The Shape of the New Europe

The European Union and European identity were until recently the objects of separate branches of scholarship and inquiry. With the entry of Central and Eastern European members into the EU, it has become clear that the future of the European Union can no longer be considered in isolation from the future of European identity. Taking Jürgen Habermas's plea for a European constitution and a normative foundation for the European Union as its starting point, this volume brings together the ideas of distinguished scholars in philosophy, political science, sociology, history, law and theology in order to address the shifting relationship between constitutionality, political culture, history and collective identity. The book argues that the future shape of Europe will not only result from external processes of globalisation but from the interaction between these social spheres within Europe.

Ralf Rogowski is Reader in Law in the School of Law at the University of Warwick. He is the co-author of Labour Market Efficiency in the European Union (1998) and editor of The European Social Model and Transitional Labour Markets (forthcoming), Constitutional Courts in Comparison (2002), Civil Law (1996) and Challenges to European Legal Scholarship (1996).

Charles Turner is Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick. He is the author of Modernity and Politics in the Work of Max Weber (1992) and co-editor with Robert Fine of Social Theory after the Holocaust (2000).