ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to provides the debate on Europe society, but seeks to answer the question in a different way from the issue of whether European integration is leading towards a European society. An account of European society could focus on many other features of Europe, as for example family structures, inequality, education, mobility, consumption, the declining significance of religion. Against the background of the historical formation of Europe in terms of processes of integration, differentiation, and interconnectivity, two major things stand out as a feature of Europe and which can be said to be constitutive of European society: capitalism and democracy. A key feature of European society is the logic of interaction between capitalism and democracy. Capitalism produces inequality while democracy seeks egalitarianism. The emphasis on the field of tensions produced by capitalism and democracy as constitutive of European society shifts the perspective considerably.
