Before getting into the more detailed discussion of subsidiarity, we must first give a rough characterization of what Eisenstadt, Taylor, and others take to comprise contrasting visions of modernity. On the one hand, such a genealogy of the project of European modernity will not consist in offering a succinct historical delineation of when each civilizational rubric first emerged. Nor will I try to offer tight territorial jurisdictions over where precisely to delineate the geographic bounds of each manifestation of modernity. Nonetheless, on the other hand, we can still provide a loose specification of general features. In the tradition of the sociology of religion of Rokkan, I seek the rough construction of a multi-layered conceptual mapping of European modernities. The abiding features necessary to confer modernity include the onset of wide international networks of commerce, the questioning of heretofore presumed notions of cosmic purpose, the growth of individual autonomy, movements of political protest between core and peripheral civilization matrices, the rise of elite academic literati independent of states, and specifically, an overall expansion of reflectivity.

As a more succinct articulation of the practices that comprise modernity, Eisenstadt highlights as a characteristically determining factor: ongoing reflexivity cutting across all levels and cleavages within society. Reflexivity, according to Eisenstadt, becomes so culturally pervasive under conditions of modernity that it continually reshapes each one of the other above-mentioned criteria. In a dialectic fashion, tension and feedback loops of reflexivity between secular and sacred social imaginaries foster twofold sources of epistemic innovation . The two sides of reflexivity promote principled rationality and generate these principles in affectively romantic manners, to eventuate in what we had previously termed Axial Age 2.0 in our introductory Chap. 1:

It is because of the fact that all such responses leave the problematic intact [the postulate that a divinely ordained and fated cosmos has had its decline], the reflectivity which developed in the program of modernity went beyond that which crystallized in the Axial Civilizations. The reflectivity that developed in the modern program focused not only on the possibility of different interpretations of the transcendental visions and basic ontological conceptions prevalent in society or societies but came to question the very givenness of such visions and the institutional patterns related to them. It gave rise to the awareness of the existence of multiplicity of such visions and patterns and of the possibility that such visions and conceptions can indeed be contested. (Eisenstadt 2003b, p. 495, 496)

European modernity expressed the aforementioned reflectivity as a definitively enigmatic feature, as an initial step leading those working in the tradition of Eisenstadt to posit modernity as inherently plural at more than one basic level. In other words, although not necessarily in order of lexical priority—given the reflective contestation of Axial Age 1.0 cosmic orientations—the presumed rational core to modernity (Axial 2.0) carries an equivocally romantic kernel via this ongoing triadic tension between the transcendent, mundane, and plural forms of transcendences. Once we lay out the conceptual terrain of Europe’s modernities, we will be better placed to assess the origination of the postsecular turn (Axial 3.0 in Chap. 1) as it found its initial postulation in the wake of Europe’s recent encounter with its growing waves of postcolonial immigration (Chap. 4; Habermas 2009, pp. 59–77).

In light of this general casting of modernity as inherently plural, there are three main social science traditions for characterizing what are more succinctly deemed European/Western tendencies. As classically formulated by various mainstream voices throughout political theory, these include: atomistic-universal-rationalists, communal-cultural-romantics, and multiple modernists (Allhardt 2005, pp. 468–491). In an analysis of ‘Europe’s Multiple Modernities,’ Erik Allhardt provides a consistent narrative that we can hypothetically continue to extend to the present.

There is in Western sociology a distinction that has appeared in many forms but that definitely records two entirely different cultural styles as typical for the Western civilization…a striving for a primordial social integration, on one hand, and the attempt to build a derived integration by rational means, on the other. This contrariness is expressed in many of the traditional dichotomies of the definitively Western attempts to sociological theory-building. As well-known examples we have the distinctions between Emile Durkheim’s mechanic and organic solidarity, Ferdinand Tonnies’ Gemeinshaft and Gesellshaft, and C. H. Cooley’s primary and secondary groups…As an additional case, one may mention Ernest Gellner’s fascinating description of the tensions between a communal-cultural-romantic vision and its counterpart, an atomic-universalist-individualist vision, typical of the tensions in the old Hapsburg empire. (Allhardt 2005, p. 486, 487)

