From Weimar to the Euro: New book on the European crisis

The new book Critical Theories of Crisis in Europe – From Weimar to the Euro provides a truly interdisciplinary analysis, bridging the gap between humanities, legal and social science approaches to the ongoing crisis in Europe.

07/14/2016

Critical Theories of Crisis in Europe – From Weimar to the Euro
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What is to be learned from the chaotic downfall of the Weimar Republic and the erosion of European liberal statehood in the interwar period vis-a-vis the ongoing European crisis?

The new book Critical Theories of Crisis in Europe – From Weimar to the Euro, edited by Poul F. Kjær and Niklas Olsen, analyses and explains the recurrent emergence of crises in European societies. It asks how previous crises can inform our understanding of the present crisis.

The particular perspective advanced is that these crises not only are economic and social crises, but must also be understood as crises of public power, order and authority. In other words, it argues that substantial challenges to the functional and normative setup of democracy and the rule of law were central to the emergence and the unfolding of these crises.

The book draws on and adds to the rich ’crises literature’ developed within the critical theory tradition to outline a conceptual framework for understanding what societal crises are.

The central idea is that societal crises represent a discrepancy between the unfolding of social processes and the institutional frameworks that have been established to normatively stabilize such processes.

The crises at issue emerged in periods characterized by strong social, economic and technological transformations as well as situations of political upheaval.

As such, the crises represented moments where the existing functional and normative grid of society, as embodied in notions of public order and authority, were severely challenged and in many instances undermined. Seen in this perspective, the book reconstructs how crises unfolded, how they were experienced, and what kind of responses the specific crises in question provoked.

 

The research leading to Critical Theories of Crisis in Europe was developed within the framework of the research project ‘Institutional Transformation in European Political Economy – A Socio-Legal Approach’ (www.itepe.eu) financed by the European Research Council.

 

The book is Open Access and can be downloaded for free from the publishers homepage eller OpenArchive@CBS.

 

For more information on the book please contact Poul Fritz Kjær at pfkj.dbp@cbs.dk.

 

Poul Fritz Kjær is professer at Department of Business and Politics at CBS.

 

 

The page was last edited by: CBS Library // 04/25/2018