Britain And Germany Imagining The Future Of Europe

Description: Recounting the gripping tale of Europe's quest for a constitution surveying events from Joschka Fischer's ground-breaking Quo-Vadis speech at Berlin's Humboldt University in 2000, to the failed referendums in France and the Netherlands fiver years later, this book addresses a relatively new aspect in EU Studies: the importance of public communication for bridging the legitimacy dilemmas of European integration. Through analysis of newspaper coverage on the debate over the future of Europe in Great Britain and Germany between 2000 and 2005, this book explores how national identities interact with, and are reproduced in, the discursive construction of the future of the EU and in doing so, it provides powerful insights into Europe's emerging communicative space(s). The results of the three case studies suggest that the debate surrounding the future of Europe touche the core of a European construction, which exposes contradictory connotations and expectations while also highlighting that totally different ontological assumptions exist in Germany and the UK. The implications for the "European Public Sphere' are severe as while communication across borders does not require consensus, it presupposes a common understanding of the issues at stake.

Review: To come

Contents: List of Tables and Figures Preface PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. The EU, the Nation State and the News Media 2. Scope of the Book 3. Plan of the Book PART II: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES 4. The Social Construction of Europe - a New Focus for Theory and Research 5. Democracy and Legitimacy at the EU level 6. Democracy and Communication 7. The Nexus of Communication, Legitimacy and Identity PART III: THE EUROPEAN PUBLIC SPHERE 8. The European Public Sphere, Brussels and the Media 9. A European Public Sphere or a European Sphere of Publics? PART IV: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY 10. Discursive Conditions for a Europeanisation of Public Spheres 11. The News Media as Subject of Analysis 12. The Communicative Event under Study: The Future of Europe Debate PART V: IDENTITIES IN PERSPECTIVE: TWO DIFFERENT HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIPS TO EUROPE 13. Introduction 14. Britain 15. Germany 16. Concluding Remarks PART VI: THE DISCURSIVE REPRESENTATION OF THE FUTURE OF EUROPE PROCESS 17. Joschka Fischer's Humboldt Speech (2000) 18. The Presentation of the Convention Results (2003) 19. The Reactions to the Rejection of the Constitutional Treaty (2005) PART VII: CONCLUSION 20. Britain and Germany Imagining the Future of Europe 21. Implications for the 'European Sphere of Publics' Bibliography I. Primary Sources Official Documents Official Speeches Additional Media Sources II. Secondary Literature Index



Author Biography: Leonard Novy is Director of the Institute for Media and Communications Policy (IfM), Berlin, Germany. He studied History and Politics and obtained a Masters Degree and PhD from Cambridge University. He was Visiting Scholar at Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik and Visiting Fellow at Harvard University. A senior lecturer at Zeppelin Universitat, Friedrichshafen, and and an International Tandem Partner at Leuphana Universitat, Luneburg, he has published on issues pertaining to European politics, political communication and democracy. He is also co-publisher of carta.info, a leading German blog and writes for German newspapers and radio.