is bound to fail socialobjectives.What are the consequences of

this values incompatibility? Theconnection between the globali-


‘Globalisation can be a very goodthing and it is crucial not to becomehostile towards the idea in generalbut to deal with its shortcomingsand develop political solutionswhere necessary’

tive policies and mechanismsfor the age of globalisation willbe a major social democraticproject for the years to comeand a starting point to shapeglobalisation. What better timethan the European year of equalopportunities to get this missionunderway?


Footnotes

1 See Giddens, Anthony (2007):Europe in the Global Age, Polity,Cambridge, p. 6.

2 Stiglitz, Joseph (2006): MakingGlobalisation Work: The nextSteps to Global Justice, Penguin,London, p. 288.

3See Andersen, Gøsta-Esping(1989): The Three Worlds ofWelfare Capitalism, Polity,Cambridge.

4See Giddens, Anthony (2006): ASocial Model for Europe?, in:Giddens, Anthony, PatrickDiamond and Roger Liddle (eds.):Global Europe, Social Europe,Polity, Cambridge, p. 15.

5See Albers, Detlev, StephenHaseler and Henning Meyer:Social Europe: An Introduction,in: Albers Detlev, Stephen Haselerand Henning Meyer (eds.): SocialEurope: A Continent’s Answer toMarket Fundamentalism,European Research Forum atLondon Metropolitan University,London, p. 4.

6Stiglitz, Joseph (2002):Globalization and its Discontents,Penguin, London, p. 9.

7Held, David, Anthony McGrew(eds.): Introduction, in: HeldDavid, Anthony McGrew:Governing Globalization: PowerAuthority and Global Governance,Polity, Cambridge, pp. 2-3.

8 Ibid, p. 7.

9 Steans, Jill (2002): GlobalGovernance: A feminist perspec-tive, in: Held David, Anthony

McGrew: GoverningGlobalization: Power Authorityand Global Governance, Polity,Cambridge, p. 93.

1 0Stern, Nicholas (2007): TheEconomics of Climate Change:The Stern Review, CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge.

11Stiglitz, Joseph (2006): MakingGlobalisation Work: The nextSteps to Global Justice, Penguin,London.

12See Eppler, Erhard (2005):Auslaufmodell Staat?, Suhrkamp,Frankfurt.

13’Germany pushes G7 ministersto scutinise hedge funds’,Financial Times, 7th Feb 2007.

14 See for instance Mandelson,Peter (2007): The EuropeanUnion in the Global Age, PolicyNetwork, London.

15 See Mandelson, Peter (2007):The European Union in theGlobal Age, Policy Network,London.

16 Stiglitz, Joseph (2006): ‘MakingGlobalisation Work’, TheGuardian Comment is Free, 7thSeptember, http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/joseph_stiglitz/2006/09/stiglitz.html

THERE ARE CURRENTLY manydebates about the models for theorganisation and management of

society in the context of globalisation.The European Social Model (ESM) hasbecome the object of renewed interest,careful analysis and sometimes criti-cism. Russia has played its part andthe range of ideas and opinionsexpressed is vast and not necessarilycoherent.Some consider the European Social

Model to be a positive example of mod-ern social organisation, and its funda-mental principles a qualitative basis forprogress. Others completely deny theexistence of a unified European SocialModel, arguing that the various socialsystems – liberal in the UnitedKingdom, greater corporatist role of thestate in Germany and France, socialdemocrat in Scandinavia – are basedon very different and independentmodels.All these variants are, however,

inserted into the framework of theEuropean Social Model, since the fun-damental principles are a matter of

consensus and are included in variousforms in national social models. Theseare social justice, social cohesion andsolidarity, a competitive but sociallyregulated economy. The major questionis whether the European Social Modelcan find solutions to the challenges ofthe 21st century, i.e. globalisation andthe diversity of the member states.Regrettably, it has to be recognised thatat the present time, the grounds forspeaking of a unified and clearly for-mulated conception of European socialpolicy are insufficient. Moreover, socialintegration is lagging behind economicintegration.Since social policy was the basis for

the European Social Model, there hasalways been strong reaction to changesto living and working conditions.Today, however, in addition to thenecessity of resolving traditional socialproblems, we observe completely newsocial concerns about social security,the environment and the negative con-sequences of globalisation.Changes in the way social policy is

carried out may also be observed. Itsclear goal is now not only to supportsocially and economically underprivi-leged groups, but also give each mem-ber of society the opportunity for self-fulfilment, and to contribute to the cre-ation of wealth, which should beshared equitably.The construction of a unified social

space to the benefit of all within theEU is not yet complete, although somesteps towards a citizens’ Europe havebeen made. Every large-scale measure

A Russian Perspective OnThe European Social Model

‘The major question is whetherthe European Social Model canfind solutions to the challengesof the 21st century, i.e. globalisa-tion and the diversity of themember states’164 Social Europe the journal of the european left Spring 2007

Marina KargalovaHead of the Centre forSocial Studies at theInstitute of Europe ofthe Russian Academyof Sciences

requires a social basis which under-pins the organising forces. The currentsystem of relations between the majorsocial partners – the state, businessand civil society – almost certainlyneeds improvement.The fundamental principles of the

European Social Model provide aframework for the organisational struc-ture of society, where goals, rights andobligations of the various partners canbe determined. Social partnership isnow moving to a higher level of poten-tial. There are many indicators thatpoint to the emergence of a new modelof social partnership, that is crossingstate frontiers and started to take on aninternational dimension. Developmentis gradual, but it may be observed inthe bringing together of dialoguesbetween social, civil and political part-ners and is a clear signal of the deep-ening and widening of European inte-gration.Within the framework of co-opera-

tion and reciprocal measures betweenpartners, the scope of their socialresponsibilities becomes manifest.Moreover, they have to realise theirresponsibility for the destiny of thewhole of society and not merely to pro-tect the interests of the groups thatthey represent.For the European Social Model to

become reality, social and manage-ment structures must be improved.This new type of management is basedon dialogue and co-operation and noton hierarchy and pressure. This levelof social dialogue presupposes toler-ance between all participants in theprocess and good will to accept sensi-ble compromises. Member states,political parties, trade unions and non-governmental organisation all have animportant contribution to make.Through their collaboration based onthe fundamental principles of theEuropean Social Model, the idea ofcreating social security zones whichmay later be extended to the whole ofthe EU becomes realistic.

Using the possibilities afforded by ITand other new technologies is crucialin the construction of this equal socialspace, underpinned by a new type ofsocial partnership, social solidarity andcohesion as proclaimed by theEuropean Social Model. This model isnot set in stone for all time, but theideal to which Europe aspires, can bemodified and enlarged in response tonew challenges. It is no coincidence,however, that the model has arousedsuch great interest outside Europe,since it adheres to values of humanityand civilisation that are not ephemeral.It is no coincidence either that the

model is of great interest in Russia.Our country chose to make far-reach-ing democratic reforms and not merelyin the social domain, without achiev-ing the expected results fully andimmediately.It would also be erroneous to argue

that the European Social Model shouldsimply be exported. Many of its tenetscannot be implemented in all circum-stances. For instance, with regard tothe state and its social roles, specificnational characteristics and traditionsplay a decisive role. The latest socialreforms in Europe were aimed atreducing state responsibility and elicit-ing other sources of finance for socialservices.A crucial question for Russia is

whether liberal social policies can beimplemented. For several decades theRussian state had the monopoly ofsocial policy – a situation accepted bythe majority of the population.Premature enthusiasm for liberalismand a misguided interpretation of theprinciple of subsidiarity have alreadycaused difficulties and failures insocial reforms. Regional imbalancesand the weakening of centralised con-trol have led to serious negative conse-quences in the application of nation-wide social projects.Today it may be said that Russia has

adopted the following policy princi-ples: a strong state, the implementation


of a modern social policy through leg-islation and available administrativeresources; socially responsible businesspractices and a civil society that cannot only participate in managing but isalso able to control social partners.As Director of the research centre of

the Russian Academy of Sciences andparliamentary expert (to the douma), Ican assure you that the problems ofeconomic and social developmentreceive constant attention in our coun-try. The detailed analysis of the EUexperience in this area, the examina-tion of the real achievements of its eco-nomic and social development remainmatters for reflection. The necessity ofdrawing up a clear strategy for a social-ly oriented market economy is verymuch on the agenda in Russia.


