Perspectives on Europe and the Heritage of Modernity

International Conference

“Perspectives on Europe and the Heritage of Modernity“

Zagreb, 2nd to 3rd of September 2016

Call for Papers

There are numerous and significant signs showing that we are faced with a deep and long-lasting crisis of the EU. That crisis, however, cannot be reduced to one of its manifest aspects (economy, security, integration), although it encompasses them all. Nor can it be identified with the difficulties and obstacles of the decision-making processes both in the EU institutions and between its member states. What is in question, namely, is a fundamental crisis of the EU as the project of creating a European legal, economic and political community that seems to have reached a turning point and is now confronted with a serious threat of failure. We are therefore pushed to urgently examine the essential features of the European project and consider different ways of overcoming its current crisis. However, that is possible only through a critical rethinking of the heritage of Modernity inscribed in the bases of the European community. The project of Modernity originates precisely in the search for such an order that would enable and guarantee peace and security as fundamental values and that would make possible the emancipation of the individual in intersubjective autonomy with others. That programme is however far from fulfilment. Moreover, it has always been open to crisis and exposed to the threat of turning to its opposite, as was shown by the experience of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes of the 20th century and by the recent growing support and popularity of radical political solutions. The crisis of Europe is therefore essentially the crisis of Modernity itself, present in its fundamental preconditions. That is why the understanding of challenges that Europe is faced with today and the conceptualization of its future development perspectives are crucially dependent on the reconsideration of the most important insights brought forth by the modern political thought.

In the light of our present European moment there are three problem areas that deserve our special attention:

Firstly, modern republicanism in its various forms from Machiavelli to Rousseau as a tradition of political thinking which can provide an alternative way of understanding the contemporary conjuncture. The turn to republicanism seems all the more inevitable when one has in mind the necessary political innovations that are pressingly sought in order to cope with decline and corruption of the society. In sharp contrast with the liberal instrumental and technical concept of politics, and the dangerous reduction of the original complexity of societal community to its economic aspect, republicanism, with its valuable understanding of liberty as non-domination, helps us to rediscover the political in its essential, emancipatory and socially forming dimension.

Secondly, the state, in the tradition from Hobbes to Hegel, as the fundamental project of Modernity, politico-legal order that limits its own power with the aim of enabling and promoting the development of moral, legal, economic and political subjectivity of the individual. The development in question is a process which is not yet near its completion and is always confronted with new challenges. However, it is clear that its potentials cannot be fully realized within the framework of nation states. That is why it has to be continued at the level of Europe as the community of states and their citizens. It is therefore essential to problematize the emancipatory potential and the limitations of the state as the modern political order.

Thirdly, the civil society, in its modern form, as comprehended by Hegel, that is determined, first and foremost, although not exclusively, by the logic of its economic processes and relations. It is precisely in the critical dialogue with Hegel that it is possible to consider the conditions under which the civil society can be understood as an autonomous sphere in which one form of freedom is realized but at the same time to recognize the threat it represents to the state as totality if left to its own economic logic. For that reason it is necessary to examine the different modalities of the relation between the socio-economic and the political spheres, as well as the possibilities and the difficulties of establishing a genuine political community under the conditions of modern civil society. At last, critical confrontation with Marx’s critique of political economy as the “anatomy of civil society” can help us to develop conceptual tools for grasping the contradictions of contemporary economic conjuncture and to revitalise the socialistic strand of modern political thought as basis for at least appreciating the importance of the social dimension of human rights.

The International Conference in political theory “Perspectives on Europe and the Heritage of Modernity” will be held at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Croatia, from 2nd to 3rd September 2016. It is an invitational conference, organized by the Faculty of Political Science in Zagreb with the support of European Social Fund in the framework of the ESF project Political in the time of actual crisis: the heritage of modernity and contemporary challenges to the project of European unity. Complete costs for the participants are covered by the organizer (full board accommodation, travel costs). The presentations should be thematically related to one of the three above described problem areas and should not exceed 20 mins. We kindly ask the participants to to provide a CV and short summary of their paper (up to 250 words) by the 15th August 2016. For your application and all additional information please contact Mr. Davorin Zagar:  [email protected]