[Séminaire général du CEE] Ideology, conflict and solidarity in the EU

During the 2010s the European Union entered into an existential crisis which almost entirely de-plenished the “communal ethos”  of   inter-state relations.  A key role  in this development was played by  ideology, in particular the failure of the main ideological families  of the Continent to elaborate  coherent  visions  about the  EU as a political community. Visions and symbols are not  only important, but also causally autonomous in shaping political and institutional development.  Elaborating a shared view of  the EU as a polity characterised by a modicum of communality has been historically a demanding task, and systemic shocks typically tend to catalyse latent conflicts.  But crises also provide fertile grounds for political imagination to revive togetherness feelings and  cope with common challenges -  as was eventually demonstrated during the COVID pandemic.

Speaker:

Maurizio Ferrera, University of Milan

Maurizio Ferrera is Professor of Political Science at the Department of Social and Political Sciences of the University of Milano.  He has  mainly worked on welfare states and European integration. In 2005, he published The Boundaries of Welfare. The New Spatial Politics of Social Protection (Oxford University Press: 2005; tr. Fr. Les nouvelles frontières du social. L'intégration européenne et les transformations de l'espace politique de la protection sociale, Paris,  Presse de Sciences Po, 2009).  His  newest books  are:  Politics and Social Visions. Ideology, Conflict and Solidarity in the EU (Oxford University Press, 2024) and  Social Reformism 2.0 (with J.Mirò and S.Ronchi, Edward Elgar, 2024). In 2013 Ferrera won an ERC Advanced Grant for a project on “Reconciling Economic and Social Europe: the role of ideas, values ​​and politics” (REScEU: www.resceu.eu). In 2019 he won an ERC Synergy Grant for a project on: Sovereignty, identity and Solidarity in the EU post-2008”, together with Hanspeter Kriesi (EUI, Florence) and Waltraud Schelkle (LSE) (www.solid-erc.eu).  

Book for the seminar - Politics and Social Visions Ideology, Conflict, and Solidarity in the EU

Chair:

Bruno Palier, Sciences Po, CEE

Discussant:

Matteo Mandelli, Sciences Po, CEE