Professor Simoncini was the Italian Fulbright at the Nanovic Institute during spring 2009.
What is a political space? Is it coincident with the nation state? If not, can there be an institution that is not grounded in society? Or, is a society something different from a nation? If so, is it possible for Europe to be a (civil) society without a state, creating a new experience of democratic citizenship? The future of Europe is hidden in its past: this talk explores what a genealogical approach to contemporary European issues can teach us.
Andrea Simoncini (JD, University of Florence), professor of constitutional law at the University of Florence, will spend part of the fall semester at the Kellogg Institute working on a joint project with Mauro Magatti: “Europe: An Institution without a Society?”
A constitutional scholar whose work is internationally well known, Simoncini focuses his research on Italian and European constitutional law, developmental dynamics of the sources of law, social rights, and the study of the interrelations between natural law and positive legal systems. He also studies the nexus of environmental politics with constitutional law and human rights.
His Kellogg collaboration with Magatti will examine the changes over time in the meaning of “civil society” in Europe, looking in particular on how it has evolved from a communally oriented to a more individualistic concept. Can some of the current problems of the European Union lie in its neglect in its constitutional politics and law of the older notion of civil society? Using a multidisciplinary approach, the pair will study the relationship between the multiple civil societies of Europe and the future of the EU’s institutional framework.
Twice a visiting professor at Notre Dame Law School, Simoncini was also the University’s 2009 Fulbright Italian Scholar, serving as visiting scholar at the Nanovic Institute for European Studies.
Sponsored by the Kellogg Institute for International Studies.