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Book Review: The Bachelors' Ball

is to be understood is the process of ‘Europeanization’. And what is cosmopolitanism? The recognition of difference (individual or communal), accepted as equal, is key to their definitional work, and the authors stress how this distinguishes cosmopolitanism from universalism or nationalism; however, cosmopolitanism is also differentiated from the particularisms typical of postmodern thought owing to the former’s normative character. Beck and Grande see Europe as the most promising cosmopolitan entity around. For them, it was always institutionally cosmopolitan from the moment the European Community came into being, but the task is to transform its ‘deformed’ cosmopolitanism into one more worthy of the name. The replacement of the technocratic mechanisms of self-interested actors with democratic ones is seen as vital, and Beck and Grande’s four solutions are all political. First, we need to strengthen civil society based on universally shared constitutional norms. Second, we must invent post-national and post-parliamentary models of democracy (here the authors build on associative democracy). Third, practices of political integration have to be about acknowledging differences rather than erasing them. Fourth, the newly cosmopolitan Europe must look outward, becoming part of a global cosmopolitan security community (p. 228). To call this book ambitious would be an understatement. It is utopian in the best sense of the word, challenging us to reject tired ways of thinking and to imagine – but also to construct – a new future. It privileges the political over the economic in its analysis, and it rejects realist ideas about military power as outdated (‘the strongest is no longer immune from attacks by the weakest’ [p. 251] is one lesson from 11 September). It has a subtext which suggests that the American way of thinking is ready to be replaced by a European way ‘that accords priority to the rule of law, political equality, social justice, cosmopolitan integration and solidarity’ (p. 264). Europe, then, is seen as the foundation for a new form of global democracy. There is a single-mindedness to this book which is always carefully justified, and which allows for the development of a powerful thesis that will be highly influential throughout the social sciences over the next few years.