Transnational Democracy and Human Rights: Beck's Implementation of Cosmopolitanism and Habermas' Perspective on Democratic Juridification
Abstract
While distancing from Eurosceptic views, major findings have been critical assessment of certain theoretical approaches that have focused on various scenarios of reconstruction of European institutional framework by modification of economic, political and social subsystem. To put it more specifically, individual perspectives proposed by European intellectual opinion leaders such as Ulrich Beck and Jürgen Habermas have offered different solutions for their improvement.
When pointing to crisis of Eurozone, threatening existence of the European Union, Habermas has reconstructed conception of world order of Immanuel Kant and has ascribed special importance to legal universalism and its importance for human dignity. When differentiating between cosmopolitan claims and methodological nationalism, Ulrich Beck has coined the thesis about cosmopolitan vision anchored in cosmopolitan worldview as well as superiority of cosmopolitan realism to national standpoints.
Ulrich Beck and Jürgen Habermas have also been two important thinkers who have dealt with issues of transnational democracy, European Union, democratic juridification, human rights and importance of human dignity. Their reflections have dealt with relevance of International Criminal Court, network of transnational organizations and preference of transnational law to national one, influence of reunited Germany under the global condition, etc.
Given similarities of their reflections and perspectives the article highlights distinctions between Beck's and Habermas' conceptualization of institutionalization of European space, their understanding of human rights as well as their critical attitudes to policies of current Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel. Reflections upon these two theoretical points of view concerning harmonization of European modus vivendi have resulted in final synthesis and its two major components; firstly critical appropriation of their certain ideas and secondly perspective regarding their beneficial effect for advancement of European institutional and legal environment, European political parties and European parliament.