Citizenship and Demos. Is there a People of Europe? Perspectives on the Democratic Legitimacy of the European  Union

Roxana OLTEANU

University of Bucharest

Abstract: With more than 60 years of existence, the European project, deeper and wider than was initially imagined, has reached a stage of development where the tension between the state and its transfer or share of function with the supra-national European level has become acute. The debate over federalism or intergovernmentalism, over the legitimacy of the Union and its connection with the citizens, was for a long time a matter of great interest for the researchers. Yet, many questions still do not have an answer and predictions over the future of Europe remain inaccurate. Aiming to analyse the relationship between the national and the European identity, the present paper combines the theories of contractualism with those of nationalism, in order to obtain a wider and more comprehensive approach of the possibility for a people of Europe to be created and of the legitimacy of the Union in its absence.

Keywords: European public sphere, contractualism, sovereignty, nationalism.

1. INTRODUCTION 

This paper which focuses on the existence/ non-existence of a European demos, develops its arguments starting from the theory of political regimes and the modern theories of nationalism. The analysis, qualitative and oriented on a politico-juridical axis, aims to find an answer to a few questions: is there a European demos and, if not, which are the preconditions of its emergence? How is the absence of the demos reflected in the construction of the Union? In order to develop the arguments on the dimension of the political regime of the European Union we shall refer to authors like Bernard Manin and Sergio Fabbrini, while, for the elements concerning the identity construction and nationalism, we shall cite mainly the theories of Samuel Hutchinson, Ernest Gellner and Benedict Anderson (indirect bibliographic resources). The primary support of the present paper consists of the Treaty of Lisbon, respectively the previous documents, since the draft of the Constitutional Treaty of the Union remained not ratified. As regards the apparition of a European political body, we shall also shortly refer to the contractualist theories of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. The paper is structured in five chapters, of which the most consistent two are dedicated to the content. We intend to propound the theoretical differentiation between citizenship and demos and we shall expound with empirical evidence the absence of the latter, underlining the fact that the presence of citizenship may act in favour of the emergence of the demos (in a top-down process, directed from the political elite to the social basis of the Union). The research is focused on the dynamics of the process of construction of the European identity, on understanding its nature and the way it interacts with other identities of the individuals. The purpose of the research is to examine the hypothesis that the European Union had not yet managed to construct a demos of its own, in spite of the existence of the legal concept of European citizenship. An alternative hypothesis is that, even if the ‘European people’ is missing, it may be constructed by taking the necessary time and by benefiting of a favourable context, into a top-down process of evolution.  

2. TOWARDS A EUROPEAN POLITICAL BODY           

The contemporary political society is perceived as being based on fragments of the contractualist theory, according to which the state is not regarded as an a priori organisational form, anterior to humans, as it was defined by Aristotle, or as an expression of the divine will as to a community. It is, more than ever, an institution, an artificial entity individuals agreed to construct. Based on the idea of consensus between individuals, a long series of contemporary theories have been developed, from the one illustrating the nations as ‘imagined communities’[1] to the well-known Weberian definitions and taxonomies, according to which the state detains the monopoly of the physical violence[2] (where the idea of monopoly of the violence is highly similar to Hobbes’ Leviathan).

We shall continue by taking into consideration and emphasising certain variations encountered from one author to another regarding the main traits of contractualism. We may firstly note a differentiation in the way the natural law is understood: as a historical reality or as a theoretical model. In both cases, the natural law is the starting point for individuals in order to achieve social organisation[3]. We shall also distinguish between the various manners of forming the contract, the causes of signing it and the relation established between a subject and his/ her liberty, after becoming part of the contract. We use the concept of social contract in its sense of consensus through which individuals commonly transcended the natural law and agreed to compose the political body.

