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European Enlargement and Institutional Hypocris y

Elena A. Iankova and Peter J. Katzenstein

in The State of the European Union, 6: Law, Politics, and Society

Provides an account of the status of the enlargement process in the EU, both in the candidate countries and in terms of institutional changes at the EU level. In particular, it argues that European ... More

Provides an account of the status of the enlargement process in the EU, both in the candidate countries and in terms of institutional changes at the EU level. In particular, it argues that European enlargement is a combination of ‘institutional and political hypocrisy’. While political hypocrisy is the result of the purposeful strategy of specific actors that wilfully disobey EU law, institutional hypocrisy results from involuntary non‐compliance due to the lack of capacity or clarity; both have been a systemic feature of legal integration and a major driving force of the European constitutionalization process. However, as the heterogeneity of the EU member states increases, enlargement may well lead to a substantial erosion of the legal and policy coherence of the EU. The first section of the chapter discusses the problem of non‐compliance, the second characterizes the European polity as resulting from the enmeshment of the process of Europe's legal integration with different national legal systems, the third and fourth sections discuss the southern and eastern enlargements of the EU, and the fifth section concludes by pointing to differences in national legal traditions that make institutional and political hypocrisy a systemic outcome of the process of European enlargement.Less

Salafism as the Future of European Islam?

Esra Özyürek

in Being German, Becoming Muslim: Race, Religion, and Conversion in the New Europe

This chapter concentrates on the theological aspects of Salafism that attract non-Muslims in postunification Germany. It argues that certain characteristics of Salafism, particularly its ... More

This chapter concentrates on the theological aspects of Salafism that attract non-Muslims in postunification Germany. It argues that certain characteristics of Salafism, particularly its conversionism, literalism, and anticulturalist, antinationalist stance, make it appealing to many Germans of diverse backgrounds. In these respects, it works in quite similar ways to Evangelism and Pentecostalism in fulfilling people spiritually and psychologically—aspects greatly ignored by most scholars of contemporary Islam and especially Salafism. The chapter contends that it is these characteristics of Salafism, which introduces itself as free of human interpretation and independent of national tradition, that works well in the anti-Muslim context of Germany.Less

The Roots of an Imperial Press System

Simon J. Potter

in News and the British World: The Emergence of an Imperial Press System 1876-1922

This chapter begins by discussing that in historical writing about the British press, newspapers are seen as having contributed to a national tradition. It then argues that the press acted as a key ... More

This chapter begins by discussing that in historical writing about the British press, newspapers are seen as having contributed to a national tradition. It then argues that the press acted as a key agent in the process of national integration. It adds that the imperial press system influenced the development of newspapers in Britain as much as in the Dominions. It also discusses that journalism was traditionally a profession that encouraged social and geographical mobility, providing a lifestyle well suited to colonial adventurers. It clarifies that movement around the empire did not take place solely as a result of itchy feet. It explains that temporary and permanent mobility was institutionalised, encouraged by those who controlled the empire's large press enterprises. It also discusses how the distribution of news around the world developed.Less

Establishing Distance from Immigrant Muslims

Esra Özyürek

in Being German, Becoming Muslim: Race, Religion, and Conversion in the New Europe

This chapter looks at how converted German Muslims seek to practice a so-called true Islam stripped of cultural accretions. In its indigenous German Muslim context, an Islam free of culture means an ... More

This chapter looks at how converted German Muslims seek to practice a so-called true Islam stripped of cultural accretions. In its indigenous German Muslim context, an Islam free of culture means an Islam that has been purged of its often-stigmatized Arab and Turkish cultural practices. Once rectified like this, the reasoning goes, Islam will be more in line not only with its original spirit but also with European ideals of democracy, freedom, and tolerance. In that way, a purified Islam, in the German context, becomes an effort to connect German converts to their parents rather than differentiate them. This process sets apart immigrant Muslims, who are delineated by their traditional and hence by definition “wrong” Islamic practices.Less

Rights in the European Landscape: A Historical and Comparative Profile

Michele Graziadei

in The Coherence of EU Law: The Search for Unity in Divergent Concepts

This chapter examines several events in legal history that either highlight the importance of rights in the actual working of legal systems, or else challenge their importance. These events fit ... More

This chapter examines several events in legal history that either highlight the importance of rights in the actual working of legal systems, or else challenge their importance. These events fit within the wider European framework which contains a variety of approaches to the topic. The chapter also considers national legal traditions concerning rights and their resistance to change. The main underlying argument is that the resilience of these national traditions in Europe is primarily linked to the intellectual legacy of the 19th century and its 20th-century aftermath, which is now in shambles. This unpleasant diagnosis has been around for a long time, but little has been done so far to remedy it. In this field, finding a cure means looking beyond national traditions and stereotypes, and recognizing that it is more productive to think in terms of a common European legal culture.Less

National Traditions of Competition Law: A Belated Europeanization through Convergence?

