A ‘thick’ Constitutional Patriotism for the Eu

With the apparent failure of the European Constitution (at least on the first try...), the search for a pan-European civic ‘identification mechanism’ is as likely to be intensified as it is to be abandoned. Given that most political theorists are reluctant to formulate a liberal pan-European nationalism, a ‘thicker’ version of constitutional patriotism might seem an attractive (and relatively modest) normative proposal. ‘Thick’ would denote a constitutional patriotism that is ‘enriched’ by forms of particularity; such forms of particularity would make European patriotism distinctive, that is, different from outright cosmopolitanism or universalism.