For Hobbes, natural law is a theoretical model, not a real phase of mankind’s development in history, being an explanatory concept[4], meant to justify the current existence of individuals as parts of the political body. Unlike Hobbes, Locke has the characteristic of understanding natural law as a real episode, a stage in human evolution throughout the construction of state, the final expression of the consensus between subjects[5]. Rousseau accepts, in his perspective, a form of existence of the individuals before the apparition of the state. In Of the Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right, he argues, however, that “the oldest from all societies – and the only natural one – is the family”[6]. We may infer that the perspective is one of a constructed state entity, founded not on the divine will, nor is it an a priori situation, before the existence of the individual, but viewed as a rational and consensual formula. For the French author, the correspondent of natural law is natural liberty, where every person has the right to try to possess anything he may want, the only limit being his physical strength, necessary to obtain and keep an object. Natural law, regarded by Rousseau as being fundamentally good, is not lost inside the social contract – the renunciation to liberty does actually not happen, as long as the entire process is only about replacing the primary freedom and the law of force with civil liberty and limitations imposed by the general consensus, and not by strength[7]. The contract is signed between citizens and other citizens – in this respect, those who serve in administration are, first of all, signatories of the contract just like all the other citizens. Thus, their responsibility will come from two sources: their own commitment in the contract and the accountability reported to the other members of the community, in front of which they assumed to show a full and honest exercise of the public service.

We must note that Rousseau does not see the governors as a privileged body, but as persons responsible of putting into practice the duties resulted from the exercise of the contract. The transition from natural law to a political body takes place when the individuals are no longer able to preserve that natural law, in which they could acquire anything they wished for and lived mostly isolated (for instance, demographic transformations made isolation impossible, forcing the subjects to interact). From this point on, people tend to associate their forces, replacing the unsafe natural liberty with civil liberty, guaranteed by the law. By definition, civil liberty is, for Rousseau, the submission of the subject only to the law (regarded as the expression of the pact the individual consented to sign) and the ultimate goal of the contract.

As for Hobbes, the main characteristic of natural law is a pervasive anarchy and the war of all against all. The reason for aggregating the political society is the fear of death and, once the contract is in force, the individual agrees to keep only his right to self-preservation. Society is horizontally constructed, throughout the consensus created between individuals, who were determined to do so by fear. Yet, the vertically axis is missing – in this regard, contractualism cuts the links between individuals and the sovereign, the accountability of the king being practically absent. We note that Locke and Rousseau try to improve the horizontal contractualist theory of Hobbes, at least as far as Locke develops the idea of accountability of those detaining the political power to the people who accepted to be governed and who can ultimately relinquish the contract[8]. Hence, both introduced the idea of two pacts. Firstly, it is about a horizontal pact, meant to substantiate the political body and having the aim to protect life, liberty and prosperity; on the other hand, another pact is signed between those who agreed to compose the society and the state/ the sovereign, an act who enables the latter to become the arbitrator of the disputes between individuals[9]. Therefore, the state has the role of passing from a selective and subjective justice to an impartial and unbiased application of the law.

Unlike Hobbes, Locke does not sustain the former’s theory in favour of absolutist monarchy, being inclined rather to liberalism. The will of the sovereign is no more regarded as irrefutable, as long as he is responsible to those who signed the contract. The individuals are not an amorphous mass, especially as a result of the way they decide to delegate an important part of their rights to be administered and protected. For Locke, natural law is not similar to a generalised conflict, as it was for Hobbes. Regarding the comparison between Locke and Rousseau, the latter does not debate (just like Hobbes) on a bivalent pact, but not because the possibility of control over the sovereign would cease, as in the Hobbesian theory, but because the sovereignty is transferred to the people. Further on, Rousseau underlines the differentiation between the sovereign and the governors, specifying that the governors are those who apply the elements stipulated in the contract, yet the writ has not been signed with them. In this regard, an interesting differentiation is also made by Hobbes, who similarly distinguishes between law and the exercise of the law[10].

In the wake of what we have exposed until here, we shall try to extrapolate from the primary state centric dimension of these theories to the current situation of the European Union. The first particularity to be noted is the fact that, in its intention to construct its own political body, the European project does not start, as contractualist authors wrote, from a natural law. None of the elements which lay the foundation for the aggregation of contract in Hobbes’, Locke’s and Rousseau’s view – respectively, the fear of death, defending the property or the physical impossibility to remain isolated – are substantial in the case of the European Union, given that the states have already responded to all those challenges. In this regard, a separate research can be developed on the possible alternatives to justify and fuel the construction of a European political body. Some indicators may be found in the economic prosperity, preserving the peace on the continent, elements with symbolic and moral value. Somehow, those can be understood as derived from what contractualist authors explained as an engine of passing over the natural law, but the current needs are more complex, evolved and refined, and also not so stringent. But would this be enough in order to construct a new political body, somehow different from the already existing one inside the frame of states?

