"European Norms or Clichés? Why Hermeneutics Matters"

Scholars of normative power Europe (NPE) have successfully demonstrated how the European Union has gradually emerged as a changer of norms in the international system. But more work is needed also to understand the principles of action that reorganized the relationships among Europeans themselves and made NPE possible. This essay argues for a hermeneutical approach that draws from Paul Ricoeur, Charles Taylor and Hannah Arendt. By taking seriously the self-understanding of those whose political lives it seeks to explain, hermeneutics renews the understanding of concepts and practices, such as European reconciliation(s), community and reunification that otherwise too easily morph into meaningless slogans. Confronting the words and deeds of European founders (at the elite and popular level) with the reflections of post WWII thinkers such as Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, Karl Jaspers and Jürgen Habermas can yield important insights. The empirical work relies on memoirs and autobiographies, 70 long interviews, treaty and policy texts (1950 – 2005)