Social scientists of the first sort loosely characterized as rationalists traditionally view modernity as an ongoing march to the further extension of an acultural Enlightened reason. Those that Gellner and Allhart associate with this tradition include Descartes, Kant, Ernst Mach, Max Weber , Bertrand Russell, and Talcot Parsons. These figures are often associated with empiricism, rationalism, positivism, Gesellschaft, economic markets, political liberalism, and market/economic cosmopolitanism followed by inevitable political spill over (Allhardt 2005, p. 487). The rational casting of European history also tends to assume what Casanova critiques as a stadial consciousness . This views the rationalizing tendencies of secularity as the necessary maturation of cultural forms to which the consummation of world history ultimately must lead. The democratic principle associated with this view requires that rational individuals affected by the stadial march of history subject themselves only to norms they could project as species universal for any similarly situated rational individual. As a means for achieving such universal scope, ethical and national differences are suppressed in the name of a more superior, moral, and rationally mature commitment to universal principles—especially those dropping the cultural baggage of some one or more permutation of Latin Christendom .

However, one problematic aspect of the rational-prudential view of European modernity applied to the institutions of the EU, would be addressing the question of competing views of reason as guiding assumptions for how best to steer the institutions of modernity. For instance, especially since the EU lacks an explicit constitutional founding to embody these principles in law, how ought the EU deal with competing rational principles, particularly balancing the principle of subsidiarity , with principles of proportionality (Murphy 2008),⁶ sovereignty, fiscal responsibility, and legal supremacy?

In addition, in spite of explicit attempts in the EU draft constitution and its prevailing treaty framework to disavow a unique heritage steeped in the traditions of Latin Christendon—the current bounds of the twenty-eight Member EU mirror almost precisely the confines of its prior Roman imperial Christianized polity. The most recent rounds of expansion have only served to reinforce and bring more directly to the fore the Eastern Orthodox heritage of three of its most recent members: Romania (2007), Bulgaria (2007), and Cyprus (2004), thus also bringing to the fore the growing self-identification of Greece (1981) with its own Eastern Orthodoxy .⁷ In contrast, the EU treaty framework prefers the less contentious association of Greece with its great heritage steeped in Ancient Greek philosophical inquiry.

Likewise, the 2004 accession of Poland served for some political movements as an attempt to revitalize the Catholic heritage of its founding elites, including but not limited to Monet, Adenaur, and Delors. The Catholic heritage behind the successful integration of Europe owes much to the EU-friendly and anti-communist sentiments of both of the prior two holders of the Papacy—John Paul II (Poland) and Benedict (Germany). Lastly, famed “Rerum Novarum (1891)” Catholic heritage behind Social Democratic parties and politicians have provided the impetus for major transnational political movements to enshrine subsidiarity in the history of the EU with a strong legacy of promoting the European-wide commitment to building regional social-welfare institutions to buttress the excesses of an encroaching global neo-liberal capitalism.

Secondly, in line with the thrust of many of the critiques levied against rationalists above, romantics advocate deeply cultural reconstructions of modernity and present them as counter-proposals to the first view. Those associated with this vision include Hume, Burke, Rousseau, Herder, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel , Schmitt, and Milbank. Such thinkers tend to emphasize unreflective living, organicism, national populism, romantically conservative visions of historical and cosmic totality, systematicity, correctness, particularity, cultural specificity, close-rooted communitarianism, Blut and Boden (Milbank 2013a; Allhardt 2005, p. 487). In their many cultural manifestations, romantic religious and non-religious sources for European culture include but are nor limited to: Christianity (in each of its primary expressions: Orthodoxy, Catholicism , Anglicanism, Protestantism and its generalized expression via Latin Christendom) , Roman imperialism, Ancient Greek philosophy, linguistically based forms of local and national identity, general pronouncements of upholding Judeo-Christian ideals, and most recently, the rising presence in Europe of both Islamic and Asian influences (Philpott and Shah 2006, pp. 34–64; Taylor 2001; Eisenstadt 2003, p. 104).

Romantic visions of European modernity applied to democratizing the EU appeal back to extending highly localized networks of mutual trust more broadly. Strategies include nostalgic calls for the return of Christian orthodoxy, the extension of familial/kinship bonds to be supplanted by national and/or transnational expressions of religious solidarity, and the self-reinforcing model of extending social-welfare measures across Europe as a middle-way between shrinking national welfare provisions and the common ties of reflexive interdependence and vulnerability produced by the global movements of capital.