A second issue is about the effect produced by the social contract and the manner this is understood. The idea may be developed in two directions: how the vertical social pact can be transposed to the European construction, respectively the degree of materialisation of a horizontal contract, consented by the citizens. Regarding the first problem, the vertical pact has to cope with the difficulty of accountability at the European level. The contractualist theories, as a cause of their historical context, were reported to the monarchy, thus to a well-defined, unique leadership, to whom the citizens have delegated a series of rights. In the particular case of the European Union it is hard to identify exactly who is responsible for administering the rights of the individuals. In the spirit of Rousseau’s theory, we can clearly distinguish who are the governors, as guarantors of the exercise of the pact, but the social contract has not essentially been signed with them. Therefore, where is the vertical dimension of the pact reflected? Is it inside the European Council? Or is it in the Commission? As to the European Council, because of the impossibility of it being sanctioned for its actions, since the accountability is rather intermediate than direct and the transparency of the decisions is questionable, as long as the debates are not public and no stenograph is available, the institution seems to fit well in Hobbes’ conception on the sovereign, which does not point out, as Locke and Rousseau do, that there should exist any responsibility for the way the contract is put into practice. Concerning the horizontal dimension of the pact, according to which the individuals freely and equally agree to be parts of the contract, things appear to be clearer. Citizens consent to take part in the political and economic project of the European Union, accepting it as an arbitrator of their conflicts and as a source and legitimate producer of law. Supposing that the citizens do not consent to such a contract, they cannot be constrained, the result being similar to the case of Norway, which rejected by referendum the country’s membership to the E.U. Even though, is this enough in order to consider that a European political body and demos do exist? In order to obtain a larger view on this subject, we shall complete the research with some arguments extracted from the theories on nationalism. 

3. BETWEEN EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF A EUROPEAN DEMOS

The etymology of the word “demos” comes from Greek and can be understood in two different ways: one which is closer to our point of view, meaning the community interested in an active participation in political life, expressing its opinions and interests and able to designate commonly recognised political representatives, and a second meaning, linking the word to the idea of “people”, in terms of values, history, collective memories, a general perception of the common future of the group[11], etc.

At the European level, the absence of demos is usually correlated with the idea of democratic deficit, regarded from two perspectives: an institutional approach (the lack of accountability of European institutions before the citizens) and a sociological point of view (the difficulty of configuring a democratic regime in the absence of demos)[12]. Three main currents of opinion can be found in the academic debate on this subject: firstly, certain authors argue that a European demos does not exist and this element would be necessary in order to achieve a functional “macro-democracy”; according to the second approach, a European demos does exist, but its definition and significance are quite different from those given in the past. Some of these specialists, just as Ulrike Liebert from the University of Bremen did, show that the old manner of conceiving the demos as being inseparably linked to democracy and as one of its strongest guarantees is an error, as long as the demos (political community) is wrongly identified with the ethnos (homogeneous community of values, tradition and ethnic origins). Liebert argues that a fact is constantly omitted, namely the fact that the modern theory of democracy has clearly delimitated itself from the ethnos, defining demos more and more by its legal dimension[13], linked to political representation and law more than connected to a common language, religion, blood roots/ race and other issues concerning a certain homogeneity. In this regard, the current representative democracy asks for “precisely bounded citizenry, normally defined by membership to a political unit organised on a territorial basis, which then elects representatives”[14], and nothing more. The third approach concerning the European demos analyses it by its moment of construction and related to the dynamics of the economy. More precisely, the question rises whether the demos and a democratic political regime can be constructed after a free economy has been established, as long as the entire process usually functions the other way around.

We do not deny a certain detachment of modern democracy from its ethnic basis. Liebert’s argumentation is, from this point of view, strong and hard to dismantle. On the other hand, a question may be addressed concerning the way political communities appeared and evolved up to the point of “well-bounded citizenship” and democracy, in the absence of the shared values, tradition, common language, etc., meant to justify and facilitate their existence. The probability for a bottom-up process to exist is quite small, especially given the actual situation of the Union, with a large segment of population being irresponsive to the themes of European interest and a nascent area of Eurosceptic, revolutionary political parties, questioning the very existence of E.U. A top-down process of identity construction is more likely and it is exactly what we try to demonstrate it is producing in the European case, but without identifying the legal concept of democracy with the dimension of demos, to whom we confer a prevailing cultural meaning. Regarding the relation between the existence of demos and the free market, we may anticipate that, at least for the moment, in the particular case of the European Union it is firstly (if not totally) about the degree of ethno-cultural diversity and heterogeneity and only secondly about the type of economy and the moment the common market has appeared. Even if analysing the hypothesis that the democracy cannot be built once the free market has emerged, we still have to note the political progress of the Union during its sixty years of existence.

