Verovsek, P.J. (2020) Integration after totalitarianism: Arendt and Habermas on the postwar imperatives of memory. Journal of International Political Theory, 16 (1). pp. 2-24. ISSN 1755-0882
Abstract
Collective memories of totalitarianism and the industrialized slaughter of the Holocaust have exerted a profound influence on postwar European politics and philosophy. Two of the most prominent political theorists and public intellectuals to take up the legacy of total war are Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas. However, their prescriptions seem to pull in opposite directions. While Arendt draws on remembrance to recover politics on a smaller scale by advocating for the empowerment of local councils, Habermas draws on the past to justify his search for postnational forms of political community that can overcome the bloody legacy of nationalism. My argument brings these two perspectives together by examining their mutual support for European integration as a way of preserving the lessons of totalitarianism. I argue that both Arendt and Habermas reject the technocratic tendencies of the European Union while maintaining hope that it can develop a truly postnational form of politics.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 The Author(s). This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Journal of International Political Theory. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. Article available under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
Keywords: | Collective memory; European Union; Hannah Arendt; Jürgen Habermas; political community; totalitarianism |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Politics and International Relations (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 15 Oct 2018 09:47 |
Last Modified: | 27 Apr 2021 13:43 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/1755088218796535 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:137092 |