THE LURE OF TECHNOCRACY

Over the past 25 years, Jurgen Habermas has presented whatis arguably the most c
oherent and wide-ranging defence of theproject of European unification and of pa
rallel developmentstowards a politically integrated world society. In developing
hiskey concepts of the transnationalisation of democracy and theconstitutionali
sation of international law, Habermas offers themain players in the struggles ov
er the fate of the European Union(the politicians, the political parties and the
publics of themember states) a way out of the current economic and politicalcri
sis, should they choose to follow it. In the title essay Habermas addresses the
challenges and threatsposed by the current banking and public debt crisis in the
Eurozonefor European unification.