European Unification and the Question of Sovereignty

B. European Unification and the Question of Sovereignty Michael Loriaux, Professor, Political Science

European Union is the most ambitious and successful experiment in international peace-making in history. At the core of that experiment is the commitment to push back on sovereignty claims as advanced in the name of the state and in the name of leaders of the state. The EU’s counter-sovereigntist posture bears close examination. We live in an age of dramatic geopolitical, economic, and demographic change and even existential peril. Global challenges demand global responses. The assertion by nation states of their sovereign rights and by statesmen of their sovereign freedoms inhibits coordinated action on a global level. It is no accident that the region of the world, Europe, in which the claims to sovereignty are most restricted is also the region of the world that has enacted the most ambitious and effective policies to combat climate change. In this course we learn about the European Union, but we study it specifically because its counter-sovereigntism may prove useful as we try to address the coming and present crises.