Weber, Habermas and Transformations of the European State: Constitutional, Social, and Supranational Democracy [Hardcover]

This book confronts the difficulty of theorizing progressive politics during radical state transformation.This book draws on the writings of Max Weber and J?rgen Habermas to trace the relationship of law and democracy in three configurations of the European state: the liberal state (or Rechtsstaat), the welfare state (Sozialstaat), and the emerging supranational polity, the Sektoralstaat, represented by the European Union.This book draws on the writings of Max Weber and J?rgen Habermas to trace the relationship of law and democracy in three configurations of the European state: the liberal state (or Rechtsstaat), the welfare state (Sozialstaat), and the emerging supranational polity, the Sektoralstaat, represented by the European Union.This book draws on the writings of Max Weber and J?rgen Habermas to trace the relationship of law and democracy in three configurations of the European state: the liberal state (or Rechtsstaat), the welfare state (Sozialstaat), and the emerging supranational polity represented by the European Union. John P. McCormick exposes the tendency of social and political theorists to reach back unreflectively to the past and outlines a new, more appropriate normative-empirical model, the supranational Sektoralstaat, for evaluating prospects for constitutional and social democracy in the EU.1. Introduction: theorizing modern transformations of law and democracy; 2. The historical logic(s) of Habermas's critique of Weber's 'sociology of law'; 3. The puzzle of law, democracy and historical change in Weber's 'sociology of law'; 4. Habermas's deliberatively legal Sozialstaat; 5. Habermas on the European Union: normative aspirations; 6. The structural transformation to the supranational Sektoralstaat and prospects for democracy in the EU; 7. Conclusion: Habermas's philosophy of history and the future of Europe. This ambitious work is a reflection on the fate of the state in an era of globalization and internationalization. While its focus is the Eurol)