The Anti‐Political Polity
| Date | 01 January 2010 |
| Author | Neil Walker |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2009.00788.x |
| Published date | 01 January 2010 |
REVIEWARTICLE
The Anti-Political Polity
NeilWalker
n
Alexander Somek, Individualism: An Essay on the Authority of the European
Union,Oxford: Oxford University Press,20 08, xx þ307 pp,hb d52.50.
What are weto make of a study of the deep legal structureof the European Union
that adopts a self-avowedlypessimistic view of itssubject-matter? In the Preface to
his highly origin al, thoughtful and wide- ranging monograph, Alexander Somek
gives due notice of its prevailing mood. His judgement of the state of the Eur-
opean Union, we are forewarned, will be far from benign, just as his assessment
of the likely trajectoryof supranational development will be decidedlydownbeat.
What is more, this gloomy reckoning is not ^ nor will it present itself as ^ merely
the sober conclusion of an exhaustive empirical accounting. Somek has a creative
mind and an eclectic intellectual sensibility, and he treats us to many speculative
surges and theoretic al £ights to accompany the more grounded parts of his story.
And it is in these moreelevated phasesof the argument that he oftenseems drawn
towards negative rather than a⁄rmative conclusions, choosing to emphasise shade
rather than light and to concentrate on how things might turn out for the worse
rather than for the better.
Individualism is nothing if not consistent in living up to its advance billing. In
pursuing the claim that the dominant legal and political conception of Union
power in its mature guise is thatof an immodest ‘market holism’, Somek suggests
a jurisdiction for Europeanlaw as expansive in scope as it is narrowly dogmatic in
purpose.In then contending that this expression of authority is closely aligned to
an understandingof citizenship based on individualism,he de nies to the Europo-
lity the moresolidaristic bonds of membership typical of the nation state.Instead,
his argument runs, an individualistic attitude to polity membership is likely to
feed a public culture that is both apathetic and author itarian, so trapping the
supranational in a deep malaise. As we shall see, none of these propositions is
uncontroversial. But before we proceed to examine the di¡erent stages of Somek’s
argument incritical detail, it is worth stressing that, whatever points of disagree-
ment we might ¢nd with his conclusions, the pessimistic sensibility that under-
writes them should not itself be faulted. Rather, given the overall climate of
contemporary juristic and social scienti¢c study of the EU, it is to be welcomed.
Why so? In a recent essay, PerryAnderson accused the political elite of the EU
and their academic fellow-travelers of a level of ‘self-satisfaction’ tending towards
an ‘apparently illimitable narcissism’.
1
One doe s not h ave to go all or eve n very
far alongthe way with Anderson to recognise where he is coming from.Crudely
n
Professor of PublicLaw andthe Lawof Nature andNations,School of Law,Universityof Edinburgh.
1 P. Anderson,‘Depicting Europe’,London Review of Books,Vol19, No18, 20 September 2007.
r2010The Author. Journal Compilationr2010 The Modern Law ReviewLimited.
Published by BlackwellPublishing, 9600 Garsington Road,Oxford OX4 2DQ,UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
(2010)73(1) 141^154
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