However, what proves most surprising about romantic appeals to the construction of modernity in its variety of contemporary forms would be the risk of a performative contradiction in the varied projections of primordial social integration. Through these nostalgic appeals we run the threat of constructing narratives that skip over the reflective onset of modernity. The contradiction lies in calls effectively to mobilize these solidaristic bonds through manners that presuppose the social, civic, political, economic, and communicative features of modernity as key contributing factors to the endemic structural problems romantic social actors seek to escape.

For instance, for all of the striking differences between the resurgence of Eastern Orthodoxy as a key political player in Europe and the more contemporary (misleadingly named) Anglican movement derived from the UK called Radical Orthodoxy , each does carry a similar narrative resonance. The respective returns to ortho- (correct or true) doxy (belief or teachings) propose escaping the social ills of modernity by retrieving the virtue, piety, and social practices of Church Fathers and communities that predate the Protestant Reformation, American, French, and Industrial Revolutions, and the climax of rational reflection with the achievements of the Enlightenment. Again, despite all of the myriad differences, both Eastern and Radical Orthodoxy espouse robust social ontologies that border at the lines of the clash of civilizations in assuming theology as the queen of the sciences. Directly at odds with the modern postulation of religious liberty, and very much akin to both Protestant and Catholic (and Muslim) fundamentalisms—extreme forms of mobilization posit the subordination of any discourse concerning ideals of the just, true, and the good to a re-Christianized European political order as the last best hope for the species. In other words, such a robust social ontology rendered as a communicative species ethic would assume a neo-Burkean construal of goodness, justice, and truth as immune from the necessity of rational legitimation since only properly initiated elites can be expected to recognize such transcendently romantic ideals. Even if these competing sources of Christian solidarity profess potential extensions of species-ethical universality, they must receive their legitimation through an overlapping consensus on norms if they are to conform to the prevailing institutional realities posed by radical pluralism. European expansion together with growing immigration trends only serve to continue to make each politicized core of romantic socialization a minority political group in Europe with respect to the rest of the continent. Drastic underestimations from cultural romantics of the sheer magnitude and scope of an expanded EU thereby run the risk of coercion or overt violence in the politicization of their platforms if not directed toward the rational medium of justificatory discourse (Halberstam 2009, p. 45).

Lastly, as the third view, advocates of multiple modernities concede that the rational and romantic readings of modernity both have their comparative merits that justifiably warrant their inclusion in constructing plausible visions for European modernity. In accord with the tensions inherent to any pluralistic constitutional structure, the rationalist side to multiple modernists hold to a view of communicative idealism for humanity that can reason in an abstract and objective manner while the romantic side shows a decided preference for the social and emotional bonds among persons that ultimately serve as the political motivation for persons to act on behalf of one another. However, in contrast to rationalists, multiple modernists would contend that an acultural secularized reading of Europe—particularly in the realm of religious culture—belies its history including its postsecular and increasingly pluralistic present. According to Allhardt,

[T]he importance and social value of the blend of rationality and affective social coherence has been expressed with different formulations by, for instance, Ulf Himmelstrand, Ernest Gellner, and Charles Taylor. They emphasize a different world than Max Weber and most of those who have developed theories about the nature of European modernity. They have rendered scientific descriptions of modern society, but they also advocate an ideal consisting of a blend of rationalism and romanticism….that blend has definitely assumed a special importance during the latter decades of the twentieth century. At least it seems permissible and telling to speak about a European multiple modernity. (Allhardt 2005, p. 490)

In other words, to espouse a theory of multiple modernities is less an attempt to posit rationalist views against romantic ones and more so an argument that, in agreement with Charles Taylor ’s preference for the label of alternative modernity, the rationalist view always already advocated particular unique visions of the good. In line with the grander themes of this project, we are again back to our introductory query that asked: why Jaspers as a plausible alternative to Weber?

According to Allhardt’s critique of Weber, the acultural misreading of modernity overlooks how Europe came to this point via vast periods of cultural transformation that have now come to comprise some of the basic premises of modernity, particularly in light of the rich genealogical reconstructions provided by the likes of Eisenstadt, Taylor, Bellah, and Jaspers. As we continue to trace the postulation of multiple modernities into Europe’s postsecular present, we can supplant Taylor’s focus on Latin Christendom with Jaspers’ wider casting of a non-dogmatic continuance of Europe’s unique heritage of Biblical religion to include Catholic, Anglican, Nordic Lutheran Protestant , Eastern Orthodox, Hebrew, and Muslim influences on the ongoing construction of modernity (Taylor 2001, p. 189, 190).