We placed the theme of demos at the intersection of the theories on nationalism and those concerning sovereignty. This approach is due to the manner the European identity tries to be constructed, partly similar to the national identity, and, on the other hand, due to the reality that the European Union is composed of national states in the Westphalian sense of the term, states which, since the 18^th and 19^th centuries, became national entities. That being so, the European case is intricate, as long as a supra-national identity cannot be compatible with the national identity, nor can it with the classical idea of sovereignty. How can a European demos be built, as long as the states are not willing to cede the control over the areas linked to their first age?[15] If a European identity finally appears, to whom should a citizen be firstly loyal – to his state or to Europe?[16] What are the possibilities to formulate a European identity as long as national identities and rivalries are still powerful? In the best-case scenario, the European identity is currently at the level of the differentiation “we-other” compared to the non-European people, but unable to manage the same relation between the nations composing the Union. Robert Cooper, the former consultant of Javier Solana, was noting in 2006 that one of the problems of the European states is the fact they make individual expenditures from the defence budget, without being able to correlate at a supranational level the politics in this area. It results that the European Union is irrationally buying equipment doubling thus some already existing military capacities (many states have similar equipment, meant for the same kind of actions), but rarely interoperable[17]. With personnel separately trained and having to use directly in the field equipment it is not familiar to work with, the European Union will continue to face the problem of being unable to articulate an elite defence force comparable to the American one. A solution might be to buy and use in common the same types of new and efficient weapons. This measure would reduce the national expenditure for an optimal military capacity, would permit a higher degree of interoperability and the acquisition of a broader and diverse series of equipment – a large part of the military coherence Europe currently misses. Yet, the main difficulty is the fact that states are not prepared to join such a close and deep cooperation and to assume its risks. In Krasner’s terms, who developed a theory of the four types of sovereignty – legal sovereignty, interdependence sovereignty and domestic and Westphalian sovereignty – states especially tend to protect the last two[18].

In the theories of nationalism, the nation is a concept directly linked to modernity, not identified with the state, nor with the ethnos, but understood as a community who has the consciousness of shared values, a common future, a founding myth and narrations concerning its own existence, aspiring to control a certain territory if this has not yet been achieved. The self-identification of the individual as part of a nation is the result of a constructed identity, assimilated by culture and education[19]. Nobody can define himself as being a Romanian, French or German in its first years of life, but is socialised to perceive oneself so, even if one’s citizenship is established since birth. More than a constructed identity, the nation is also regarded as an imagined and collective identity[20]. At this moment, in the world there simultaneously exist nations which are formed before having a state construction and nations that come into being only after the state. An example for the first situation is Israel, while France makes a strong case of nation created after the centralisation of the state during the absolutist monarchy and which produced a homogeneous culture, a standardised language and common myths only afterwards. It may be useful to remember that S. Fabbrini underlined in his work that Western national states are the product of two different evolutions: the genesis of institutions able to put into practice the authority over a given territory (or the construction of the state) and the emergence of a common identity for the inhabitants of that territory (or the construction of the nation)[21].

Starting from those data, the European Union encompasses a few problems concerning the construction of an identity analogous to nationalism. The project of a united Europe has to cope with the already written history of human groups possessing their own rations of cohesion, myths and values. The deconstruction of those identities in order to create a new one, or at least to integrate them into a wider, more complex identity (an overlapping process) is more difficult than to start the structure from zero. Unlike the United States, which shows an illuminating example of how to aggregate a nation into a federal frame, the European Union cannot start from the same basis[22]. As long as large masses of people do not share the same habits, axiological systems, culture or even language, in order to create an artificial reason of cohesion, other than the simple democracy, the process might prove to be a long one and it is expected to come as a top-down evolution.

