ABSTRACT
Reflecting on the revolutions in Eastern Europe in 1989, the late Fraçois Mitterand in his 1990 New Year’s speech to the French people stated that ‘Europe is returning home to its history and geography’. However, the revolutions in Eastern Europe should not be construed simply as an occasion to look back, to try to resurrect the past. They also represent a unique opportunity for Europe to try to recapture the aspects of the past that will produce a better future. Now that Europe is no longer divided, it can proceed with the civilizational project that was first initiated during the Enlightenment era, but which has since then faced a number of grave setbacks. European integration is rooted in the past, and ultimately draws its legitimating force from the humanistic developments that have been so important to the Western world. European integration has its foundations in the strongest institutional manifestations of this development, namely the successful establishment of national systems of democratic governance in all of Western Europe, but is also a response to their defects. European integration promises to expand the system of democratic governance to the international level, through the establishment of supranational institutions. Such institutions, it should be noted, are no doubt also efforts to remedy the particular contemporary challenges associated with globalization. Globalization alerts us to the fact that in important respects the state is too small to address some of the most pressing challenges we are faced with today. Globalization-proceeding along legal, cultural, economical and political dimensions-brings forth new and magnifies old challenges to legitimate governance. The state is not able to control international capital flows or technological developments. Nor can it stem the negative social and environmental effects of an increasingly global capitalism. It has become increasingly evident that many problems such as nuclear waste, carbon dioxide emissions, refugees, cross-border financial flows, criminal law problems, and technology transfer require solutions at the international level. In addition, in such a situation, it has become increasingly difficult for the state to uphold the socio-economic compromise, which has long sustained the welfare-state. This
compromise consisted of measures to sustain economic growth, on the one hand, and measures to ensure social protection, on the other. In Chapter 2, Jürgen Habermas discusses the consequences of economic globalization and the need for a global welfare regime.