Charles Taylor ’s brief, dense, but telling concluding section to A Secular Age (2007 , pp. 773–776), his ‘Epilogue: The Many Stories’ critiques both ends of the extremist narratives presented respectively by the rational-universalist-secularist and the romantic-particularist-religious camps. Taylor associates the rationalist excesses of what he terms the Reform Master Narrative (RMN) to the greater bulk of the critical content of his major work, conceding that most of what we hold dearly as the pinnacle achievement of modernity would be the progressive impetus of reform that runs the grave risk of staving off the greater content of its rich heritage as if it had arrived there as a matter of an impartially objective rational self-understanding. It is here that Taylor keeps consistent with abiding themes that reinforce his postulation of alternative modernities in much earlier work:

[t]he naturalistic account of the discovery of the kernel truths, implicit in the acultural theory, misses all these connections [between social, moral, historical, teleological, and background assumptions]. When the old metaphysical and religious beliefs crumble, we find as a matter of neutral fact that we are instrumental individuals, and we need to draw from elsewhere our values and acceptable grounds for association with others. In contrast, I want to describe the change as moving us from one dense constellation of background understanding and imaginary to another, both of which place us in relation to others and the good. There is never atomistic and neutral self-understanding; there is only a constellation (ours) which tends to throw up the myth of this self-understanding as part of its imaginary. This is the essence of a cultural theory of modernity. (Taylor 2001, pp. 195–196)

However, as one of the greatest surprises of A Secular Age would be the close association or family resemblance he ascribes to his position and that espoused by Milbank’s radical orthodoxy (p. 774, 775). Taylor recast the narrative presented by radical orthodoxy as an Intellectual Deviation (ID) that in tracing its conceptual origins to the somewhat pre-modern nominalism of such figures as Ockham and Scotus in their justified critiqued of the metaphysical realism of Aquinas , nonetheless initiated a cascade effect that also leads to the derailed intellectual deviation from the robust social ontology that Milbank and others seek to retrieve in their neo-Platonic retrieval of the best insights of Anselm along with orthodox constants that run relatively uncontested across the Christian tradition. On my analysis, the merits of radical orthodoxy would be the peripheral critique provided by its Anglican roots that seek middle-ways between Catholicism and Protestantism on larger Christian doctrine and between Lutheran and Calvinist extremes on more contentious matters like pre-destination, the extent and nature of human depravity, church versus state jurisdiction, etc (Milbank 2013b). However, Taylor and I share the same concern with too robust of an emphasis on primordial social integration in radical orthodoxy that could be rendered as instrumental justification for the license of its romantically theological overtones to bypass the subjection of its claims to the public justificatory discourses characteristic of modernity. In a manner surprisingly congruent with Habermas’ works in progress on these matters, Taylor articulates his critique in a manner that casts the achievements of modernity as bringing to fruition the original reformist breakthrough(s) brought about by Jasper’s Axial Age:

Now I believe that this story [radical orthodoxy] explicates some very important truths, and draws some crucial connections. But I don’t think this can suffice as the main story behind secularity. There is another important piece, which deals with the thrust to complete the Axial revolution; I mean Reform, which strives to end the post-Axial equilibrium, that is, the balance and complementarity between pre- and post-Axial elements in all higher civilizations. (Taylor 2007, p. 774)

I have previously remarked that I endorse the model of overlapping consensus promulgated in the views of Rawls and Taylor. Here lies the most fruitful incorporation of radical orthodoxy as a competing rendition of European modernity, if only the product of consensus on norms could be reached through rational justification, albeit independent of a commitment to any single legal form or privy background justification.

