L'Europe et les partis politiques nationaux: Les lecons d'un

European integration remains a 'non-cleavage' in relation to the Lipset-Rokkan model, as it has not produced significant restructurings of national party systems. Yet, while not effecting the terms of interparty competition, Europe has nevertheless come to occupy an increasingly large place in national political debates. Since the early 1990s, Euroscepticisms have taken root, to varying degrees, across the entire continent. This article analyses the rise of these Eurosceptic tendencies, examining the phenomenon in terms of both the Europeanisation of national political life and the wider emergence of forms of protest politics. The analysis demonstrates how European questions have been absorbed into established party structures, while at the same time pointing towards a renewed research agenda which pays greater attention both to the discursive dimension of political life and to the roles played by national parties as European actors.

The State, Compartmentalization and the Turn to Local Community: A Critique of the Political Thought of Alasdair MacIntyre

Alasdair MacIntyre condemns modern politics, specifically liberalism and the institutions of the liberal state, as irredeemably fallen. His core argument is that the liberal state encourages a disempowering ‘compartmentalization’ of people’s everyday roles and activities that undermines the intersubjective conditions of human flourishing. MacIntyre’s alternative is an Aristotelian politics centred on the notion of “practice.” Defined by justice and solidarity, this politics can only be realized, he claims, within local communities which oppose and resist the dictates of the administrative state and capitalist market. Here it is argued that MacIntyre’s notion of “practice” represents a compelling ethical-political ideal. However, the belief that this ideal is best realized within local communities is rejected. In privileging local community, MacIntyre relies on a reductive view of modern states and overlooks the institutional conditions of a just polity. Against this, it is argued that a politics of human flourishing cannot succeed without an emancipatory transformation of large-scale, trans-communal institutions, in particular the state.