ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book offers some reflection on how the recovery from the democratic deficit of Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) governance by opening the policy to civic engagement can lead to more European integration. An activist –informed – EU citizen takes part in the democratic game around the democratisation of CSDP governance and gradually and socially constructs sentiments of agonistic solidarity towards fellow EU citizens "fighting" in the same game. The intention is to present an alternative way of understanding the linkage between the democratisation of CSDP and a bottom-up progressin European integration. Constitutional patriotism developed as an alternative path for political integration, a path which could by-pass the nation-state and the idea of nationalism with its negative corollaries such as inter-ethnic discrimination and violence.