However, the detailed assessment of Taylor’s ties between reform and the Axial revolution requires more fine-tuned distinctions that endorse the merits of Taylor over Rawls. Taylor’s critique of errantly collapsing the Reform Master Narrative into the secular-rational-universalist view could hold equally strong as a critique of Rawls on two related fronts. On the one hand, I cast my own construal of original position 3 in the opening chapter as suspicious of the neutrality claimed for Rawls’ own variations on original position 1 and 2. In other words, by resetting the Axial Age as the default origination for original position 3, any variation on a legitimate claim to species-ethical universality must have originally always already borrowed its content from a long narrative of deeply cultural inter- and intra-Axial development . On the other hand, I agree with Habermas’s own critique of Rawls (that would likewise agree with Taylor) that the purported neutrality of an acultural theory of Rawls sneaks teleological principles into its claim to offer a view not committed to any specific comprehensive doctrine. Habermas in particular critiques Rawls for building the set of primary goods into the original position that thereby has both bypassed the threshold for public rational justification and already undermined its commitment not to tailor principles of justice to one’s own unique case. Specifically, by positing primary goods in this teleological manner, their ultimate pursuit must be secured through a strategically-rational disposition which runs directly against the non-strategic impartiality the original position was intended to offer (Habermas 1998, pp. 75–101; McCarthy 2013, pp. 115–131) . For Habermas, the disagreement with Rawls rests not so much with the express content of the primary goods but rather with Habermas’s unwavering commitment to truly legitimate justification as having proceeded from the argumentative process of giving and responding to reasons. In the end, Habermas finds Rawls’ commitment to discursive justification via public reason potentially much more fruitful, thus rendering the original position unnecessary as merely a non-communicative hypothetical constraint that really cannot deliver the rationally universal impartiality it portends.

On the other end of the spectrum, in contrast to the growing predominance of conservative-leaning populist romantics espousing to recapture a common European, national, and/or local culture, Europe formed and continues to develop its highly differentiated centers and peripheries via ongoing communicative conflict more so than through internal agreement.⁸ For instance, returning to the original social science literature supporting the multiple modernities thesis for Europe reminds us that stronger national integration originally formed in Europe in degrees directly commensurate with distance from various Catholic cores as carried over from its historical ancien regimes (Eisenstadt 2003, p. 103). The relatively homogenous Catholic core stretching along the city-belt from South to North via the median terrain of Western Europe thereby contributed to the reactionary peripheral forces that constitute the Protestant , Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, and Lutheran orientations that still permeate the constitutional structure of many EU periphery states—not to mention that the UK belies most characteristics typically ascribed to nation-states (Casanova 2014; Philpott and Shah 2006, p. 47). These multiple peripheries served as cleavage points of intense democratic differentiation by providing sites of moral extraterritoriality for both transcendent and profane cosmic visions that differed with the generally Catholic homogeneity. Although European states eventually allowed competing religious forces spaces for civic expression, this was promulgated in exchange for religious groups agreeing to refrain from having their leaders hold positions of public power, thereby encouraging reflexive commitments to twin toleration—from state to church and vice versa—in order to institutionalize and embed relatively permanent structural cleavages between these contradictory cosmic visions of modernity (Casanova 2014; Philpott and Shah 2006, p. 47).

As far as addressing the current state of the European Union democratic deficit, and in terms of assessing the relevant social science literature as it bears on proposals for how best to institutionalize a principle of subsidiarity, what are we to make of the aforementioned contrasting visions of European modernity? Allhardt, Himmelstrand, and Taylor argue that we are not faced with a zero sum trade-off of either multiple modernities with less democracy or secular modernity with more democracy (Taylor 2001). They each hold that we can best preserve these creative lines of reciprocal interpenetration democratically by embracing the rationally normative content of European modernity without loosing sight of the expressive cultural resources that give reinforcing layers of democratic assurance to our reasoned commitments (Himmelstrand 1960):

Without going into his lengthy methodological discussions, Himmelstrand’s main findings can be summarized by saying that….strongly expressive individuals were the least democratic, and the strongly instrumental individuals were clearly less democratic than those who were both instrumental and expressive. (Allhardt 2005, p. 489)

The implications for subsidiarity would be to provide the richest possible democratic institutionalization of points of overlapping consensus even in spite of these enduring tensions and deep cleavages between higher and lower, core to periphery, rational and romantic. For starters, these multidimensional constituents of a postsecular Europe must overcome the notion that religious expressions of cultural and political salience can no longer be deemed inherently irrational under the aegis of the increasingly plural conditions of modernity (Rasmussen 2010, pp. 343–346).

