Volker Heins: Habermas’s New European Narrative HD

Based on a critical reading of Jürgen Habermas’s European writings, Volker Heins argues that Europe’s current crisis is also a crisis of its narratives. It is shown how Habermas has recently revised his political vision of a united Europe without giving up on his neo-Kantian ‘soft revolutionism’. The novelty is that the envisioned future EU is no longer seen only as an alternative to the allegedly defunct European nation state, but also as the antithesis to US-style federalism and Continental postdemocracy. Moreover, the German philospher no longer fully trusts the power of the better argument defended in his general social theory, but instead backs up his hope for normative progress towards a politically more integrated Europe with a belief in the force of the crisis that might push people in the same direction pointed to by reason. The conclusion is that Habermas’s narrative fails to catch on with a broad European public, and should be countered with the less utopian alternatives. Volker M. Heins is a Professor of Social Science and an Affiliate Professor of Political Science in University in Bochum, Germany. He is a Faculty Fellow, Center for Cultural Sociology, Yale University, an Associate Member of the Institute for Social Research, Frankfurt and an editorial board member of Human Rights Review. His research interests include International political theory/sociology; NGOs and international interventions; Human rights; Military ethics; Multiculturalism and migration and New regionalism.