Verlag J.H.W. Dietz Nachf. – Dreizehnmorgenweg 24 – 53175 Bonn – GermanyTel +49/(0)228/238083 – Fax +49/(0)228/234104 – E-Mail: [email protected] www.dietz-verlag.de

The Social DemocraticParty of Germany1848–2005

Heinrich Potthoff and Susanne Miller‘s history ofGerman social democracy offers the general publican academic account of the historical developmentof social democracy and the SPD‘s conception ofitself. The revised 2002 edition of this standardwork now finally appears in English translation andhas an additional chapter covering developmentsfrom 2002 up until the federal elections of 2005.The SPD is a party of long-standing tradition andhas played a vital role in German history. Its influ-ence has extended beyond the borders of Germanyto Europe and the rest of the world.

Its authors »trace the evolution of the SPD with greatcritical acumen, providing an objective overview ofthe party‘s understanding of itself.«Hans Dietz speaking on ›Süddeutscher Rundfunk‹

Heinrich Potthoff /Susanne MillerThe Social DemocraticParty of Germany1848–2005496 pagesEuro 48,00ISBN 978-3-8012-0365-8

http://www.dietz-verlag.de

INGERMANY THERE is widespreadfear of globalisation. More and morepeople are afraid of losing their

workplace and welfare and fear for thefuture of their children. So far, politicswas unable to provide a clear answerfor these deep-rooted and valid fears.The most important political task istherefore to determine the role of thenation state in the 21st century. Aboveall in the economy, the future of thesocial market model under the condi-tions of globalisation must be examined.

What does ‘Social Market Economy’mean?In order to position the Social MarketEconomy, one has to consider all func-tions currently executed by this specif-ic economic model. The Social MarketEconomy is at its core a competitivesystem. This does not necessarily meanthat it is unsocial. The market more-over provides a cunning transformationof individual egoism to positive macro-economic behaviour:‘Our food supply is guaranteed not

because of the goodwill of butchers,farmers and bakers but because theyact in their own interests.’In order to make sure that this is the

way the economy functions, a work-force that is able to think long-term isneeded. For example, a baker only pro-duces good bread rolls if she/he caresfor her/his reputation. Yet, many play-ers, especially in the financial busi-nesses, lack such long-term thinking.This is one of the conceptual short-comings of the market economy.

The Social Market Economy comple-ments the ‘invisible hand’ of the mar-ket on three counts:

1. It creates a social balance betweencapable people, who achieve highincomes in the market process, anddisadvantaged people, who arebeing left out. Therefore, publicredistribution mechanisms, whichallow for various transfers to disad-vantaged people, can be found inmost countries.

2. It also provides collective securitysystems for life risks. High individ-ual risks, like loss of employmentor severe diseases, can be signifi-cantly reduced by paying a month-ly insurance premium.

3.And with an educational system,which is both free of charge andtop quality, the Social MarketEconomy makes an important con-tribution to the sustainability ofsociety too. The educational sys-tem combines the redistributionand insurance functions since thestate assumes the risk for its citi-zens by paying the high education-al costs in advance.

The Necessity of the Social MarketEconomy under the Conditions ofGlobalisationHow does globalisation affect ahighly developed economy andwhat effects does it have for itscentral functions?

The Social Market Model ina Globalised Economy


Peter BofingerProfessor ofEconomics atWürzburg Universityand member of theGerman government’seconomic advisorycouncil

• It can be argued that due to theglobal division of labour nationaleconomies can generally increasetheir welfare. Globalisation is nostatic zero-sum game but a dynam-ic process, which can produceprofits for every participating state.

• Yet, for some groups within coun-tries globalisation can lead to adeterioration of their living stan-dards. In Germany globalisationweighs heavily on people with lowskills in particular.

What does this mean for the redistrib-ution function of a Social MarketEconomy? If we abandon this functionor at least cut back on it, we wouldrun the risk that an increasing numberof people experience the in fact advan-tageous process of globalisation as aloss of wealth. This in turn wouldinevitably jeopardise the existingbroad political consensus for openmarkets. According to the FederalReserve Chairman Ben Bernanke: ‘Thechallenge for policymakers is to ensurethat the benefits of global economicintegration are sufficiently widelyshared (….) so that a consensus forwelfare-enhancing change can beobtained.’ Indeed.It is therefore consistent that in fun-

damentally market-oriented countries,like in the US and the UK, there is aform of negative income tax, whichguarantees that employees with a mini-mum income have enough money tosurvive on.

Since globalisation is accompaniedby major uncertainties in the economicprocess, one has to deal carefully withthe collective security systems, such asunemployment insurance for instance.If the state reduces the insurancecover, risk on the individual levelwould increase. Personal responsibilityof course sounds good; however, it isnot necessarily better suited thaninsurance systems. No one for examplewould argue for abolishing vehicleinsurance in order to encourage peopleto assume more personal responsibilityfor their driving. Less social security isespecially problematic in times of ris-ing risks. This is exactly the problem ofmany employees, which already afterone year of unemployment are in dan-ger of ending up at the lowest level ofsociety. Personal responsibility there-fore leads to an individually risk-aversebehaviour. In Germany for instance,people have significant savings whileonly few invest in properties. The factthat fewer and fewer babies are born inGermany is also alarming.From a business angle, it may make

sense to transfer as many risks as pos-sible to each employee so that compa-nies do not bear the costs of the collec-tive security systems. Yet, in the longrun this is not necessarily beneficialfor the overall economic dynamic. It isa mistake to believe that protectionagainst daily risks would diminish pri-vate initiatives. As climbing to the topof a mountain can often only beachieved with stirrups and a rope, ade-quate social security systems provideevery person with the possibility totake economic risks.How does globalisation affect the

role of the state as investor in educa-tion? It is well known that in Germany– compared to other OECD countries –too little is spent on primary and sec-ondary schools. At the same time, thenumber of young people who are goingto universities is alarmingly small. Andit is beyond dispute that we will notwin the future with our potatoes or


‘For some groups within countriesglobalisation can lead to a deterio-ration of their living standards. InGermany globalisation weighsheavily on people with low skillsin particular’

beautiful landscapes but only withintelligent people.Hence, in this situation it would be

fatal if the state withdraws from itsrole as investor in human capital. Froman economic point of view, a state,which provides education measures forfree, can by all means be regarded as‘venture capital investor’ since itinvests in young people in order toprofit in future via high tax revenuesfrom the economic success of suchinvestments. Is this not a superiorstrategy compared to an approach,which introduces tuition fees but atthe same time reduces taxes?Social compensation, social security

systems and public investment inhuman capital therefore becomeincreasingly important under the con-ditions of intensifying globalisation.This is the only way to avoid that theglobalisation process forces politiciansto pursue protectionism and unsettlespeople in such a way that they increas-ingly do not dare to make individualfuture investments.

