Trusting the Poles? Constructing Europe through mutual recognition

Abstract:

European integration has been and will continue to be flawed with conflicts, conflicts of interests embedded in broader conflicts of identity. I argue that these conflicts and the bargains they require exhibit similar patterns across a wide array of issues, as struggaes around 'mutual' recognition where mutuality plays a crucial role. Indeed, the challenges and perils of recognition are universal. But Europe can be seen as an experimental polity where, more formally than elsewhere, actors debate the contours of a norm which has migrated from regulatory praxis to mode of governance, and beyond, to political principle. If the 'Polish plumber' has come to serve as the emblem for the denial of recognition in the EU, mutual recognition is no less conflictual when it comes to the status of refugees, Bosnians or cartoonists. Normatively, if 'managed mutual recognition' is to serve as a blueprint beyond international political economy, we need to better analyse the relationship between recognition and trust, blind and binding trust, deferential and interventionist recognition.