Author: Ulrich Beck File Type: pdf The euro crisis is tearing Europe apart. But the heart of the matter is that, as the crisis unfolds, the basic rules of European democracy are being subverted or turned into their opposite, bypassing parliaments, governments and EU institutions. Multilateralism is turning into unilateralism, equality into hegemony, sovereignty into the dependency and recognition into disrespect for the dignity of other nations. Even France, which long dominated European integration, must submit to Berlins strictures now that it must fear for its international credit rating. How did this happen? The anticipation of the European catastrophe has already fundamentally changed the European landscape of power. It is giving birth to a political monster a German Europe. Germany did not seek this leadership position - rather, it is a perfect illustration of the law of unintended consequences. The invention and implementation of the euro was the price demanded by France in order to pin Germany down to a European Monetary Union in the context of German unification. It was a quid pro quo for binding a united Germany into a more integrated Europe in which France would continue to play the leading role. But the precise opposite has happened. Economically the euro turned out to be very good for Germany, and with the euro crisis Chancellor Angela Merkel became the informal Queen of Europe. The new grammar of power reflects the difference between creditor and debtor countries it is not a military but an economic logic. Its ideological foundation is German euro nationalism - that is, an extended European version of the Deutschmark nationalism that underpinned German identity after the Second World War. In this way the German model of stability is being surreptitiously elevated into the guiding idea for Europe. The Europe we have now will not be able to survive in the risk-laden storms of the globalized world. The EU has to be more than a grim marriage sustained by the fear of the chaos that would be caused by its breakdown. It has to be built on something more positive a vision of rebuilding Europe bottom-up, creating a Europe of the citizen. There is no better way to reinvigorate Europe than through the coming together of ordinary Europeans acting on their own behalf. **

Author: Philip Walsh File Type: pdf Hannah Arendt is today widely regarded today as a political theorist, who sought to rescue politics from society, and political theory from the social sciences. But this view has had the effect of distracting attention from many of Arendts most important insights concerning the constitution of society, and the significance of its science, sociology. Arendt Contra Sociology re-assesses the relationship between Arendts work and the theoretical foundations of sociology, bringing her insights to bear on some key themes within contemporary theoretical sociology. Re-reading Arendts distinctions between labour, fabrication and action as a theory of the fundamental ontology of human societies, this book assesses her criticism of the tendency of many sociological paradigms to conflate the activity of fabrication with that of action. It re-examines Arendts understanding of central areas of research within contemporary theoretical sociology - including the meaning of power, the trajectory of modern science, the rise of consumerism and the problem of reflexivity. This volume offers a comprehensive reconstruction of Arendts thought, uncovering its refutation of, or latent contribution to, key sociological approaches. It will be of interest to sociologists, social and political theorists and philosophers of social science.**

Author: Oxford Reference File Type: pdf

Author: Edward King File Type: pdf Latin America is experiencing a boom in graphic novels that are innovative in their conceptual play and their reworking of the medium. Drawing on a range of sophisticated work, these graphic novels experiment with questions of the representation of urban space, modes of perception and cognition, and new forms of ethics in the post-human world. As the first book-length study of the topic, this book argues that the graphic novels emergence in Latin America acts as a uniquely powerful force exploring the nature of twenty-first-century subjectivity, emphasizing the ways that humans are bound to their non-human environment.