IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jcmkts/v59y2021i6p1623-1639.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Where Does Europe End? Christian Democracy and the Expansion of Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Josef Hien
  • Fabio Wolkenstein

Abstract

In this article, we argue that an analysis of the conflict around the nature and limits of European integration that arose between Catholic and Protestant Christian Democrats in the post‐war era can shed new light on the expansionary dynamics that gradually came to characterize the project of European integration. Catholic Christian Democrats framed the unification of Europe as a relatively exclusionary cultural‐civilizational endeavour, while Protestant Christian Democrats favoured a more inclusive conception of Europe that prioritised free trade over cultural homogeneity. Focusing specifically on Germany, we suggest that the eventual resolution of the intra‐party struggle between the two camps in the early 1970s was a crucial enabler for including more and more countries into the European project. For it was only thereafter that Catholic Christian Democrats began supporting the expansion of European integration beyond the core Europe of the original Six, with geopolitical concerns gradually crowding out cultural ones.

Suggested Citation

  • Josef Hien & Fabio Wolkenstein, 2021. "Where Does Europe End? Christian Democracy and the Expansion of Europe," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(6), pages 1623-1639, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jcmkts:v:59:y:2021:i:6:p:1623-1639
    DOI: 10.1111/jcms.13206
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13206
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/jcms.13206?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Karl Magnus Johansson, 2002. "Another Road to Maastricht: The Christian Democrat Coalition and the Quest for European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(5), pages 871-893, December.
    2. Sonia Lucarelli, 2015. "Italy and the EU: From True Love to Disenchantment?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53, pages 40-60, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fabio Wolkenstein, 2023. "Christian Europe Redux," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(3), pages 636-652, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Schäfer, Armin, 2004. "Beyond the Community Method: Why the Open Method of Coordination Was Introduced to EU Policy-making," European Integration online Papers (EIoP), European Community Studies Association Austria (ECSA-A), vol. 8, September.
    2. Erik Jones & Matthias Matthijs, 2020. "Italy and the European Elections of 2019," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(S1), pages 69-79, September.
    3. repec:bla:jcmkts:v:48:y:2010:i::p:1283-1306 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Wojciech Gagatek and Steven Van Hecke, 2011. "Towards Policy-Seeking Europarties? The Development of European Political Foundations," EUI-RSCAS Working Papers 58, European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS).
    5. Pastore, Francesco, 2020. "Italy between a Disaster and a New Development Strategy," IZA Policy Papers 167, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Zorn, Hendrik & Schäfer, Armin & Manow, Philip, 2004. "European Social Policy and Europe's Party-Political Center of Gravity, 1957-2003," MPIfG Discussion Paper 04/6, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    7. Tim Haughton, 2016. "Beelines, Bypasses and Blind Alleys: Theory and the Study of the European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54, pages 65-82, September.
    8. Tim Haughton, 2016. "Is Crisis the New Normal? The European Union in 2015," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54, pages 5-7, September.
    9. Marks, Gary & Hooghe, Liesbet, 2003. "National identity and support for European integration," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Democracy and Democratization SP IV 2003-202, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    10. Erol Külahci, 2010. "Europarties: Agenda‐Setter or Agenda‐Follower? Social Democracy and the Disincentives for Tax Harmonization," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(5), pages 1283-1306, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jcmkts:v:59:y:2021:i:6:p:1623-1639. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0021-9886 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.