Perfecting European Democracy. Science as a Problem of Technological and Political Progress

International audienceThe European Union is the outcome of a process that is still very much in development.This process was conceived from its inception as a matter of perfecting a collective of (at least) three identities: a geographical space torn apart by devastating wars and longing for peace, a market that could benefi t from the extension of thecirculation of economic goods, and a political entity where liberal democracy would finally triumph. Th e idea of progress was at the core of the European project and closely articulated with the rapid economic growth experienced by Western European countries in the postwar decades. Progress, there, was as much economic as it waspolitical and moral, as it associated the extension of markets with the development of liberal democracy and a collective concern for lasting peace