What does a New Social MarketEconomy look like?Is it still possible to finance its func-tions? Under the conditions of globali-sation is a state still able to take care ofits citizens to such an extent?In Germany the idea that future chal-

lenges can only be met if the role ofthe state is pushed back has becomewidely accepted in the last years. As aconsequence, in Germany theStaatsquote, i.e. the ratio of govern-ment spending to GDP, sank by 2 percent from 1999 till now. Yet, with thisdecision Germany embarked on a spe-cial path. In the other countries of theEuropean Monetary Union, govern-ment spending has remained nearlyconstant since 1999. From 2007onwards, public spending in thesecountries will even be 2 ? per centhigher than in Germany. Since thesecountries are economically more suc-cessful than Germany, there is no proof

that the decision of the German gov-ernment has paid off or was eveninevitable.The Scandinavian example shows

that the model of a ‘strong state’ is sus-tainable. These countries offer their cit-izens great social protection, an excel-lent education system, and a superbinfrastructure. This ‘5 star hotel’ modelwith all its inclusive services can how-ever only be run if one demands hightaxes for it. Contrary to the prevailingopinion in Germany, such high taxescan go along with a dynamic economy,low unemployment and solid publicfinances.Hence, there is no inevitability that

in the global economy only the modelof a ‘lean state’ is sustainable. A defen-sive approach, like the one Germanyhas been following so far, rather holdsthe danger that we fall behind coun-tries, in which the state proactivelysupports the future of its citizens.A plea for the Social Market

Economy should not be limited toarguing for the status quo. Social sys-tems can only survive if they reactearly to changes in their settings.Considering Germany’s pension sys-

tem, it becomes apparent thatGermany’s Social Market Economy iscapable of adaptation. Demography is abig challenge for the pension system.Simple economic logic says that a gen-eration, which has fewer children thanthe generation of their parents, has tobe content with a lower pension level.Already the government underChancellor Kohl recognised this andseriously cut benefits in the 1990s.Further extensive cuts were madewhen the so-called Riester Rente wasimplemented in 2001 and later, in2004, with the sustainable pension law.Overall, the pensions have beensecured, but at a clearly lower level.What is significant is that these neces-sary reforms could be adopted by con-sensus including all political forces.The development from an industry

to a service and information society


poses a serious challenge to the SocialMarket Economy. It leads to a blurringof the classic dividing line betweendependent employment and self-employment. This is a problem forsocial security systems since they arerestricted to dependent employees. Ifsystems have also a redistributive func-tion, one should not be surprised thatmany people declare themselves to be‘self-employed’ in order to abstain fromthis form of solidarity. This, on theother hand, causes a dangerous erosionof the financial basis of the social secu-rity systems.Accordingly, a New Social Market

Economy must include forms ofBürgerversicherungen (citizens insur-ances), which guarantee insurancecover independent of employment sta-tus. ‘Citizen models’ within the socialsecurity systems however do not nec-essarily require the state to offer allbenefits alone. This applies especiallyto health insurance. In Germany anexpert advisory board developed ahealth insurance model calledBürgerpauschale, which combines astatutory health insurance system witha private health insurance organisation.

The Social Market Economy: ASuccess Model and not anObsolescent ModelOne does not have to be a prophet topredict that in economic terms evenmore difficult times lie ahead of us. Ifwe want to keep heading towards openmarkets, it will be important to makesure that people do not feel ruthlessly

exposed to market forces. This requiresa rather higher than lesser degree ofsocial balancing (in particular in formof a negative income tax), a moreactive education policy and efficientsocial security systems. TheScandinavian countries show that it ispossible to organise a strong state in away that from the citizens’ as well asthe companies’ point of view, theprice/performance ratio works.


‘If we want to keep headingtowards open markets, it willbe important to make sure thatpeople do not feel ruthlesslyexposed to market forces’

IT IS WIDELY and almostinstinctively assumed thatthe progressive and realist

approaches to foreign policy areby nature opposed. Thisassumption is both mistaken initself and a terrible obstacle tothe creation of a progressivestrategy in opposition to theimperial dreams of the Bushadministration and much of theUS establishment. It has con-tributed greatly to the failure ofthe Democratic Party in the USto emerge as an effective forcein this regard.The record of the Clinton

administration should be a les-son to Democrats of the need toincorporate a greater degree ofrealism into their foreign policythinking, especially when itcomes to developing a morecritical approach to ostensibly‘humanitarian’ interventionsand to claims that strategies ofUS global dominance are legiti-mated by the US role in spread-ing ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’.Tragically, the US war over

Kosovo, and statements like thatof Secretary of State MadeleineAlbright about the US as the‘indispensable nation’ helped toprepare the way for the extremeliberal imperialist agenda of theBush administration. The USdisaster in Somalia in 1993 forits part should have been a les-son that even the very purest of

intentions will not prevent disas-ter if they are not accompaniedby knowledge and realism con-cerning both the actual forces atwork in the countries concerned,and the innate nature of US mili-tary power (or indeed any out-side military power) and itspotentially disastrous effects onlocal populations.Unfortunately, too many for-

eign policy intellectuals in theDemocratic Party, and especiallythose grouped round theProgressive Policy Institute (thethink tank of the DemocraticLeadership Council) show littlesign of having learnt these les-sons, despite their disastrousrole in supporting and helpingto propagandize for the Iraq War.The need for realists to adopt

elements of what has been con-sidered progressive thinking isnot quite so obvious, and isfocused above all on two areas.The first is the need to payattention to the internal condi-tion of states, rather than sim-ply their relative power andtheir external behavior. This issomething to which much ofthe realist tradition has tradi-tionally been indifferent – andhas been rightly criticized forthis in recent years.For it is not merely that 9/11

has demonstrated that the inter-nal decay of even a very weakcountry can create appalling ter-

On the Marriage ofProgress and Realism

Anatol LievenLieven is an award winning author andSenior Research Fellow with the NewAmerica Foundation in Washington DC(www.newamerica.net)


This article was first published inthe Boston Review

possibility of human progressand is committed to progress. Itis also emotionally inclined tooptimism concerning humannature. The realist tradition isnaturally inclined to a pes-simistic view of human nature,and often derives from original-ly religious beliefs concerningthe fallen nature and innate sin-fulness of mankind, and theimpossibility of any perfectsolution to mankind’s problems.As George Kennan wrote (inresponse to a Quaker documentattacking the strategy of ‘con-taining’ Soviet Communism),

‘It is idle to suppose that justbecause we human beings haveour redeeming qualities and ourmoments of transcendent great-ness, we are ‘nice people’. Weare not. There are many timesand situations when we requirerestraint…It would be a luxury,admittedly, to be able to dis-pense with violence. But this is aluxury which man, in his pres-ent state, cannot permit himself.He is not that good. His respon-sibility is not that small.’1

Every form of realism doesindeed involve an opposition torevolutionary change, anacceptance of certain nationaland international evils, and adeep skepticism about humanand social perfectibility. Thishas set the realist tradition

phies is in fact to a great extentfalse; and this is demonstratedby the fact that ReinholdNiebuhr and E.H.Carr –arguably the two greatest realistthinkers in the American andBritish traditions respectively –both considered themselves tobe progressives.Carr was identified with sym-

pathy for the Soviet Union.Niebuhr was a strong opponentof Soviet communism, and astrong influence on Truman’s‘containment’ doctrine. Yet formost of his career Niebuhr tooconsidered himself a democraticsocialist, and for both socialistand Christian reasons, main-tained throughout his life astrongly critical attitude toWestern democratic capitalistmaterialism and its belief that ithad found a solution to all theproblems of man.Two other great American

realists, Hans Morgenthau andGeorge Kennan, though not in abroader sense progressives,came together with Niebuhr inopposition to the Vietnam Warand to a US imperialism justi-fied in the name of spreading‘Democracy’ and ‘Freedom’.Of course, real elements of

tension between realist and pro-gressive thought do exist, at thepractical, intellectual and per-haps most of all emotional lev-els. The progressive tradition byits very nature believes in the

rorist problems for much morepowerful states. Equally impor-tant is the fact that throughoutmuch of modern history, fromthe French Revolution throughthe Russian Revolution toNazism, radical internal develop-ments have led in turn to cata-strophic international wars. Thisis increasingly admitted even by‘classical’ realists to have been afailure of their tradition.The second area where real-

ists need to learn from parts ofthe Left refers to the threat ofglobal warming and what to doabout it, since it is increasinglyevident that the extent of thisdevelopment – far more thanterrorism – will present thegreatest menace to modern civ-ilization over the generationsto come. Of course, for a realistfocused exclusively on thewellbeing of himself, his fami-ly or his nation only in thisgeneration, this need not mat-ter very much.But the great ancestor of mod-

ern Anglo-American realism,Edmund Burke, famouslybelieved in society as a contractbetween the living, the dead,and those yet to be born – astatement close to the famousenvironmentalist maxim that‘we have only borrowed theworld from our grandchildren.’.Given the scientific evidenceabout the extent of the futurethreat of global warming tohuman civilization, a principledBurkean realist is therefore vir-tually compelled to action onbehalf of our descendants.