The attempt to introduce an anthem of the Union and a European day,[23] similar to the national ones, as well as the idea of a European citizenship and the reference to a juridical text as being a constitution gives a dimension of what the E.U. tries to build in terms of identity. Studying this tendency, S. Hutchinson, noted that in order to achieve its goals, it may be necessary to evoke a clear sense of community. As long as the E.U. does not produce collective memories, heroic images concerning its own past, narratives meant to legitimate its aims and to convince the individuals that they are part of the same community, even of a supranational community in this case, the project continues to be regarded with scepticism, lack of interest or even rejection[24]. Hutchinson boldly underlined that even the areas which seem to be covered by European responsibility are basically animated by national interests[25]. An example may be given by the European elections which took place in 2009, on their seventh edition. In spite of a 30-year long history, the ballot continued to be influenced by some structural problems: the image of second-order elections, the low participation of the citizens (excepting the countries where the vote is compulsory), the importance given to national issues as compared to the European points of interest, the use of vote as a mid-term sanction for the national government, and, finally, the lack of attention paid by mass-media to the ballot[26]. The Euro-barometer no. 71, released at the beginning of 2009, revealed that only 39% of the French people agreed that the European deputies are directly elected by the citizens, while the average European rate of correct answer was about 53%. The French seem to be the less informed public, a fact quite inquiring given the role of France in the European construction[27]. Regarding the effective participation to the vote, the absenteeism reached its biggest rate in the history of European elections. The phenomenon can be interpreted both at the French and at the European level as having three possible explanations. The first one enhances a political choice, usually in terms of disappointment caused by national governments. Secondly, it is about the perception of the voters that their choice expressed during the elections is not able to make a difference. This image is quite connected with the feeling that the European Parliament does not really and accurately reflect the problems and concerns of the citizens. Finally, a great amount of people seem not to be sufficiently informed about the elections, while the campaigns do not manage to get deep enough in the society and mobilise it[28].  However, the democratic deficit is visible even inside the European institution which was supposed to be the most transparent and democratic one, the European Parliament, while the uninterestedness for the European issues and the primacy of the national interest (the low importance attached to the elections and the voters’ reference to their own governments) are also marked. If we take into consideration Manin’s approach on democracy, the European Union seems to be stuck between a democracy based on parties and an audience democracy[29].

The instance of the European elections lets us also infer the weakness of the European public sphere, meant to adjust the political agenda of the Union, to confer legitimacy, a space for debate and the sanction of the public opinion, where this might be necessary. The European issues are usually debated inside the national public sphere, as one of its components, but do not manage to form a supranational frame of public dialogue. Even if rights as the freedom of expression and the freedom of speech are guaranteed, even if the Treaty of Lisbon introduced the right of at least one million citizens to propose legislation[30],  etc., a European public sphere, independent and possessing all the features of a national public sphere, is still absent. This frame of dialogue, regarded as a space where the public opinion is aggregated and values and myths are shared and perpetuated, where the different actors in a society communicate to one another, has a strong contribution to circulate facts, ideas, points of view, putting them together into a succession of knowledge and axiology which serve as a basis for political actions[31] and a collective identity. At the European level, the weakness of the public sphere may be simultaneously regarded as a symptom and as a cause of the absence of demos.

In order to resume the arguments regarding the absence of a demos, we underline that we have mentioned up to this point the prevalence of the national elements to the detriment of the European ones, including here the scopes behind the euro-optimism of the Eastern states who joined the Union in 2004 and 2007 (the ‘mirage’ of the Occident, the fear for their own security, the idea of returning into the European family, prosperity, etc.). Secondly, we may note a lack of interest and even information of the citizens regarding European issues. Here we introduce a third argument, concerning the frailty of a supranational public sphere, which would be meant to inform and mobilise the masses. Another clue indicating the absence of the demos is the fracture existing between the politicians acting at the European level, particularly those of the European Commission, and the people. Not only do European institutions seem to be disconnected from their citizens, a fact which was obvious at the European elections, but these institutions also seem not to be interested in changing the situation. The reluctance shown by the states in ceding sovereignty in sensitive areas, such as public order and defence, massively contributes (even if apparently not directly) to an impairment in the construction of a European demos. Individuals are encouraged to primarily show loyalty to their states. Germans are first of all Germans, and only afterwards Europeans, a fact which is all the more conspicuous in crisis situations. The example is aleatory, yet the same situation defines all the other nations composing the Union. The problematic economic situation of the last years made the themes of demos and sovereignty even more pronounced than they were in the past. For instance, some questions were raised as to how the Union might be able to possess a demos, as long as it does not manage domestic sovereignty. Or, in the same key, how a democratic political regime is expected to function in the absence of the demos. After enumerating those elements, we may also note that the European identity has several other deficiencies: the lack of self-perception of individuals as being part and parcel of the same group, the fragile common axiological system, the fact that Europe is not regarded as a homeland and the non-existence of a founding myth, collective memories and common European heroes[32]. Ultimately, we may question even the Europeans’ trust in a common future.

