Introduction: For an Imperfect Europe

Abstract

In November 1989, the Berlin Wall was demolished by crowds cheering and drinking toasts to it on both sides; there in ruins was the symbol of the Cold War bipolarism that had molded Europe, as well as the entire world, after World War II. In August 1991, an unexpected and aborted coup in Moscow finally decreed the breakup of the Soviet Union and the failure of the Communist experiment, which had survived as one of the two great totalitarianisms of the twentieth century. These events were followed by a series of other upheavals that paved the way for the reappearance of old nationalisms, as well as for the emergence of new nation-states in Central and Eastern Europe, and that also provoked the resurgence of destabilizing separatist movements in Western Europe. The post-Cold War era thus began by plunging Europe into a state of chaos and, for many, outright decline. A broader but less visible disturbance accounts for a Europe “on the verge of a nervous breakdown:” the phenomenon of globalization, which further eroded borders through the explosion of multinational economic corporations, borderless telecommunication systems, an unparalleled international division of labor, and global mobility. These factors all occurred within a short time frame, with the destruction of the Berlin Wall representing an encompassing historical marker and signifier par excellence.