However, as traditionally construed, rationalist proponents of an increasingly economically interdependent modernity defend a characteristically a-cultural view of market subsidiarity as a legal-juridical principle. This view of European integration is best protected and interpreted by seemingly neutral principled arguments in light of an unspoken strategic preservation of Euro-secularity supplanted by the market-oriented treaty framework of the European Union . This is a nuanced view that carries over from concerted attempts to alleviate ambiguity in the competing functional tasks and goals of the various institutional levels of economic, social, and political integration by seeking out a clear and concise logical delineation of competences and functional goals at as many local levels as possible but with the EU-level and Member States as the main actors (Paulus 2008, pp. 193, 194). The democratic principle here lies in insulating the competing levels of Member State governance from arbitrary seizures of power, often presuming a vision of the European Court of Justice that discourages judicial review of laws, thereby enhancing the economic integration that structures European-wide law and upholding the original market objectives of the European Community. In this respect, European-level judges are viewed as rational adjudicators of subsidiarity construed as a clear enumeration of powers in a vertically structured (non-horizontal) federation. Instead of taking subsidiarity as an interpretive guide and—by virtue of the principle of direct effect that secures the rational supremacy of European law—elites tend thereby to characterize the impartial market as the instrumentally rational adjudicator and preferential steering force behind integration to stave off the political biases of legislators and elected executives (Halberstam 2009, pp. 45–47).

On this model of what some have characterized as Anglo-Saxon subsidiarity (Kerr 2010; Veggeland 2007, pp. 98–100), the general tendency of the rationalist model tends to deal with issues of externality (that is, any circumstance outside the scope of the legislative jurisdiction of a given Member State that nonetheless affects that Member State) by shifting the competence downwards to the Member State level—or closer to the people as determined by their market preferences. Moves upwards to the European level receive their rational legitimation only when directly tied to the four freedoms of first pillar economic integration: goods, capital, services, and people (Davies 2008, p. 78, 90, 97, 98; Paulus 2008, pp. 209–211). In this somewhat ironic manner, although the rhetorical connotation of subsidiarity seems to point to the primacy of the local, critics of the rationalist approach see it as further entrenching the legal-juridical protection of the EU-wide open market policies. Insofar as Member States rarely carry the administrative capacity to deal with a growing array of externalities, the evolving precedent of subsidiarity appeals in the EU favor enhanced European social and economic integration, without the requisite political spillover needed to ensure harmonization of Member State commitments to the 1997 Growth and Stability Pact.⁹ Therefore, the unhindered economic ties of interdependence have led to EU-wide political paralysis at the heavy cost of sacrifices in national and European accountability, widespread fiscal mistrust breeding instability, and huge deficits in local, national, and regional democratic legitimacy (Davies 2008, p. 79).

Critics also argue that rationalists are inclined to mask competition among universal legal principles under the veil of a deductively abstract logic that—when exposed—would disclose a complex set of competing variables that tend to vary on a case by case basis, surreptitiously gerrymandered to cover over otherwise conflicting objectives. Since the majority of financial transactions are transnational, cases are adjudicated on the basis of protecting the unassailable rationale behind the four basic market freedoms (Davies 2008, p. 81, 95; Gerloch 2008, p. 126, 127). In addition, while the prevailing logic of the principle of subsidiarity presumes the already questionable capacity for adjudicating Member State versus EU-level competence, the Anglo-Saxon model belies its own purported preference for the lower level over the higher European level insofar as the UK—while certainly an EU Member—does not at all meet the normal criteria ascribed to a nation-state. Since its own governance structure bears the semblance of a complex hybrid between a mixed commonwealth and a parliamentary democracy with a deeply entrenched imperial colonial history, appeals to subsidiarity in the name of democratic legitimacy would presuppose radical changes to the UK’s own internal governance. These could include but are not limited to: the drafting of an explicit constitution, the end of any political, diplomatic, and administrative functions played by the monarchy, a stronger deconfessionalization of the Anglican church away from public services including schools, jurisdiction over family law, and ending the use of state and/or EU taxes for church provisions of social welfare services.

The second romanticized vision of a socially integrated European society could be advanced in order to catch up with and achieve the political closure elided by the Anglo-Saxon model that seeks to prise apart economic and political interdependence. What scholars characterize as Continental subsidiarity offers an either/or scenario for European modernity. On the one hand would be a nostalgic return to a more protectionist national constitutional culture in order to preserve the achievements of the social-welfare state, or, on the other hand, a forward-looking vision of a Europe that mimics the democratic and constitutional achievements of Continental states (particularly, France and Germany). The latter group also argues that the EU might best halt continued expansion by keeping its borders consistent with the former outlines enjoyed under the Holy Roman Empire.

