Pax Transatlantica

Pax Transatlantica asserts that the recurrent transatlantic crises that have dominated headlines since the end of the Cold War, while not irrelevant, pale when set against the realities of shared interests and goals. It emphasizes three key factors. First, despite inflammatory and dismissive rhetoric, NATO continues to provide a solid security structure for its member states: an institutional framework of a Pax Transatlantica that has stood the test of time by expanding its remit and scope. Second, in a world concerned with the potential effects of trade wars (especially between the United States and China) and the rise of economic nationalism, the transatlantic economic relationship stands apart as the richest, most closely integrated transcontinental economic space on the globe. Third, the book traces the parallel evolution of domestic politics on both sides of the Atlantic with specific focus on the rise of populism. Rather than a sign of transatlantic “drift,” the rise of populism—much like the emergence of so-called Third Way politics on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1990s—is evidence of a closely integrated transatlantic political space. In the end, while it is obvious that the history of the transatlantic relationship—even during the Cold War—was littered with crises, the relationship has endured. Conflicts have illustrated, time and again, the strength of the transatlantic community. The “West,” the book concludes, not only continues to exist. It is likely to thrive in the future.

Recalling and/or Repressing German Marxism? The Case of Ernst Fraenkel

I spent a few unseasonably hot summer days in 1996 digging around in the German Federal Archives in Koblenz for what later became a lengthy essay on Ernst Fraenkel (1898–1975), the neglected German socialist political and legal thinker. I still recall struggling to justify my efforts not simply as an historian of ideas but also as a political theorist who, at least in principle, was expected to make systematic contributions to contemporary debates. The problem was that Fraenkel had focused his acumen on investigating liberal democratic instability and German fascism, matters that did not seem directly pertinent to a political and intellectual constellation in which political scientists were celebrating democracy's “third wave.” With Tony Blair and Bill Clinton touting Third Way politics, and many former dictatorships seemingly on a secure path to liberal democracy, Fraenkel's preoccupations seemed dated. Even though Judith Shklar had noted, as late as 1989, that “anyone who thinks that fascism in one guise or another is dead and gone ought to think again,” political pundits and scholars in the mid-1990s typically assumed that capitalist liberal democracy's future was secure. When I returned to the US and described my research to colleagues, they responded, unsurprisingly, politely but without much enthusiasm.

The American Dream Comes Home

This chapter talks about Don Terner who imagined a new household appliance. Across the First and Third Worlds, he explained, “the concept of dweller autonomy appears to offer one of the few hopes for truly broad-based housing improvement.” This chapter also describes between the War on Poverty and Terner's death how over 26,000 US households had built their own homes using FmHA Section 502 loans. Self-help remained a small program, but it had grown since the 1960s, accounting in 1996 for 1,514 new loans totaling over $100 million. In 1995, the Clinton administration designated Self-Help Enterprises a “Partner in the American Dream” as part of its National Homeownership Strategy. A policy born alongside public housing in the expansionary days of the welfare state now thrived under the banner of Third Way politics.

From ‘one right way’ to ‘one ruinous way’? Discursive shifts in ‘There is no alternative’

If decisions are made in democracies in open procedures, the rhetoric ofThere is no alternative(TINA) raises certain questions. Tracing back the idea of necessity to symptomatic discourses, this article analyzes TINA as a political strategy in contexts such as Thatcherism, Third Way politics, and European crisis management, and sheds light on the specific characteristics of politics in the name of TINA. The analysis identifies distinct models of ‘one way’ discourses, reflecting political cultures and institutional settings and providing discursive trajectories. We examine the motivation for invoking necessity to justify unpalatable and normatively intricate policy decisions, and understand TINA politics in its double effect: as facilitating certain policies yet obstructing democratic and deliberative procedures. This allows us to address the question of whether the politics of our time shows a disposition to TINA as a means of responding to the rise and fall of political steering optimism.

‘New’ Social Democracy before the Court of Justice

Community law has seen some of the fiercest battles over ‘new’ social democracy and ‘Third Way’ politics. To simplify somewhat, the core idea of the Third Way is to rely on the market to provide services to the public efficiently, without however disconnecting them from certain key social values. In the Community legal order, these social policy devices invite the application of the Community’s economic jurisdiction, where public services can be classified as ‘market’ services. They frequently lead to what Joerges has labelled ‘diagonal’ conflicts between the Community’s economic law and its competence to uphold the EU Internal Market, and the Member States’ individual choice, and competence, to administer their welfare states. In ‘diagonal’ conflict situations, a single set of facts is analysed via two different ‘logics’, one following the economic perspective of the Internal Market, and the other marking the Member State’s political and social competence, where states are regularly guided by a more diffuse set of values, including public and constitutional rights, and practical political pressures. Whilst states may well invite the market into their welfare state, for example as part of a political ‘third way’ solution, the national electorate, who will ultimately hold public authorities accountable, are likely to concentrate their judgement on the realisation of substantive public service targets rather than how they have been achieved.

‘New’ Social Democracy before the Court of Justice

Community law has seen some of the fiercest battles over ‘new’ social democracy and ‘Third Way’ politics. To simplify somewhat, the core idea of the Third Way is to rely on the market to provide services to the public efficiently, without however disconnecting them from certain key social values. In the Community legal order, these social policy devices invite the application of the Community’s economic jurisdiction, where public services can be classified as ‘market’ services. They frequently lead to what Joerges has labelled ‘diagonal’ conflicts between the Community’s economic law and its competence to uphold the EU Internal Market, and the Member States’ individual choice, and competence, to administer their welfare states. In ‘diagonal’ conflict situations, a single set of facts is analysed via two different ‘logics’, one following the economic perspective of the Internal Market, and the other marking the Member State’s political and social competence, where states are regularly guided by a more diffuse set of values, including public and constitutional rights, and practical political pressures. Whilst states may well invite the market into their welfare state, for example as part of a political ‘third way’ solution, the national electorate, who will ultimately hold public authorities accountable, are likely to concentrate their judgement on the realisation of substantive public service targets rather than how they have been achieved.