The Constituting Value of a European Democratic Experimentalism

Abstract

John Dewey conceived democracy as a cooperative problem-solving practice in which actors try out provisional solutions by means of social communication. His notion of experimental democracy as a specific form of life and an ethical enterprise rather than simply a form of government implies the constitution of a polity as a practical and complex process of exchanging and sharing experiences. The aim of this paper is to test the feasibility of using a Deweyan theoretical basis for democracy to assess the potential for a European process of political integration. The historical-conceptual presuppositions of the European Union’s institutional project preclude both a narrow local perspective and an illusory globalist scheme. To redirect Europe’s democratic vocation, a process of political and institutional communication must be developed that transcends the existing national paradigm.