In a related, more extreme variant of the Continental vision for European integration, some such cultural romanticists also espouse Euro-secularity as the flip-side of stymied expansion in order to keep contemporary states ‘European’ by enacting protectionist policies in light of the EU’s growing multiculturalism (thus blocking ‘non-European’ Muslim Candidate State Turkey and Potential Candidates: Kosovo, Albania, and Bosnia-Herzegovina).¹⁰ In addition, on the Continental view of modernity, those seeking the benefits of enhanced economic integration would best forge ahead in creating a Europe of two tracks, one consisting of those not committed to greater political integration and another committed to an enhanced economic union matched by politico-legal integration. The Continental rendered regional could better hold Member States accountable to the original conditions set by the European Growth and Stability Pact (Veggeland 2007, pp. 98–100; Habermas 2001a).¹¹ This Continental mixing of the principles of proportionality and subsidiarity in the fiscal realm seeks to reconcile levels of economic integration with greater accountability via legislatively endorsed and judicially enforced constitutional procedures (Heidenreich 2006), introducing the expansion of the German constitutionalization of a ‘debt brake’ to potentially all Members of the Euro-Zone, as now being seriously considered by France, Spain, Italy, and others (Pogge 1997; Follesdal 1998b; Habermas 1998, 1999, 2001a, b, 2006).

Despite the wide variance of background conceptions feeding into cultural interpretations of European modernity, Continental romanticists seem to agree to the express commitment to dealing with the arbitrariness of the unhindered free market as a threat to political freedom. Romanticists are poised to solidify traditional social welfare provisions as European-wide common goods that insulate national and local sites of deep cultural solidarity from the destructive tendencies of the rampant individualism promoted by market-induced austerity pacts. Continental variants of subsidiarity critique the Anglo-Saxon model for introducing budget-cutting measures that induce races to the bottom, pitting EU-level, national level, and localized levels against one another as strategic competitors for scarce social, economic, and political capital (Dobson 2004; Bowman 2006).These romanticists associate the assurance of the legal-juridical dimensions of subsidiarity as a means to insulate both Member States and the EU from the neo-liberal threat of globalized unregulated capitalism leading to unwanted outside interference with the will of a sovereign people that shares a common politicized constitution or at least a clearly defined core of deep cultural commitments (Halberstam 2009, p. 46).

In contrast to the rationalist view, romantics deal with problems of externality as a way of constructing at least a differentiated—albeit unified—source of the requisite solidaristic affective bonds required for stronger commitments to economic redistribution. By making an epistemic virtue of the shared problem of the increased threats of European-wide austerity, romantics highlight the creation of distinctively European public sphere as a legitimating source for new constructions of wider social imaginaries built around the common good of securing social welfare . Romanticists also employ a positive view of expressive freedom insofar as democratic participation is cast in terms of a model of self-legislation usually secured through parliamentary means that can capitalize on empathetic extensions of the shared common threat of neo-liberalism unregulated that no individual should face alone. The construction of protectionist attitudes towards shared common cultural goods like language, religion (or lack thereof), and ethnicity thus are deemed legitimate insofar as they aid individuals in realizing their innately affective dispositions.

In lieu of the comparative strengths and weaknesses of the above visions for the future of European integration, multiple modernists propose to reconcile the more deeply cultural construal of subsidiarity with the proportionate balance of the relevant market and legal-juridical measures. On this view, arbitrariness leads to political domination in cases where market-oriented decisions and policies do not track the interests of each and every individual immediately affected, in ceasing to remain open to assurance appeals of affective, rational, and mixed orientations (Pettit 1997, p. 55). To make such a principle not seem overburdening, civic republicans of a romantic flare have also begun including more liberal social-contractarian dimensions in their views by pointing out that such a democratic principle would be ‘modal’ or counterfactual rather than historical (Pettit 1997, p. 186). In addition, in its contemporary manifestation as a political liberalism based more off of Habermas’s endorsement of Rawls’ public reason, neo-Rawlsian advocates (in particular, I am referring most directly to Andreas Follesdal —a former doctoral student of Rawls who studied and did his dissertation at Harvard under the tutelage of Rawls) integrating alternative modernities suggest why Rawls has begun to have such and appeal in the Nordic context. According to Follesdal,