*

The idea of a necessary intellec-tual and moral oppositionbetween progressivism and real-ism as foreign policy philoso-


‘The second area where realistsneed to learn from parts of theLeft refers to the threat of globalwarming and what to do about it’

the phrase of CardinalRichelieu, a ‘permanent conver-sation’ pointing towards thepossibility of creating a ‘com-munity of reason.’Niebuhr, as a protestant the-

ologian, necessarily took a pes-simistic view of man as a fallenbeing, and passed this pes-simism on to Carr. However,Niebuhr also wrote that,

‘It is possible for both individu-als and groups [includingnations] to relate concern for theother with interest and concernfor the self. There are endlessvarieties of creativity in commu-nity; for neither the individualnor the community can realizeitself except in relation to, and inencounter with, other individu-als and groups…A valid moraloutlook for both individuals andfor groups, therefore, sets no lim-its to the creative possibility ofconcern for others, but makes noclaims that such creativity everannuls the power of self-concernor removes the peril of preten-sion if the force of residual ego-tism is not acknowledged.’4

Today, a creative combination ofprogressive and realist thoughtis both possible and necessaryconcerning a whole set of press-ing issues. These include theenvironment; opposition toattempts at ‘unipolar’ worlddomination; respect for non-Western states and the nation-alisms that underpin them; anawareness of the extremelycomplex historic bases ofdemocracy; and a concern forthe domestic example ofWestern democracies as thefoundation of spreading democ-racy in the world.

*

of room for the promotion ofhuman progress, though notperfection. It is simply morerealistic about the limits on thatprogress, and the effort andtime that is often necessary inorder to achieve it.For in Niebuhr’s words, man

is a lion – a ferocious and car-nivorous animal – but he is also‘a curious kind of lion whodreams of the day when the lionand the lamb will lie downtogether.’2 In other words,acknowledging reality does notmean approving that reality, orabandoning the duty to try tochange that reality for the better.As Carr wrote,

‘Any sound political thoughtmust be based on elements ofboth utopia and reality. Whereutopianism has become a hollowand intolerable sham, whichserves merely as a guise for theinterests of the privileged, therealist performs an indispensableservice in unmasking it. Butpure realism can offer nothingbut a naked struggle for powerwhich makes any kind of inter-national society impossible.Having demolished the currentutopia with the weapons of real-ism, we still need to build a newutopia of our own, which willone day fall to the sameweapons.’3

Carr’s and Niebuhr’s utopia wascomposed of two principal ele-ments: a belief in the possibilityof human progress, thoughnever of human perfection; anda belief in the possibility of aninternational order whichwould increase the possibilityof international co-operationand decrease that of war,though never banishing the pos-sibility of conflict altogether: in

against revolutionaries of bothLeft and Right – including theneo-conservatives.The progressive tradition is

even more multiform, but all itsforms involve a greater or lesserdegree of commitment to thereform of society and theimprovement of the human con-dition. There can thus be noreconciliation between progres-sive thought and ‘classical’ real-ism in the form pursued byMetternich or Kissinger: a phi-losophy of pure realpolitik indefense of the status quo, withno commitment to or interest inthe promotion of positivechange even in the long term.On the extreme Left, by con-

trast, utopian hopes for thefuture perfectibility of mankindhave also been combined with aferocious kind of ‘realism’ con-cerning human nature in thepresent, and the means neces-sary to control and shape it. Thisstrange combination underlies inpart the monstrous crimes of theFrench, Russian and Chineserevolutionaries. Extreme conser-vative realism believed that thesinfulness of human nature ingeneral makes all true progressimpossible. Communist realismbelieved that the sinfulness ofhuman nature as manifested inparticular classes and theirdeluded hangers-on meant thatall true progress is only possibleif those human elements areexterminated.A moderate realism has noth-

ing to do with either of thosepositions. It is certainly deeplyhostile to a teleological vision ofhuman progress leading to theachievement of a final, perma-nent and unchanging utopia,whether of Marx’s orFukuyama’s imagining.However, it also allows plenty


italist materialism which focus-es entirely on the wellbeing ofthose alive (and well-off) today;because it is willing to contem-plate radical changes to thepresent capitalist economicorder, albeit ones different fromthose imagined by socialists inthe past; and because it is will-ing to create strong state con-trols over the economy in thepursuit of long-term goals. Asthe report of the BritishCommission headed by SirNicholas Stern (former chiefeconomist at the World Bankand hardly a natural leftist) hasit, global warming ‘is the great-est and widest-ranging marketfailure ever seen.’The third area where realists

and progressives share certaincommon attitudes, and canwork together, is opposition tothe idea of Western liberal capi-talist unipolarity. This opposi-tion, as expressed by all theleading ethical and progressiverealists, applies both to over-weening US imperial poweritself and to the ideologicalpositions which underpin it,summed up in repeated state-ments by both Bush and Blairthat ‘freedom’ is understood thesame way everywhere.A progressive from a Marxian

and anti-colonial tradition hasno excuse for forgetting that, inCarr’s words,

‘Theories of social morality arealways the product of a domi-nant group which identifiesitself with the community as awhole, and which possessesfacilities denied to subordinategroups or individual for impos-ing its views of life on the com-munity. Theories of internationalmorality are, for the same rea-sons and in virtue of the same

is especially important becausein much of the world, fromRussia to Latin America, USpower and influence havebecome disastrously associatedwith ruthless extreme free mar-ket economic policies derivedfrom the ‘WashingtonConsensus’ – policies whichoften have a dreadful effect onthe lives of ordinary people, anddo much to stimulate anti-American populist nationalism.Concerning the environment,

commitment to take actionagainst global warming does notform part of the older realist orthe socialist traditions, for theobvious reason that it is a newphenomenon. As the dangerbecomes more and more evidentin the years to come, however,this issue is bound to dominatemore and more of the Left’sthinking. Indeed, ample evi-dence now exists that in futurethis issue will pose by far thegreatest threat to modern civi-lization generated by the mod-ern age; and this threat willobviously be to many thingsthat realists hold dear: vitalnational interests, internationalpeace and stability, and eco-nomic development.Whatever its miserable envi-

ronmental record in the past,the Left today is the naturalhome of serious environmentalconcern and action: because ofits inherent opposition to a cap-

To take the latter point first:Clearly, the internal nature,decay or development of stateshas a critical effect on theirexternal behavior, and theextent of the threat that theypose to the outside world. Andin the long run at least, thespread of stable, equitable andprosperous democracy wouldrepresent great progress forhumanity, and for internationalpeace. A question which mustface both realists and the Lefthowever is how far the Westcan successfully spreaddemocracy to the rest of theworld if its own model looksincreasingly tarnished at home.In other words, domesticreform and internationalprogress have to go hand inhand. George Kennan pub-lished in 1984,

‘[A] plea to bear in mind that inthe interactions of peoples, justas in the interactions of individ-uals, the power of example is fargreater than the power of pre-cept; and that the exampleoffered to the world at thismoment by the United States ofAmerica is far from being what itcould be and ought to be.’

