Application

Andreas Follesdal

Professor
University of Oslo
Program of Advanced Research on the Europeanisation of the Nation-State Fair Europe? The Political Theory of the European Union
Norway

Andreas Follesdal is Professor of Philosophy at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights at the Faculty of Law of the University of Oslo, and Research Professor at ARENA, a research program on the Europeanisation of the Nation-State, of the Research Council of Norway.

Professor Follesdal works in the field of political philosophy with a focus on issues of international political theory, particularly as they arise in the wake of changes in Europe. He has published on distributive justice, federalism, minority rights, deliberative democracy, subsidiarity and European citizenship.

He is Founding Series Editor of Themes in European Governance, Cambridge University Press. He has participated in several European Union research projects, and has served as a consultant to the European Commission, UNESCO, and to several Norwegian Ministries. He has been a member of the Norwegian Government Biotechnology Advisory Board, and contributes regularly to the Norwegian public debates on such topics as European integration, business ethics, religious instruction, and values in public life.

Professor Follesdal received his Ph.D. 1991 in Philosophy from Harvard University as a Fulbright Fellow on the topic of international distributive justice, working with professors John Rawls, T. M. Scanlon and Amartya Sen. He received his Magister Artium in Philosophy from the University of Oslo in 1982 after studies at the universities of Bergen, Oslo and Uppsala.

Selected Publications:

"Federalism." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. plato.stanford.edu/entries/federalism/. 2003.
"Drafting a European Constitution: Challenges and Opportunitites." ConWEB Online - University of Manchester School of Law. 2002.
"Constructing a European Civic Society: Vaccination for Trust in a Fair, Multi-Level Europe." Studies in East European Thought. 2002.
"Federal Inequality among Equals: A Contractualist Defense." Global Justice. Blackwell. 2001.
"Subsidiarity." Journal of Political Philosophy.1998.
Democracy and the European Union. Ed. with Peter Koslowski. Berlin, Springer. 1997.

Back to Top

Fair Europe? The Political Theory of the European Union

During more than fifty years, European integration has facilitated democracies, peace and economic growth. Western Europe has therefore been at the peaceful end of the continuum of ethnic conflict management studied in the NCS 2003. The incremental pooling of sovereignty brought peace and prosperity, but also creates unintended tensions and conflicts. The European Union now prepares for the pervasive impacts and expected conflicts wrought by deepened integration and eastward expansion. Expansion will increase the variations in political traditions, cultures, and institutional reputations, and therewith the potential for cultural and ethnic conflicts within the European Union - a Union whose institutions are already a far too complex, cumbersome and opaque mix of confederal and federal elements.

A 'Convention on the future of Europe' led by former French President Giscard d'Estaing will recommend changes to the EU during the summer of 2003, enhancing its capacity to quell and manage conflicts among states, cultural traditions and ethnic groups, rather than foster conflicts. These issues facing the Convention fall squarely within the research theme of NCS 2003. The research project addresses these challenges and recommendations during the crucial year of public scrutiny before decisions are made in 2004.

The project seeks to bring normative political theory, federal constitutional theory, and comparative research in the tradition of the Federalist Papers to bear on the proposals of the Convention. Five central themes and factors have served to maintain a peaceful order in Western Europe, but require renewed attention for managing conflicts in the enlarging European multinational, multilevel political order:

• Reasons for Federalism alleviating ethnic, religious and cultural conflicts;
• Federal Solidarity: balancing local autonomy and inter-state equality;
• Multi-Level Democracy among citizens in small and large states;
• Whither Member States when more problems must be handled locally and at the EU level; and
• The Public Role of Political Theory for maintaining overarching loyalties.

These topics are central not only for the future of Europe, but to federal conflict management generally, hence for other projects within NCS 2003. The research will be pursued in part at the Minda de Gunzberg Center for European Studies at Harvard University, yielding contributions to the joint projects of the New Century Scholars Program 2003, and several articles forming a book manuscript on the political theory of the European Union.

Back to Top