The Myths of Europe: Legitimacy, Community and the ‘Crisis’ of the EU

Lene Hansen and Michael C. Williams

Journal of Common Market Studies, 1999, vol. 37, issue 2, 233-249

Abstract: The current debate over the ‘crisis’ of the EU has often been linked with criticisms of functionalism. From both a liberal‐political and a romantic position, functionalism has been charged with paying inadequate attention to questions of legitimacy and identity ‐ and particularly to the importance of myth ‐ in political community. For the romantic position, the functionalist project could succeed so long it did not enter the realm of national myths. For liberals, it can succeed only if supplemented by a European myth. Each holds in common, however, the belief that myth was missing from the integration process so far and that the key question involves myth’s relation to functionalism. This article argues that, rather than eliding mythic elements, functionalism actually draws powerfully upon modernist myths of rationalization, and that coming to terms more fully with this mythic structure is essential in assessing questions of the EU’s legitimacy and its ‘crisis’.

Date: 1999
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