The Lure of Technocracy (PDF)

Over the past 25 years, Jürgen Habermas has presented what
is arguably the most coherent and wide-ranging defence of the
project of European unification and of parallel developments
towards a politically integrated world society. In developing his
key concepts of the transnationalisation of democracy and the
constitutionalisation of international law, Habermas offers the
main players in the struggles over the fate of the European Union
(the politicians, the political parties and the publics of the
member states) a way out of the current economic and political
crisis, should they choose to follow it.

In the title essay Habermas addresses the challenges and threats
posed by the current banking and public debt crisis in the Eurozone
for European unification. He is harshly critical of the
incrementalist, technocratic policies advocated by the German
government in particular, which are being imposed at the expense of
the populations of the economically weaker, crisis-stricken
countries and are undermining solidarity between the member states.
He argues that only if the technocratic approach is replaced by a
deeper democratization of the European institutions can the
European Union fulfil its promise as a model for how rampant market
capitalism can once again be brought under political control at the
supranational level.

This volume reflects the impressive scope of Habermas?s recent
writings on European themes, including theoretical treatments of
the complex legal and political issues at stake, interventions on
current affairs, and reflections on the lives and works of major
European philosophers and intellectuals. Together the essays
provide eloquent testimony to the enduring relevance of the work of
one of the most influential and far-sighted public intellectuals in
the world today, and are essential reading for all philosophers,
legal scholars and social scientists interested in European and
global issues.