Analysing European values

Résumé En

The introductory chapter presents the main objectives and arguments of the book. To contextualize them, it first proposes a working definition of “values” and poses the question of its application to the European level. It then presents a state of the art, exploring how social sciences have tackled the issue of values in the context of European integration. From these preliminary reflections emerges the idea that “European values”, while enduringly invoked in celebratory discourses on European singularity and global vocation, have a weak normative charge due to their variability and indeterminacy. This weakness is both a cause and a consequence of the absence of a political authority and community able to impose their meaning and carry out their dissemination. Paradoxically, this weakness is also a condition for the use of European values as a flexible narrative to accommodate different identities, ideas and interests in European arenas. Against this background, the chapter enounces the objectives and explains the selection of the three values, human dignity, rule of law and democracy, before presenting the content of the book.