Fall Transatlantic Symposium

The fall Transatlantic Symposium features joint project work between the ASKO EUROPA-STIFTUNG and Texas A&M University, as hosted by the College of Liberal Arts. This is the second in a series of five symposia alternating between Germany and Texas A&M in which experts from the United States and European Union discuss important topics about the future and their perspectives on such issues. The venue of the symposium will alternate each year between the Europäischen Akademie, Oztenhausen and Texas A&M University.

This year’s symposium titled "Constitutional experiences in federal polities - problems of political legitimacy in a transatlantic perspective" will take place at Texas A&M University from October 18-20, 2007.

Joachim Schild presents at the first workshop of the symposium

In summer 2005, a majority of French and Dutch citizen rejected the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. Since then, Europe is said to be at crisis. But what kind of crisis? It rather seems that the so-called Constitutional crisis lies much deeper and has been developing for quite some time already. Citizens/national publics seem to have lost confidence in Europe’s political elite and in the project of the European Union. But every political project needs legitimization by its citizens/ national public. In addition to the integration process itself, this large debate in the EU revovles around how to (re-) gain the peoples’ confidence and endorsement for the EU-system.

Topics of Interest

Participants of the symposium will confront this European debate with view(s) from outside the Union on this situation and the idea of constitution in general. The symposium will attempt to tackle questions such as the following:

• What are the American perspectives on this crisis and other constitutional moments in history?
• What are the solutions proposed by Europeans and others on the question of methods and ways to reconcile citizens/national publics and political elites?
  
• What are the respective views on the citizens’ expectations and the means to meet them?
  

The symposium consists of two parts: three workshops to exchange among experts (see below), and a plenary session open to the public to synthesize and draw conclusions from the debates.

Workshop 1: The EU at crisis – what´s wrong with Europe? A diagnosis in a transatlantic perspective.
Focus: Is there a constitutional crisis in the EU or, is there a deeper lack of political legitimacy? What historical precedents might be helpful in the current context? How does this European crisis affect the transatlantic relationship?

Workshop 2: Federalism and Political Legitimacy
Focus: Does federalism promote or weaken political legitimacy in federal polities? How, and what lessons can Europe/the EU take from a comparative analysis of the US and German examples? And, what implications are there for the future constitutional development of Europe?

Workshop 3: How to re-legitimate polity?
Focus: What are the constraints, and what are the more salient and promising strategies for improving political legitimacy? Specifically:

• Do more efficient policies in key areas promote legitimacy?
• Does a change in the political discourse help to re-establish political legitimacy?
• Can Europe’s political legitimacy be improved within the context of a common transatlantic dialogue, or must Europe’s legitimacy be achieved at the expense of the traditional transatlantic relationship and structure?
• What implications do these have for a sustained transatlantic relationship, if any. And, will these strategies exacerbate or narrow the major political divides within Europe?

Organizers
The symposium is directed, organized, and sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts at Texas A&M University, the Department of Political Science at Texas A&M University, and the ASKO EUROPA-STIFTUNG.