That is doubly true today, andcan surely be agreed to by pro-gressives. The link between for-eign policy and equitable socialand economic policies at home


‘The Left’s opposition to Westernunipolarity stems in large part froma skepticism about the true worthof the existing Western democraticcapitalist order’

tainly should therefore havesome sympathy for the ambiva-lent attitude of many ordinarypeople in the non-Westernworld towards their own states:on the one hand, knowing andfearing them as oppressive,greedy and brutal, but seeingthem nonetheless as an essen-tial defense against the brutalityand exploitation of some of thedominant capitalist powers.Moreover, strong states are

essential to smash the grip ofpredatory elites, ensure an ade-quate distribution of economicbenefits and social goods to themass of the population, and infuture perhaps to limit con-sumption of fossil fuels. To dothis, of course, states have to besufficiently strong to defeat theelites. As the 19th-CenturyGerman-American thinker,Franz Lieber put it, reflectingHegel, ‘a weak government is anegation of liberty’.Today, the liberal imperialists

and a large part of the progres-sive or pseudo-progressivecamp share a common hostilityto states across much of theworld. The imperialists dislikespecific states, like Iran, Syria,China and Russia, because theyoppose their plans for Americanworld domination. In a moregeneral sense, it is in their inter-est to denigrate states becausethat means that the opinions oftheir governments need not betaken into account (even whenthey are shared by their popula-tions), their interests can be dis-regarded, and in general, theycan be portrayed as barbarianentities unworthy to be consult-ed by the civilized imperialpower, and even as fit subjectsfor military intervention. AsMartin Jacques has written con-cerning the work of one of the

The Left, with its long traditionof opposition to Western imperi-alism and neo-colonialism,should have an instinctive sym-pathy for such views. Andclearly, respect for the opinionsand the interests of othernations has to involve a readi-ness to respect their right togenerate political, economic,cultural and moral orders differ-ent from those of the West, aslong as these have not beenproved beyond reasonabledoubt to be disastrous to theirown peoples or a real threat tointernational peace. The Left’sopposition to Western unipolari-ty stems in large part from askepticism about the true worthof the existing Western demo-cratic capitalist order, especiallyin the radical form adopted bythe US and its more slavish imi-tators, and expressed in theWashington Consensus.Resistance to US imperialism

on the part of both realists andprogressives can be related to ashared appreciation of the criti-cal importance of states, and thenationalisms which underpinstates, both for the internationalsystem and for internal develop-ment. The reasons for thisshared appreciation are differ-ent, but they are capable ofbeing brought together in a cre-ative progressive synthesis.For Realists, states are the

essential element of the interna-tional system; doomed to con-stant competition, but also theonly possible building blocs ofany international order. For theLeft, in the developing worldmany states are the product ofstruggle against previousWestern imperialism, and areessential to defend peoplesagainst a return of that imperial-ism. Progressives can, and cer-

process, the product of dominantnations or groups of nations.’

The American ethical realistswere clear-sighted in theirrecognition both of the moralemptiness and the political dan-ger of this identification, and intheir insistence on the need torespect the views and interestsof other nations. As HansMorgenthau wrote,

‘Political realism refuses to iden-tify the moral aspirations of aparticular nation with the morallaws that govern theuniverse…The light-heartedequation between a particularnationalism and the counsels ofProvidence is morally indefensi-ble, for it is the very sin of prideagainst which the Greek tragedi-ans and the Biblical prophetswarned rulers and ruled. Theequation is also politically perni-cious, for it is liable to engenderthe distortion in judgmentwhich, in the blindness of cru-sading frenzy, destroys nationsand civilizations.’5

Niebuhr also wrote of the‘biblical paradox’ thatChristians have access to thetruth, but also have to recognizethat as mortal beings in a fallenworld they can never possessit fully:

‘Our toleration of truths opposedto those which we confess is anexpression of the spirit of for-giveness in the realm of culture.Like all forgiveness, it is onlypossible if we are not too sure ofour own virtue. Loyalty to thetruth requires confidence in thepossibility of its attainment; tol-eration of others requires brokenconfidence in the finality of ourown truth.’6


ceit – in truth, much moreCommunist than liberal in spirit– that any country can sudden-ly, through ‘free ‘n’ fair elec-tions’, leap from autocracy togenuine democracy with noregard to economic and socialconditions. This is not a pro-gram for building democracy, inany true sense of that word. Byanalogy with Brezhnevite SovietCommunism, it might best becalled ‘Democratism’.The Left, with what ought to

be its ingrained awareness ofhow ostensibly neutral stateforces, like the judiciary and thepolice, are often in fact the toolsof specific class interests, has noexcuse for naivete about the realdemocratic credentials of suchsystems as the Philippines. Whatafter all is the point of talkingabout ‘free and fair elections’ inthe contemporary Pakistanicountryside, where anyone whotries to create an agriculturaltrades union is subject to savageattack by the local landowningelites and their hirelings in thepolice? Creating democracy inthese conditions can occur onlyas part of a wider, long-termsocio-economic transformation –not through an elected parlia-ment dominated by those samelandowning families.Examples like this should

lead to an awareness of justwhat a long and complicated

– when from their very originsin the 1890s, Iranian democraticpolitics have been associatedwith protest against Westerndomination.Closely related to this skepti-

cism concerning the rapidspread of Western-style democ-racy is – or certainly should begiven the socialist tradition – anawareness of how in countrieswith ruthless, greedy elites andweak legal orders, the outwardforms of democracy can becomea mere façade for oligarchicalrule, under which the mass ofthe population is ruthlesslyoppressed and savagely exploit-ed. Venezuela from the 1950s tothe 1980s was one such‘democracy’; the Philippinescontinues to be such; andRussia under Yeltsin was clear-ly heading in that direction.Quite often, this oligarchy isalso a comprador elite, whoserule also involves looting theirown country for the benefit ofinternational capitalism.In the past, a recognition of

how the gradual establishmentof constitutional democracy wascritically dependent on particu-lar social, economic and cultur-al developments was integral tothe liberal tradition, and towhat was called the ‘Whig theo-ry of history’. It is only in recentdecades that there has appearedthe strange revolutionary con-

arch liberal imperialists,Michael Ignatieff:

‘It has become fashionable toargue that sovereignty should nolonger be regarded as sacred,that human rights, even democ-racy, could, under certain cir-cumstances, justify its subordi-nation and breach. For themajority of nation-states, self-rule and sovereignty are a histor-ical novelty, a product of the lasthalf-century or so. The UnitedStates now poses a serious threatto this sovereignty, in the form ofshock and awe interventions,brief occupations and hastyexits. Ignatieff ’s sweeping dis-missal of the achievement ofpost-colonial states serves bothto reinforce a Western hubriseasily dismissive of other cul-tures, and to justify imperialistadventurism on a scale far widereven than that used to threatenthe ‘axis of evil’.

The anti-imperialist traditionof the Left should bring anunderstanding of the criticalrole of nationalism not just instate-formation, but also formany forms of democraticmobilization. In the past, thiswas true in Europe from theFrench revolution on. It wasself-evidently true of the colo-nial revolts against colonialrule. The idea that one can cre-ate democratic states in theteeth of local mass nationalism– which is the professed liberalimperialist program in Iran andmuch of the Muslim world – isa historical absurdity. Thisapproach assumes a positivelysurreal form when it is arguedthat in Iran, for example,democratization can go hand inhand with submission to thewill of the US in foreign policy


‘The anti-imperialist tradition of theLeft should bring an understanding ofthe critical role of nationalism not justin state-formation, but also for manyforms of democratic mobilization’

been called the ‘AmericanCreed’, identified Americaabsolutely with the achievementof successful modernity, andeven with the ‘end of history’through the achievement of aperfect and permanent modelfor the world. This means thatfor American intellectuals toliberate themselves from theservice of nationalism andimperialism, they also need toliberate themselves from theirpresent slavery to Time.Like enlightened conserva-

tives, progressives need todevelop an intellectual capacityto step outside the present age,and contemplate the broadersweeps of human history; to sit-uate themselves somewherebetween Conrad’s fictionalBritish Captain Marlowe,remembering that the Thames,like the Congo, was once ‘one ofthe dark places of the earth’,and Macaulay’s imaginaryfuture visitor from New Zealandto the archaeological ruins ofLondon.8 This is of course a ter-ribly difficult task. It is nothowever an inappropriate onefor the intellectual elites of acountry which has defined itsown role in the sweep of humanhistory as equivalent to that ofRome, the ‘Eternal City’.The US and Western

approach to democratization inother societies should thereforebe governed by rigor of theintellect, and generosity of thespirit. Progressives need to learnrigor in studying the history,political culture, and social,economic and ethnic orders ofother societies in order to deter-mine what kind of political sys-tem they can in fact support atpresent and in the near-to-medi-um term. Both realists and pro-gressives need to learn generosi-

must also be conditioned on thepossession by the recipientstates of at least minimal capac-ity actually to use the aid con-cerned honestly and effectively.South Korea was corrupt, butUS development aid to thatcountry was not simply poureddown the drain, as was aid toZaire. The same would be truetoday of the difference betweenPakistan and Nigeria.There is nothing immoral or

treacherous about a progressiverecognizing in this way thatmorality must be combinedwith realism. In Morgenthau’swords,

