12.05.2005
A cosmopolitan Europe or a cosmopolitan EU?
In collaboration with PRIO, ARENA hosted a seminar with the prominent sociologist Ulrich Beck on Friday 13 May 2005. The informal gathering was an occasion for researchers to discuss Beck’s newest publication ‘Cosmopolitan Europe’ (co-authored with Edgar Grande, 2004).
Three comments had been prepared by J. Peter Burgess, research professor at PRIO, ARENA professor Erik O. Eriksen and Torben Hviid Nielsen, professor at TIK (Centre for technology, innovation and culture). Their interventions were followed by a short discussion engaging the approximately twenty researchers and scholars present.
Professor Ulrich Beck opened the session highlighting three aspects of his current research: the concept of the ‘Second Modernity’ (Zweite Moderne) or reflexive modernity; the shortcomings of the methodological-nationalism paradigm (particularly in European studies); and the outlooks for a cosmopolitan Europe.
 |
|
Professor Ulrich Beck |
Beck’s main argument is his plea for a shift of paradigm in the social sciences from nation-state politics to ‘methodological cosmopolitanism’. The dominating paradigm in European studies has been ‘methodological nationalism’, focusing on societies as merely nationally organized. Such an approach falls short of understanding the dynamics of European integration, which must be studied as a process in which nation states are undergoing permanent change. That Europeanization be understood as a unique process requiring new concepts and methodological frameworks has also been a main concern of ARENA’s research. Beck furthermore stressed that studies have focused too much on the vertical process of Europeanization, that is, between national societies and European institutions. In order to grasp the integration across societies – the horizontal dimension – the national–international dichotomy must be overcome.
Beck underlined that his concept of cosmopolitanism represents an empirical-analytical approach accommodating a re-conceptualization of the observer perspective which allows for an analysis of cross-border processes. Old ‘either-or’ distinctions are breaking down and new ones must be created: there is a need for ‘both-and’ perspectives.
 |
|
Peter Burgess, Ulrich Beck and Erik Oddvar Eriksen. |
J. Peter Burgess, research professor at PRIO, asked whether Beck may be too quick to make this cosmopolitan turn without also accounting for what is lost in the process of such a move. He suggested that instead of merely advocating a ‘both-and’ perspective, a cosmopolitan perspective must capture both the ‘either-or’ and the ‘both-and’ positions. In other words, he argued, there is a need for a dialectical approach capable of accounting also for the ‘oppositionality’ of the opposition, so to speak.
ARENA professor Erik O. Eriksen shifted the focus from the empirical-analytical aspects of cosmopolitanism, finding the ‘both-and’ perspective problematic in normative terms. Moreover, cosmopolitanism cannot merely be an empirical concept as the ‘both-and’ perspective of Beck’s methodological cosmopolitanism does not help us in conceptualising what the EU should be in normative terms, that is, the Union cannot both be an empire and cosmopolitan order at the same time. According to Eriksen, the EU cannot be captured as a construction in indefinite motion. However, the end-point requires a justification – a distinction from ‘the other’. A cosmopolitan EU must be set in a democratic order subject to higher-ranking law, where individual rights are fundamental, and only by encouraging the emergence of other regional orders on the same scale the EU’s action could be justified.
In his comment, Torben Hviid Nielsen, professor at TIK, discussed strategies to overcome Zombie concepts. He argued that Beck does not really achieve what he wants with the plea for ‘both-and’ concepts. At the end of the day, the ‘both-and’ concepts of methodological cosmopolitanism are not equipped to take us beyond the old ‘either-or’ distinction as a ‘both-and’ perspective implicitly logically assumes a prior ‘either-or’ distinction. In other words, methodological cosmopolitanism is not radical enough and does not at such represent a new paradigm.
