Peter Baldwin: Is the EU Too Big to be Democratic?
[Peter Baldwin is Professor of Modern History at UCLA. He is the author of "The narcissism of minor differences: how America and Europe are alike" (Oxford University Press, 2009).]
Back in the days – let’s say 1932 just to pick a moment – when European politics were really polarized, the spectrum ran from Moscow-faithful communists at one extreme all the way to monarchists and fascists. During the same time, the US political spectrum spanned all the way from Republicans to Democrats, which is to say from what Europeans would call center right liberals to center left liberals. Neither extreme questioned the premises of democracy, neither sought the embrace of the state in a socialist fashion, or even – on the far left of American politics – in more than a very moderate quasi-social democratic manner. The answer to Sombart’s classic query, why is there no socialism in America, also served largely as the answer to its necessary pendant: why is there no fascism in America? American politics in the twentieth century was a model of consensus compared to the ideological extremes found across the Atlantic.
But no longer. Common wisdom has it that American politics have degenerated into a polarized stalemate, with the Tea-Party tail wagging the Republican dog and permitting no cooperation with an Obama-led Democratic party. Meanwhile, European politics have reached what is taken to be an amiable consensus – exemplified by the Tweedledum and -dee of the Clegg-Cameron continuum – comfortably to the left of the American political center of gravity, in agreement on a leading role for the state in most aspects of life, on a secularized indifference to religion (so long as it isn’t Islam) and a belief that efficiency, productivity and work are means not ends in themselves. From that vantage, the debate over health reform in the US, and politicians like Sarah Palin, must rightly seem slightly surreal.
But before we settle in with another comfortable trans-Atlantic dichotomy, let us look this horse in the mouth. We should not, for one, underestimate the polarization of European politics. Yes, debates over health care are a thing of the past. But what about other sensitive points on the European body politic, like immigration? In the US, the crowds are in the streets protesting against an Arizona law that would do only what is already standard operating procedure in every European nation (outside the UK at least), namely require foreigners to carry identification. Conversely, in many European nations political parties whose main plank is to limit and possibly even reverse immigration, mandate assimilation, restrict particular sartorial habits, and in other respects make life miserable for foreigners win double digit electoral support and in some cases prop up governments. Geert Wilders, leader of one such party which has just become the third largest in Holland, lives under police protection, moving between safe houses almost daily, in constant fear of assassination for his political views. In other words, European polarization over one of the main issues of modern politics is without comparison in the US....
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Back in the days – let’s say 1932 just to pick a moment – when European politics were really polarized, the spectrum ran from Moscow-faithful communists at one extreme all the way to monarchists and fascists. During the same time, the US political spectrum spanned all the way from Republicans to Democrats, which is to say from what Europeans would call center right liberals to center left liberals. Neither extreme questioned the premises of democracy, neither sought the embrace of the state in a socialist fashion, or even – on the far left of American politics – in more than a very moderate quasi-social democratic manner. The answer to Sombart’s classic query, why is there no socialism in America, also served largely as the answer to its necessary pendant: why is there no fascism in America? American politics in the twentieth century was a model of consensus compared to the ideological extremes found across the Atlantic.
But no longer. Common wisdom has it that American politics have degenerated into a polarized stalemate, with the Tea-Party tail wagging the Republican dog and permitting no cooperation with an Obama-led Democratic party. Meanwhile, European politics have reached what is taken to be an amiable consensus – exemplified by the Tweedledum and -dee of the Clegg-Cameron continuum – comfortably to the left of the American political center of gravity, in agreement on a leading role for the state in most aspects of life, on a secularized indifference to religion (so long as it isn’t Islam) and a belief that efficiency, productivity and work are means not ends in themselves. From that vantage, the debate over health reform in the US, and politicians like Sarah Palin, must rightly seem slightly surreal.
But before we settle in with another comfortable trans-Atlantic dichotomy, let us look this horse in the mouth. We should not, for one, underestimate the polarization of European politics. Yes, debates over health care are a thing of the past. But what about other sensitive points on the European body politic, like immigration? In the US, the crowds are in the streets protesting against an Arizona law that would do only what is already standard operating procedure in every European nation (outside the UK at least), namely require foreigners to carry identification. Conversely, in many European nations political parties whose main plank is to limit and possibly even reverse immigration, mandate assimilation, restrict particular sartorial habits, and in other respects make life miserable for foreigners win double digit electoral support and in some cases prop up governments. Geert Wilders, leader of one such party which has just become the third largest in Holland, lives under police protection, moving between safe houses almost daily, in constant fear of assassination for his political views. In other words, European polarization over one of the main issues of modern politics is without comparison in the US....