FREEDOM AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF EUROPE

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The research project ‘Freedom and the Construction of Europe’ has been developed by a group of scholars – most of whom are at an early stage in their careers – to study and reappraise debates on freedom in early-modern and modern Europe.

In practical terms, the group is now about to publish two volumes examining key philosophical, religious and political controversies surrounding the idea of freedom in Europe. The volumes will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2011/2012.

In terms of intellectual exchange, the aim has been to create a forum in which scholars at a relatively early stage in their careers can discuss their work with one another, and at the same time with more senior researchers. To this end, some senior and eminent scholars including Michael Cook, James Tully, Thomas Kaufmann, Noel Malcolm and Thomas Maissen were invited to our workshops. They presented keynote addresses and discussed the work being undertaken by the core members of the group.

In terms of scholarship, our basic ambition is to make new and original contributions to the historical study of freedom in Europe. We are adopting as widely comparative a perspective as possible, seeking to correct the current imbalance in the historiography towards western Europe and the origins of the liberal state. We hope to do greater justice to the complexity of the political and intellectual traditions out of which modern European conceptions of freedom emerged.

Besides these scholarly ambitions, we have been considering whether the early-modern controversies may provide us with resources for thinking about contemporary political issues in Europe. The emergence, in the early-modern period, of religious pluralism, commercial society and the apparatus of the nation state intensified debates about the relationship between civic liberties, religious identities, commercial markets and governments. Within this matrix, many key concepts and questions were generated that still inform European thinking at the present time. We hope in consequence that our historical investigations may have considerable relevance for present-day Europe . The European Union currently faces the necessity of reinvigorating a culture based on freedom, democracy and mutual tolerance. But these problems cannot be dealt with in an historical vacuum. Rather their solutions must in part be drawn from an understanding of the conceptual resources provided by European traditions of political thinking and practice. It is this understanding that we hope to deepen and to foster by means of our scholarly work.

This project is fully funded by the Balzan Foundation. The International Balzan Prize Foundation’s aim is to promote culture, the sciences and the most meritorious initiatives in the cause of humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples throughout the world.