Adrian Kuenzler and Laurent Warlouzet

in The Historical Foundations of EU Competition Law

This chapter assesses the influence of the national traditions of competition policy on the Community as well as the flows from the European level back to the national tier. The chapter is organized ... More

This chapter assesses the influence of the national traditions of competition policy on the Community as well as the flows from the European level back to the national tier. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 2 summarizes the economic context and regulatory framework up to the end of the Second World War, underscoring that a cartel-friendly environment existed in Europe at that time. Section 3 describes how the national trajectories evolved under these circumstances. Section 4 shows that while the national legislators began to take into account European competition law, the particular economic policy contexts and designs of national institutions, as well as a dimension of cross-fertilization, influenced and shaped supranational norms to a significant extent. Section 5 summarizes and draws out more generalized lines of conclusion.Less

Of Authenticity and Woman: Personal Narratives of Middle-Class Women in Modern China

Duara Prasenjit

in Becoming Chinese: Passages to Modernity and Beyond

This chapter explores the representation of women in modern Chinese nationalist discourse and the subversion of such discourse by the women themselves. It describes the two very different ... More

This chapter explores the representation of women in modern Chinese nationalist discourse and the subversion of such discourse by the women themselves. It describes the two very different nationalistic representations of women. One is the May Fourth representation of the radically anti-Confucian, anti-familial, nationalist woman and the varieties of more conservative constructions of woman as the representative of the soul of the tradition. It suggests that the way Chinese women were supposed to personify the essence of national tradition was a matter of many pragmatic possibilities and diverse political ramifications.Less

The Invention of European National Traditions in European Romanticism

Stefan Berger

in The Oxford History of Historical Writing: Volume 4: 1800-1945

This chapter emphasizes that in the first half of the 19th century, history writing was popular. However, it was not yet carried out within a thoroughly professionalized structure. What made it so ... More

This chapter emphasizes that in the first half of the 19th century, history writing was popular. However, it was not yet carried out within a thoroughly professionalized structure. What made it so popular was its ability to provide people with a sense of identity and orientation. This chapter also explains that during the 19th century the construction of national identity through history and the interpretation of disagreements in national development, such as revolutions, became the main concern of historians. During the first half of the 19th century, the invention of various national traditions was associated with the intellectual movement referred to as Romanticism.Less

Defining Russian Conservatism

Paul Robinson

in Russian Conservatism

This chapter undertakes the difficult task of defining Russian conservatism. Many of conservatism's most commonly cited features appear at best to fit uneasily together and at worst to contradict ... More

This chapter undertakes the difficult task of defining Russian conservatism. Many of conservatism's most commonly cited features appear at best to fit uneasily together and at worst to contradict each other entirely. Conservatism is universalistic, but also anti-universalistic; seems to oppose change, but also to promote it; can be vehemently anti-liberal, but also can be liberal; and so on. Different groups labeled “conservative” often hold views diametrically opposed to one another. But different conservatives do all have something in common. Tying them together is the thread of a preference for organic change. Following this thread, the chapter demonstrates that Russian conservatism is not a philosophy of the status quo. Rather, it is one that endorses change, but change of a certain, gradual sort that is in keeping, as much as possible, with national traditions.Less

Space, Subjectivity, and Literary Studies in the Age of Globalization

Nil Santiáñez

in Postnational Perspectives on Contemporary Hispanic Literature

Taking as a premise the view that the present is a transitional period toward what seems to be a new epoch, this chapter argues that discussions on literary studies vis-à-vis globalization ought to ... More

Taking as a premise the view that the present is a transitional period toward what seems to be a new epoch, this chapter argues that discussions on literary studies vis-à-vis globalization ought to reflect on the new production of space that started in the 1980s and is now expanding throughout the globe. The processes of globalization go hand in hand with a new experience of space and with the formation of new subjectivities. These and related phenomena make it difficult, if not impossible, to approach national literary traditions as discrete objects of study. Santiáñez’s chapter contends that, in the same way that many individuals live the world transnationally, Hispanism needs to be practiced as if works and authors were nodes located in a space of flows that both includes and transcends the nation. While globalization has—so far—not brought about the end of the nation-state, it has redefined it. This redefinition—which in fact describes the new function as well as the loss of sovereignty of the nation-state in the age of globalization—requires from teachers and researchers trained to work on national literatures an in-depth, radical reassessment of their activities.Less

