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This book explores what drives value politics and the way in which it redraws political conflict at EU level.
Based on case studies and analyses of statistical data, the book shows what the uses and roles of values have been at EU level over the past decades in both market-related policies and in identity, cultural and morality policies. It challenges the common assumption that the latter is more driven by value conflicts. The research shows the intrinsic similarities between all policy areas regarding the agency and limits of values as drivers of change or continuity. It argues that European values are a broad and flexible symbolic repertoire instrumentalised to serve as a resource for mobilization, legitimation/delegitimation, the conquest and conservation of power.
This book will be of key interest to both scholars and students in European studies/politics, comparative politics, public policy, political theory, sociology and cultural studies, as well as appealing to professionals of European affairs within and around the EU institutions.
List of contents
Value conflicts and the EU in crisis: An Introduction PART 1: "Business as usual"? From the market to society and culture 1. When Political Competition Boosts Attitude Consistency. The Effect of Party Polarisation on the Linkage Between Economic Values and Cultural Values in Europe 2. Values, The Politics of their Mobilization and Ideological Identification: Examples from the Agri-food Industry in the EU 3. Market, culture, and open-access. European copyright and the renewal of a historical clash of values in the digital age 4. The discursive legitimisation of market-oriented EU trade policy through "European values" in a post-permissive consensus era: from 2006 Global Europe to 2015 Trade for All PART 2: "New frontiers": From the society and culture to the market 5. Morality issues: A new battlefield for European value politics? The cases of prostitution and surrogacy 6. Solving Europe's value deficit via economic well-being? The complex relationship between morality issues and economic well-being 7. European Identity between Culture and Values. From European Heritage to "our European Way of Life" 8. Ethics as a Tool of Value Denial in the EU's Governance of Scientific and Technological Innovation. Conclusions
About the author
François Foret is Professor of political science and researcher at the Cevipol and at the Institute for European Studies, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.
Jana Vargovčíková is Associate Professor in Political Science at the Inalco (Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales) in Paris, affiliated to the CREE research centre (Centre Europes-Eurasie), France.
Summary
This book explores what drives value politics and the way in which it redraws political conflict at EU level.