‘The equation of political moral-izing with morality and of politi-cal realism with immorality isitself untenable. The choice isnot between moral principlesand the national interest, devoidof moral dignity, but betweenone set of principles divorcedfrom political reality and anotherset of principles derived frompolitical reality.’7

Far worse, and a far greatercontemporary threat to progres-sives is when they consciouslyor unconsciously fall into thepattern described anddenounced by both Carr andNiebuhr: of cloaking their par-ticular national ambitions in thegarb of universal morality, andserving their own personalcareers by submitting ostenta-tiously to the prevailing ideolog-ical and nationalist hegemony.Julien Benda called for

Western intellectuals to liberatethemselves from the service oftheir respective nationalisms.Long before the emergence ofFrancis Fukuyama, theimmensely powerful force of USnationalism, based on what has

business democratic state-build-ing really is. Through a sharedunderstanding of the need tohelp create the socio-economicbases of democracy over time,aided by Western developmentassistance that is generous,equitable, and strategically tar-geted, realists and the Left cancome together in a coherentapproach that I have calleddevelopmental realism; anapproach with echoes in theMarshall Plan, and in the USpromotion of radical landreform in East Asia in the earlyyears of the Cold War.Developmental realism

requires a certain metamorpho-sis of both realists and the Left.As noted, Realists have to bemuch more aware of the impor-tance of the internal nature ofstates than has been true ofmost of them in the past(though by no means ofNiebuhr, Carr and Kennan, letalone of Burke). They also needto abandon the shallow, fanati-cal and selfish nostrums of theWashington Consensus andreturn to the record of theTruman administration at itsbest when it comes to givingmassive aid to poor countries,and also in opening Americanmarkets to their trade.Progressives however have to

understand that the willingnessof their fellow-citizens to makemajor financial sacrifices for thesake of international causes willalways be governed to a largeextent by considerations ofnational interest, rather than ofrelative need; so aid for parts ofthe Muslim world, from whencestem serious threats to the US,will have to take precedenceover help to Sub-SaharanAfrica, even though the needs ofthat region are even greater. Aid


ty in sympathizing with the his-torical fates and contemporarysufferings of other countries,and giving real economic helpto them – rather than preachingat them from the pedestal of ourown assumed supreme nationalvirtue and success, and expect-ing them to sacrifice their owninterests and values at our feet.


Footnotes1 George F. Kennan, reply to theQuaker document ‘Speak Truthto Power’, in the Progressive,October 1955.

2 Niebuhr, ‘Christianity andCommunism: Social Justice’,Spectator, CLVII, November 61936. See also Kenneth W.Thompson, ‘Beyond NationalInterest: A Critical Evaluation ofReinhold Niebuhr’s Theory ofInternational Politics’, The Reviewof Politics, XVII, April 1955. MarkL. Haas, ‘Reinhold Niebuhr’s‘Christian Pragmatism’: APrincipled Alternative toConsequentialism’, The Review ofPolitics, vol.61, no.4, Autumn 1999.

3 E.H.Carr, The Twenty YearsCrisis (1939).

4 Niebuhr, The Structure ofNations and Empires: A Study ofRecurring patterns and Problemsof the Political Order in Relationto the Unique Problems of theNuclear Age (Scribner, 1959),p.193.

5 Hans J. Morgenthau, PoliticsAmong Nations ((McGraw Hill2005)), p.10.

6 Niebuhr, Human Destiny (NewYork, 1950), p.243.

7 Hans J. Morgenthau, In Defenseof the National Interest(University Press of America,1982), p.34.

8 Joseph Conrad, Heart ofDarkness (Penguin, London1995), p.18.

by Stephen Haseler

Bulldog to Lapdog:British Global Strategyfrom Churchill to Blair

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Why did Britain go to war in Iraq?Why did Tony Blair support PresidentBush at every turn? How has thebulldog become the lapdog? Andwill Britain, now we are in the post-Blair era, remain forever just a part ofthe American empire – a sidekick?

In his new book Sidekick Professor Stephen Haseler

answers these highly topical and urgent questions.

Sidekick is also a history of how a whole post-war British

political generation has turned Britain into what amounts

to a province of the American global system. He sug-

gests that the ‘special relationship’, based on depend-

ence, is not just undignified but also unhealthy – spawn-

ing an undercurrent of anti-Americanism.

And he argues that in the new political era we still have a

choice – between, on the one hand, continuing with the

‘special relationship’ and on the other making a real con-

tribution to the building of Europe and, through Europe,

towards a healthy and balanced transatlantic relationship.

NEWFROM

http://www.global-policy.com

Jan KreutzJo Leinen’sparliamentaryassistant

EUROPE IS THE first succesfulexample of supranational citizen-ship. Starting from the idea of a

United States of Europe in the 1940s,to the careful steps of economic inte-gration in the 1960s, from the emptychair and strongly inter-governmentaldevelopments in the 1960s until theConstitutional Convention and theintroduction of participatory democra-cy in recent years, one question wasdriving the founding fathers ever sincethe start of the ‘European Dream’: isthe European Union based on states oris it based on citizens? The typicaldiplomatic answer European decision-makers have found is that both is true.The proposed European Constitution’sfirst article states that the decision tobuild a European Union reflects ‘thewill of citizens and States of Europe tobuild a common future’. Whereas inter-governmental cooperation is nothingnew in the arena of international poli-tics, the formation of a real suprana-tional Union where decisions take intoaccount the interests of individual citi-zens is a new challenge.Looking back sixty years, Europe has

succeeded in rebuilding itself, economi-cally and politically. The relatively highliving standards in the member statesare due to the European integrationproject. And its success is largely due tothe careful construction of a Europeandemocracy in the past fifty years, aprocess that will be ongoing for manymore years and decades. Following thewish of the founding fathers of theEuropean Union to build a Europe that

does not only serve the interests of thestates, but also of its citizens, the intro-duction of European Citizenship playedan important role in the Europeansupranational democratisation project.

The Evolution of a EuropeanCitizenshipThe first visionary advocates and thefounding fathers of the European inte-gration process strongly believed in aEurope of citizens. Altiero Spinelli inhis Ventotene Manifesto and JeanMonnet wanted a Europe, where citi-zens can participate in fully democrat-ic procedures and in which theirnationality plays no role. Instead of anintergovernmental Europe, they pro-moted a federal structure, with a strongbicameral European Parliament and atrue European government.However, the implementation of these

ideas proved to be difficult. Nowhere inthe world had the experiment of asupranational democracy been tried out.The founding fathers could not basetheir plans on existing experiences.Traditionally the concept of democracywas strongly linked to the concept of anation state (or in ancient times to theconcept of a city state). Despite goodproposals for a federal Europe, such aslaid down in the Ventotene Manifesto,the European states were hesitant totransfer powers to the European level.The post-war Europe-euphoria gave wayto concerns of citizens and governmentsthat the integration process would betoo quick and the interests of the citi-zens were to be lost on the way.

