Pax American Meets Pax Europaea. Comparative Study of Compound Polities in Crisis: United States and European Union

The process of European integration is commonly described as “in crisis” and “at the crossroads”. The scope of the EU’s problems is so broad that there is a relatively wide consensus among experts and observers that the time has come for decisions about the future of the European Project. The main questions in the public discourse of the EU revolve around the following dichotomy: should it ultimately constitute a loose association of nation-states, cooperating economically on a global scale, or should it rather become the United States of Europe, a quasi-federal republic? In any reflection on European integration, the history and practice of American federalism seems to be self-evident material for a comparative study, which is manifested by rich literature on the topic (Tortola, 2014). Political, cultural, social, economic and historical analogies and/or dissimilarities create a body of comparative knowledge on both political entities. The EU is often described as an unprecedented political project, an entity sui generis (Boşilcă, 2014). It is worth noting, however, that the USA was described in the same way, especially at its beginnings (Sbraiga, 2006). The basic rationale behind this paper is that the story of American political development offers suitable comparative material for the story of the EU. By starting with this premise, I trace the development of political cleavages within these compound polities, to investigate how they evolved over time, and to inquire into how the solutions reached in the American case might be applicable to the EU. Of course, I am aware of significant differences between these two polities, and that is why the project is titled “Pax Americana meets Pax Europaea” (confer Kagan, 2003). My argument is that in the middle of the 19th century, the American project found itself in a predicament broadly comparable to the European predicament today. In the American case, it took the Civil War to provide a forceful resolution of the growing tensions. Such an outcome is of course highly unlikely in the case of the European Union, in view of how it has left the final decision about membership to its members and their societies (e.g. commencing Brexit). It corresponds well with the perception of the USA as a superpower in terms of hard-power (military, economy) and the EU is described as a “soft-power/normative empire” (culture, values, good governance [Del Sarto, 2015]). My general argument, therefore, is that both polities are in some aspects similar and in some, different, combining both general approaches in comparative research (comparing similar units vs comparing different units).