As for the theories regarding the construction of the nations in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, starting from Hroch’s and Hobsbawm’s points of view, we may note two phenomena: first of all, the masses (workers, small venders, peasants) have been the last social category engaged in the entire process of apparition and maturation of nationalism. Secondly, the two authors observed that in Europe there existed three different stages of national movements: the first one took place especially in the 19^th  century, being an elite-dominated phase, with a purely cultural activity – it is the moment when the group starts to individualise itself from the others and construct a primary and fragile internal cohesion on the basis of a standardised language and a common culture, only recently defined so; in the second phase, some pioneers start addressing the national idea from a political perspective, composing what Hroch named la minorité agissante; only in the last stage is the support of the masses obtained, the masses assuming a certain cultural identity and adhering to the political goals formulated by the elites, and the nation being thus finally built (given that it is not necessary for a group to possess from the very beginning its own sovereign state in order to be called a nation, being enough to aspire to obtain a territory)[33]. The Union appears to be at the limit between the first and the second phase mentioned by Hroch, in which a minority, a part of the elites, tries to delimitate a group from other groups and to create its first elements of identity.

The literature offers only a few scenarios regarding a possible evolution of the European demos in the future. Supposing that the Union will resist to its internal tensions and parties asking for disintegration, to the centrifugal tendency of states and the economic depression, a European people may be created in a favourable context, involving a long period of time and some possible external threats, meant to consolidate the entire construction and give an additional reason for unity and legitimacy. The first element is vital as long as the process of ceding sovereignty cannot happen suddenly, all at once, and the construction of a European identity over the national ones needs efforts of accommodation and internalisation of the new values. Even if the process seems to stagnate, the Europeans conceive themselves more linked one to another than they did in the `40s. Regarding the possibility of an external danger, the crisis engendered by a foreign threat bring a powerful source of legitimacy to political decision-makers, able to create a strong internal consensus and to consolidate the identity of the group by making the differentiation “we-others”. Such a moment may have the same effect on the European demos as the two world wars had over the American nation.

4. FINAL REMARKS 

This paper has tried to analyse the idea that the European Union has not yet manage aggregate a demos, in spite of the existence of the legal concept of European citizenship. A second hypothesis was that, even if a European people is missing, it may be constructed in time, in some favourable conditions. Even if the case of the United States is partially comparable, from their model, Europe does not possess three elements. The first one is a similar historical basis – for the United States the construction of a common federal identity started in the absence of a well-coagulated nationalism, while Europe has to cope with the millenary history of human groups, already having their own founding myths, internal cohesion and values. The de-construction of those identities in order to create a new one, or at least their integration in an ampler and more complex identity still keeping the old ones (a process of overlapping identities) is clearly more difficult and asks for greater efforts than in the American case. The second fact is that, from the political standpoint, the European Union does not share an accurate structure of a federation, nor does it possess the one of a classical democratic political regime: there is no written constitution (yet, the construction developed a constitutional character), the Parliament does not have the same relation with the executive power as at the national level, it is hard to identify a unique leadership and to point out a responsible for the politics of the Union, while the public sphere is still rather weak. The last but not the least, Europe does not possess some aspects contributing to the identity construction, as a “mythology” of her own and a commonly spoken language. Therefore, the emergence of a European identity similar to the national one poses some problems: can Europe be conceived as a nation and is this the path to be followed or, in an era of globalisation, should the European identity be thought in a post-national key? If conceived as a national identity, can the European identity and the national one coexist or do they exclude one another? We have considered that it is premature to offer an answer to those questions. A European demos does not currently exist, from our point of view, but it might be created, maybe partially following the American evolution. If this transition happens, it is likely to be a top-down process, given the actual situation of the Union. Yet, the case we have studied is highly particular and has no other precedent. There are no comparable situations in the past, on which consistent predictions regarding the transformation of the Union can be made. We may conclude that the hypothesis we have used in this analysis can be sustained by some arguments, but is only partially valid, conditioned by the evolutions to come.