The Evolution of a EuropeanCitizenship: From a Europe ofStates to a Europe of Citizens


Jo LeinenGerman Member ofthe EuropeanParliament (PES) andChairman of theConstitutional AffairsCommittee

A federalist revolution based on thewill of the citizens was utopia. Instead aslower but nonetheless successfulrecipe was applied, Monnet’s concept ofgradual and functional integration.Starting from the integration of certaineconomic sectors he rightly predictedthat the integration process would stepby step spill over to other fields of poli-tics. With a rising number of decisionstaken on the European level, the legiti-macy of purely intergovernmental deci-sions, which were taken behind closeddoors and were rather the result ofhorse-trading than of justified politicaldeliberations, became more and morequestioned. This led to a number ofchanges in the institutional set-up: In1979 the direct elections to theEuropean Parliament were introduced,the parliament became co-legislator inmore and more fields of policy and areal dialogue with citizens was intro-duced. To strengthen the citizen’sEurope, these institutional reforms werecomplemented with the introduction ofthe concept of European Citizenship.In the early 1970s, long before

European citizenship was formallyintroduced into the treaties, somepreparatory work was done: in 1976 aCouncil decision introduced direct uni-versal suffrage for European elections,in 1981 the Council decided to intro-duce the European passport.Furthermore the EU institutions intro-duced legislation to protect the rights ofthe Union citizens in the internal mar-ket, for example against discrimination.In 1992, 35 years after the signing of

the Rome Treaty, European citizenship

became formally introduced into theEuropean treaties. The MaastrichtTreaty states that ‘Every person holdingthe nationality of a Member State shallbe a citizen of the Union. Citizenship ofthe Union shall complement and notreplace national citizenship.’ This canbe seen as a breakthrough for theEuropean integration process, since itstrengthened the political dimension ofthe European Community. European cit-izenship comprises the right to vote inlocal and European elections based onresidence, not only on nationality.Furthermore the Union citizens receivedthe right to hand in petitions to theEuropean Parliament and to theEuropean Ombudsperson. Also the rightto diplomatic protection of other EUstates in third states, in case of absenceof the own state, was introduced as anelement of European citizenship.

Political Rights of the Union CitizensThere is still a long way to go toachieve a citizens’ Europe. In manyways, the participation of citizens inEU decisions still has to be improved.Both levels of European democracy,representative democracy and directdemocracy, have to be strengthened.The European Parliament has becomemuch stronger over recent years, but itis not yet a full legislator in all fields ofEuropean politics. Many decisions arestill taken without using the co-deci-sion procedure, meaning the EP is noton equal footings with the Council ofMinisters. Other obstacles to Europeandemocracy are unanimity decisionsand missing transparency in theCouncil of Ministers and the EuropeanCouncil. This has in the past often ledto horse-trading, package deals andweak compromises. Also the accounta-bility of the European Commissiontowards the European Parliamentshould be improved.In order to arrive at a truly citizens’

Europe far reaching reforms are neces-sary. The parliament should co-decidein all legislation. Furthermore it is


‘There is still a long way to go toachieve a citizens’ Europe. Inmany ways, the participation ofcitizens in EU decisions still hasto be improved’

advisable that one day the co-decisionprocedure is reformed. The EuropeanParliament should have the right to ini-tiate legislation without being obligedto wait for the Commission to do so.Furthermore it should have the right toelect the Commission President andthe other Commissioners. This way thecitizens’ views, expressed in theEuropean Parliament elections, willdirectly affect the choice of leadershipfor the EU. If transnational Europeanlists are introduced and if theEuropean political parties will manageto nominate top candidates for theelections, decision-making in theUnion could be considerably democra-tised. European decisions would get aface, citizens could identify.The European Constitution is an

important step forward for the citizens’Europe. It introduces the co-decisionprocedure as a rule for decision-making.The Constitution also strengthens therole of the European Parliament indeciding on the European CommissionPresident and makes the Commissionmore accountable to Parliament.Furthermore the Charter of FundamentalRights will become legally binding,guaranteeing all Union citizens numer-ous rights, which partly they do notenjoy in the member states yet.A big step forward in the European

Constitution is the introduction of par-ticipatory democracy. Considering thesize of the European Union and the nat-urally limited number of members of theEuropean Parliament, further linksbetween the citizens’ interests andUnion decisions have to be established.This is respected in the Constitution, byinvolving civil society much better inpolicy making. It will be possible forNGOs and other organisations to addressparticular concerns such as climate pro-tection and the protection of humanrights directly to Parliament,Commission and Council. Furthermoresocial partners are strengthened and thesocial dialogue further developed, whichwill allow trade unions to be an even

stronger partner in our common strugglefor a social, just and democratic Europe.Last but not least the article on partici-patory democracy introduces the rightfor a ‘citizen’s initative’. If one millioncitizens sign a petition, the Commissionis asked to put forward a legislative pro-posal or a respective decision. This willbe an excellent opportunity for citizensto make their voices heard.Neither on the national, nor on the

European level, democracy is self-evi-dent. It must constantly be fought for.Whatever the future institutional struc-ture of the Union might be, all actorsin the EU must do everything possibleto ensure that they work as close to thecitizens as possible. This also concernsthe language used. Documents shouldbe formulated in a way that all Unioncitizens can understand them.Furthermore politicians on European,national and regional level shouldmake more efforts to approach citizens,inform them about Europe and discusswith them the Europe they want. Thisis the only way to arrive at a citizen’sfriendly Union. To be informed aboutEuropean politics should be a funda-mental right which is guaranteed forall citizens within the concept ofEuropean citizenship. An importantstep forward will be the further devel-opment of an emerging European pub-lic sphere. This would be an importantchannel to mediate between publicopinion and Union decision-making.

The Way Forward: More Democraticand Social Rights for a StrongerEuropean CitizenshipClosing the gap between citizens andinstitutions and by doing so strength-ening the European Union requires astrengthening of two aspects ofEuropean citizenship in particular:Union citizens need to be equippedwith stronger democratic as well associal rights. Ratifying the EuropeanConstitution will be a breakthrough forincreasing the political role ofEuropeans. Nevertheless further steps


will be necessary to build a trulyEuropean democracy.Until today there is no European

electoral law. The elections to theEuropean Parliament are based onnational legislation. They take place ondifferent days and different rules areapplied. This makes it difficult for vot-ers to understand the decision inEuropean elections. The Europeandimension of the EP elections is fur-ther weakened by national politiciansabusing them as arena to carry outnational political battles. Because ofthese structural problems and the miss-ing European public sphere, we canrather speak of a combination of 27national elections than of a pan-European election. In order to increaseparticipation in European elections andthus the democratic legitimacy of EUdecisions, European parties shouldwork out strong election manifestosand decide on one top candidate.Furthermore new European mediachannels should be developed andnational and local media should offermore European coverage. In this way,voters could better judge the strengthsand weaknesses of the different partiesand candidates in Europe and take amore informed decision.However, European policy cannot be

reduced to the day of elections.Decisions on the direction of the Unionand on policies concerning all citizensare taken every day in difficult negotia-tions between the different parties and

the different institutions. Even today,fifty years after the beginning of theEuropean integration process, too littleis known about the way the EuropeanUnion works and about the output, theconcrete decisions taken. Nationalpoliticians as well as representatives ofcivil society should make more effortsto communicate European policy. Butalso citizens should take matters intheir own hands: the doors ofEuropean parliamentarians and theombudsperson are wide open for them.On the European level too, democracylives from participation.European citizenship as such should

be developed further and interpretedmore widely. The debates in Franceabout the European Constitution andthe public opposition against theBolkestein Directive prove that it isespecially the social dimension of theEuropean Union that has to bestrengthened. Social rights have to beat the core of the concept of EuropeanCitizenship. It must be the role of theEuropean Union to protect its citizensfrom unfair competition of globalisa-tion. To this end the policy agenda ofthe European Union must be furtherdeveloped. At the upcomingIntergovernmental Conference thisJune, the member states’ governmentsshould therefore decide to enrich theEuropean Constitution with an addi-tional protocol, strengthening ‘SocialEurope’ and also focusing on other newchallenges, such as climate protection.A proposal for a solution of the consti-tutional crises, including further ideason such a protocol, can be found onwww.joleinen.de.