Comparisons

David Damrosch

in Comparing the Literatures: Literary Studies in a Global Age

This chapter explains the literary theory that bridge the divides between national traditions in a balanced assessment of similarities and differences called “perspectivism.” It addresses the ... More

This chapter explains the literary theory that bridge the divides between national traditions in a balanced assessment of similarities and differences called “perspectivism.” It addresses the question of comparability that grew sharper during the 1980s as comparatists began to give more attention to non-Western literatures and struggled to locate their studies along an expanded spectrum. It also analyzes Claudio Guillén's Entre louno y lo diverso, which asserts the necessity of keeping in mind the constant to and fro between the unity sought by human consciousness and the countless historical–spatial differentiations in the field of literature. The chapter looks into an essay by Robert Magliola that asserts a close comparability of sexualized religious iconography in the European Renaissance and in tantric Buddhism. It also talks about Pauline Yu's “Alienation Effects” as a skeptical discussion of the limits of East/West comparability.Less

Words and Music: Texts and Translations

in Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera

This chapter discusses the matter of texts, translations, and adaptations of particular importance for operas written in French by Italian composers, which often continue to be performed in Italian ... More

This chapter discusses the matter of texts, translations, and adaptations of particular importance for operas written in French by Italian composers, which often continue to be performed in Italian translation. One significant problem in the performance today of operas by Italian composers, active during the first six decades of the nineteenth century, is the survival (and in some case the dominance) of the French operas by Italian composers in the modern performing tradition of nineteenth-century translations into Italian. Translation, and the process of adaptation that often accompanied it, also helped the works conceived in other traditions to be absorbed into a national sphere and, ultimately, integrated into national traditions. The effect of Rossini's style on French opera of the early nineteenth century was furthered by the performance of his operas in French adaptations.Less

Conclusion: How Joyce Is Read in Russia

José Vergara

in All Future Plunges to the Past: James Joyce in Russian Literature

This chapter reflects on how writers through 2021 have responded to James Joyce's texts, taken up some of his key themes (fatherhood, history, literary heritage, exile), and viewed him as either a ... More

This chapter reflects on how writers through 2021 have responded to James Joyce's texts, taken up some of his key themes (fatherhood, history, literary heritage, exile), and viewed him as either a welcome foreign contributor to their national tradition or an influence best worth ignoring. To do so, the chapter puts the interviews of writers and critics into dialogue with one another. This collective holds weekly meetings on Sundays via Zoom as they gradually make their way through Ulysses, over and over; they also organize an annual Bloomsday walk and celebration in central Moscow. The chapter reveals how the Russian Joyce is no less dynamic today. He has become an exile, a peripheral writer (in both senses of the word), a relic of the past, a gargantuan technical innovator, a symbol for the free spirit of prose, a passing fancy in one's youth, a hooligan, and a master of life-creation (zhiznetvorchestvo), among many other things.Less

Conclusion

Andrew Pepper

in Unwilling Executioner: Crime Fiction and the State

The short conclusion considers the main argument of the book and assesses its strengths and limitations. It calls for further work to be done in breaking down national crime fiction traditions and ... More

The short conclusion considers the main argument of the book and assesses its strengths and limitations. It calls for further work to be done in breaking down national crime fiction traditions and promoting new, comparative transnational frameworks. The various textual inclusions and omissions are explained and to some extent justified. It is acknowledged that further work is needed, it is acknowledged, is needed, to explore fully the complex relationships between race, gender, sovereignty and global capitalism. The conclusion ends by suggesting that further innovations in the genre might be realized through the hybridization of the crime story and the thriller, science fiction and espionage forms.Less

Introduction: On the Edge of History

Quentin Deluermoz and Pierre Singaravélou

in A Past of Possibilities: A History of What Could Have Been

This chapter provides a self-conscious reflection on the plethora of national traditions, which are being constantly renewed, not only in North America and Britain but also across the European ... More

This chapter provides a self-conscious reflection on the plethora of national traditions, which are being constantly renewed, not only in North America and Britain but also across the European continent as well as India and Latin America. The chapter attempts to grasp the diversity of uses of counterfactual reasoning and their extensions or applications from the soberest to the most fantastic. It covers a phase of deciphering or decoding that focuses on methodological issues that come to terms with the specific problems they pose and their pertinence for historical study. The chapter mainly addresses historiographical questions, methodological issues, the problem of sources, and the writing of history. It reviews cases that may serve as a reminder that laughter, play, the superficial, and the absurd can and undoubtedly should have a place in the production of history and its teaching.Less