Bibliography

ANDERSON, Benedict, Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, Verso, London, 1991.

BIDAJ, Elda, Ligia BLIDARU, Zamira PODE, Lusine VOSKANYAN, Telos, Ethos, Demos and the Future of the European Union, PanEuropa, 2007, consulted at: http://paneuropa.ro/doc/ReportonDemos.pdf .

CEDERMAN, Lars-Erik, Nationalism and Bounded Integration: What It Would Take to Construct a European Demos, European University Institute/ Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, Badia Fiesolana, 2000, consulted at: http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/1674/00_34.pdf.

COOPER, Robert, The European Answer to Robert Keagan, in Transatlantic Internationale Politik, No. 2 (2003), consulted at: http://w7.ens-lsh.fr/amrieu/IMG/pdf/Europe_answers_Kagan_2-03.pdf.

FABBRINI, Sergio, Compound Democracies. Why the United States and Europe Are Becoming Similar, Oxford University Press, 2007.

HOBBES, Thomas, Leviathan,

consulted at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm.

HOBSBAWM, Eric, Națiuni și naționalism din 1780 pânã în prezent: program, mit, realitate, Ed. Arc, Chișinău, 1997.

HUTCHINSON, John, “The Past, Present, and the Future of the Nation-State”. Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Winter/Spring 2003, consulted at: http://journal.georgetown.edu/past-issues/4-1-state-of-the-nation/.

KRASNER, Stephen, “Rethinking the Sovereign State Model”, Review of International Studies, No. 27, British International Studies Association, 2001, consulted at: http://psfaculty.ucdavis.edu/zmaoz/krasner2001.pdf.

LIEBERT, Ulrike, Just Cheap Talk? Rethinking the “No European Demos” Thesis in Light of Discursive Representation Practices, Jean Monnet Centre for European Studies, University of Bremen, Bremen, 2012, consulted at: http://www.monnet-centre.uni-bremen.de/pdf/2012-1%20Liebert,%20Ulrike.pdf.

LOCKE, John, The Second Treatise of Civil Government, consulted at: http://www.constitution.org /jl/2ndtreat.htm.

MANIN, Bernard, The Principles of Representative Government, Cambridge University Press, 1997.

MCNAIR, Brian, Introducere în comunicarea politicã, Polirom, Iaºi, 2007.

PERRINEAU, Pascal, “Les Élections Européennes de Juin 2009 en France: Des élections de second ordre ou de reclassement?”, Revue Internationale de Politique Comparée, Vol. 16, No. 4, 2009, consulted at: http://www.cevipof.com/fichier/p_publication/603/ publication_pdf_ripc_164_0653.pdf .

ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques, Despre contractul social sau principiile dreptului politic, Antet, București, 2006.

SENELLART, Michel, Artele guvernãrii. De la conceptul de “regimen” medieval la cel de guvernare, Meridiane, București, 1998.

SIDOR, Daniel, “De la starea naturalã la comunitatea politicã. Intre denunþare ºi delegare”, Sfera Politicii, Vol. XVIII, No. 3 (145), Societatea Civilã Foundation, Bucharest, 2010, consulted at: http://www.sferapoliticii.ro/sfera/145/cuprins.html.

SMITH, Anthony, Myths and Memories of the Nation, Oxford University Press, 1999.

WALDRON, Jeremy, “John Locke. Social Contract Versus Political Anthropology”, in D. BOUCHER, P. KELLY, The Social Contract from Hobbes to Rawls, Routledge, London, 1994.

WEBER, Max, Economy and Society. An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, University of California Press, Los Angeles, 1978.

Online resources

*** Draft Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe, Part IV, General and Final Provisions, Art. IV-1. The symbols of the Union, consulted at: http://european-convention.eu.int/docs/treaty/cv00850.en03.pdf.

*** Special Euro-barometer 299. The 2009 European elections, consulted at: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_299_en.pdf.

*** Treaty of Lisbon, Art. 8, consulted at: http://bookshop.europa.eu/en/official-journal-of-the-european-union-c-306-17.12.2007-pbFXAC07306/?CatalogCategoryID=ARsKABstvzAAAAEj0JEY4e5L.