Reference

Jenson, Jane (2007): The Europeanunion’s citizenship Regime. CreatingNorms and Building Practices, in:Comparative European Politics, 2007, 5,(53-69).

‘European policy cannot bereduced to the day of elections.Decisions on the direction ofthe Union and on policiesconcerning all citizens aretaken every day’

ASDISCUSSIONS RECOMMENCEon what to do about theConstitutional Treaty, now rati-

fied by two thirds of the member statesof the European Union, the questionarises as to what is the position of theUK. Anyone following such debatesacross Europe rapidly finds that theUK is lumped together with Polandand the Czech Republic as ‘the oppo-nents’ of the draft Constitution, a posi-tion seized on with relish by someFrench politicians who are keen topoint the finger at somebody else andmake us forget that it was France that(not for the first time) has blockedreform of the European Union.Naturally, eurosceptics in Britain like

to portray the Constitutional Treaty assomething that is not in Britain’s inter-ests or has even been foisted on areluctant Britain. This is in fact farfrom being the case. Britain was cen-tral to the negotiations that agreed thetext, the government signed the treatyand, as Tony Blair said to the House ofCommons in June 2004: ‘This constitu-

tional treaty represents a success forthe new Europe that is taking shape, itis a success for Britain.’Of course, the British government is

realistic enough to know that the cur-rent text of the Constitutional Treaty isunlikely to be ratified as it stands byall member states without further ado.France alone will see to that. The newFrench President Sarkozy has calledinstead for a ‘mini-treaty’. In such cir-cumstances the British government isbeing realistic in holding fire and notholding a referendum on a text thatmay well be moribund, or at least sub-ject to additions or modifications. If itwere a matter for simple parliamentaryratification, the government could wellconsider adding Britain to the list ofcountries that have endorsed theConstitution as a political gesture.However, the requirement for a referen-dum on the text as it stands – or, pre-sumably, on anything approaching itsscope and carrying the name‘Constitution’ – precludes such anapproach.Needless to say, the results of the ref-

erenda in France and the Netherlands,notwithstanding the positive outcomesof referenda elsewhere, have almostcertainly made it more difficult to winreferendums in some of the othermember states. Voting on a text thatvery few people will have read leavesthe debate very vulnerable to superfi-cial perceptions. One of the strongestperceptions that will linger in people’sminds is the rejection by people inFrance and the Netherlands – and

Britain and theConstitutional Treaty


Richard CorbettMember of theEuropean Parliament(MEP) for the BritishLabour Party

‘Eurosceptics in Britain like toportray the Constitutional Treatyas something that is not in Britain’sinterests or has even been foistedon a reluctant Britain. This is infact far from being the case’

never mind that many of those voterswere really expressing opposition tothe government of the day rather thanto the text itself.Perceptions are political reality, and

there is no way around the fact thatsecuring a compromise around a textthat will be acceptable to all 27 govern-ments and capable of ratification willnot be easy.Among the options available, it is

not yet clear what is likely to achieveconsensus. These options include:

• ‘Treaty-plus’ options: keeping thetext intact but adding protocols to itor declarations interpreting it inorder to respond to concerns thathave been expressed.

• Re-negotiating the text: re-examin-ing the content, the style and nameof the Constitutional Treaty, if pos-sible without re-opening some ofthe complex bargains which werestruck.

• A ‘mini-treaty’: bringing in the emer-gency repairs needed to the institu-tional system to enable the Union tocater with an ever growing numberof members.

Of course, a mix of additional proto-cols, some re-writing and some dele-tions is also conceivable – but the morecomplex the approach the longer it islikely to take. Nor should we forgetthat some 22 countries attended the‘Friends of the Constitution’ meeting inMadrid in January and expressed theirattachment to keeping the current textas intact as possible.Whichever option is chosen, there

will have to be an IntergovernmentalConference (IGC) to negotiate andendorse whatever the new packageentails. Such an IGC could, in theoryat least, be short and sweet, and beheld over this summer and earlyautumn enabling a new text to emergeby the end of the year. Whether that is

feasible as a timetable will depend onthe degree of consensus that emerges atthe European Council meeting in June.Already, some British voices are

attempting to identify what are theessential elements that should be sal-vaged from a British perspective. LordKerr, formerly Britain’s Ambassador tothe EU and former Secretary Generalof the Convention, whose knowledgeon these matters is vast, writing in theFinancial Times at the end of February,identified seven vital elements:

• Replacing the six monthly rotating‘Buggin’s turn’ Presidency of theEuropean Council with a full-timefixed term President, chosen by theheads of government to chair theirmeetings.

• Empowering the EU’s HighRepresentative for foreign policywith co-ordinating all external rela-tions of the EU Commission andCouncil, on both of which he wouldsit.

• Introducing the reformed qualifiedmajority voting system envisagedunder the Constitutional Treatywhich is more proportionate to thesize of each country.

• Introducing the ‘subsidiarity mecha-nism’ for involving national parlia-ments in prior scrutiny of all EU leg-islative proposals.

• Subjecting the CommissionPresident to election by theEuropean Parliament.

• Making more visible the principle ofconferral, whereby the EU may onlyact within the powers given to it bythe member states.

• Introducing a secession clause,explicitly empowering memberstates to leave the European Union ifthey so wish.


To the list I would, myself, add someothers:

• Cutting the size of the Commission.

• Making all EU legislation subject tothe double scrutiny of requiringapproval by national ministers in theCouncil and elected MEPs in theEuropean Parliament.

• Giving more prominence to thetreaty article obliging the Union torespect the national identities ofmember states.

More tricky is what to do about Part IIof the Constitutional Treaty – the char-ter of rights. Intended as a limitationon the powers of the Union, by oblig-ing it to respect rights that, for themost part, member states themselvesalready have to respect, it has becomeembroiled in a debate about whethernational courts would defer to the EUCourt when deliberating on rightscases under national law. Perhaps thesolution here would be to have a singlearticle saying that the Union institu-tions are obliged to respect the charteron rights approved in 2000 in Nice, butthat this would not apply to memberstates (except when they are applyingEuropean law).Another complex matter is the

ambition of the Constitutional Treatyto codify all previous treaties into asingle document. This worthy idea ledto a hasty re-casting of the original setof treaties which, whilst shorter, stillrepresented a ‘constitutional’ text ofinordinate length. Perhaps, here too, an

answer might be to have a single arti-cle empowering the European Council,by unanimity, to codify and reorganisethe existing treaties and to deleteredundant articles, provided that theCourt of Justice certifies that, in sodoing, they are not increasing thecompetencies or powers of theEuropean Union.Finally, there will no doubt be many

suggestions for other additions to thetreaty. Some of these should be lookedupon favourably: articles on tacklingclimate change, respecting social secu-rity systems of member states and oth-ers may well make the text of the treatymore acceptable in some or all themember states. Negotiating theseaspects may well be tricky but willinevitably be part of the final package.All in all, it is high time that British

politicians and others start thinkingcarefully about the details of thisdebate. Above all, they should notabandon this terrain to the tangentialclichés that the eurosceptics are deter-mined to push it down. Their unrealis-tic and sensationalist portrayal of theissues is already leading the debate ina direction that is totally divorced fromwhat the Constitutional Treaty actuallysays and from the political reality ofwhat is likely to be negotiated amongthe 27 member states.This must be countered by a meas-

ured, factual and intelligent contribu-tion to the debate by the true ‘euroreal-ists’ – those who know that Britain’sinterests are best served if we and ourneighbouring countries can agree on asettled, well functioning, democratical-ly accountable European framework,better able to address those issueswhere a joint approach is mutuallyadvantageous.


‘It is high time that Britishpoliticians and others startthinking carefully about thedetails of this debate’


Endnotes

We would like to express our special gratitude to Chloé Aublin andJeannette Ladzik who helped a great deal in the development ofthis issue.

All the views expressed in the articles of this issue are those of theauthors and do not necessarily represent the views of SocialEurope Forum.

All rights reservedSocial Europe Forum© 2007