European society: concept and method. Introduction to the symposium on European society

This symposium brings together a group of legal scholars who participated in a research project called European Society . The project originates in a meeting of the two of us and a mutual engagement with our texts. In 2022, Loïc Azoulai published a short piece on ‘The Law of European Society’ in the Common Market Law Review. The same year, Armin von Bogdandy published a book under the title Strukturwandel des öffentlichen Rechts. Entstehung und Demokratisierung der europäischen Gesellschaft (Suhrkamp), translated in English as The Emergence of European Society through Public Law (Oxford University Press 2024). At the time of publication, we were unaware of each other’s work – evidence, perhaps, that the theme was in the air. Owing to our differences in orientation and style, we decided to set up a research group, with the aim of providing a new account of the experience of Europe in the current context, marked by disorientation and polarisation, but also widely shared calls for ‘more Europe’. Europe’s current condition and its future possibilities are deeply affected by what many have classified as ‘crises’ (financial and economic crisis, migration, rule of law, external threats), but also what some Europeans even experience as ‘catastrophes’ (climate change, digital revolution, pandemic, war). The original idea was that the concept of ‘European society’ might help to get a better picture of the Europeans’ situation as well as ideas for the future course.