https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1953-1501
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ABSTRACT
In times of crisis, interpersonal and group solidarity often emerge as people face critical challenges that threaten their survival. However, it remains unclear whether spontaneous solidarity practices are enough to effectively face such crisis situations. In this paper, we argue that to be fully effective, solidarity must be deployed through all its political tiers, from interpersonal and group relationships to institutional and legal normativity. We contend that solidarity relations can only reach an enduring goal if they solidify into stable principles that can be acknowledged and enacted at the institutional level. Through an examination of recent literature and concrete case studies, the paper investigates the linkages and mutual dependencies between the various levels of solidarity developed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. This analysis may allow us to answer the question of whether a “Multilevel European Solidarity” is a realistic goal, and what is required to achieve it.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 See Habermas, The European Crisis; Hayward, “Union without Consensus”; Offe, Europe Entrapped; Mody, Euro Tragedy.
2 Ferrera et al., “Walking the Road Together?”.
3 Scholz, Political Solidarity.
4 By “social”, we broadly mean the sphere of social life where all forms of interpersonal and group solidarity typically manifest themselves. By “institutional”, we mean the stage where such manifestations solidify into stable structures (e.g., laws, policy measures).
5 See Prainsack and Buyx, Solidarity in Biomedicine and Beyond.
6 Habermas, Between Facts and Norms.
7 Scholz, Political Solidarity.
8 See Durkheim, The Division of Labour in Society; Scheler, Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values.
9 Mohanty, Feminism without Borders; Shelby, We Who Are Dark. Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity.
10 See Bayertz, “Four Uses of ‘Solidarity’”; Rippe, “Diminishing Solidarity”.
11 Stjernø, Solidarity in Europe: The History of an Idea.
12 See Gould, “Transnational Solidarities”; Sangiovanni, “Solidarity in the European Union”.
13 See Prainsack and Buyx, Solidarity in Biomedicine and Beyond, 54–7.
14 See Hass, The Uniting of Europe.
15 Dunn, “Neo-Functionalism and the European Union”.
16 Cooper, “The Euro Crisis as the Revenge of Neo-functionalism”.
17 See Dagilyté, “Solidarity: A General Principle of EU Law?”.
18 See Guzman and Stiglitz, Too Little, Too Late.
19 Martinelli and Cavalli, European Society, chapter 14.
20 See, on this, Bayertz, “Staat und Solidaritat”.
21 Nagy, “Reconciliation in Post-Commission South Africa,” 329.
22 Jaeggi, “Solidarity and Indifference,” 305.
23 Habermas, Democracy, Solidarity, and the European Crisis.
24 See Meacham, “The ‘Noble’ and the ‘Hypocritical’ Memory”; “European Institutions?”.
25 See Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 308.
26 Regh, “Translator’s Introduction,” xxxi.
27 Visegrád Group, “Flexible Solidarity. Intergovernmentalism or Differentiated Integration”.
28 See Kymlicka, “Solidarity in Diverse Societies”.
29 Verhofstadt, “On Possible Evolutions of and Adjustments to the Current Institutional Set-up of the European Union”; Bresso and Brok, “On Improving the Functioning of the European Union Building on the Potential of the Lisbon Treaty”.
30 Habermas, “Democracy in Europe”.
31 See Offe, Europe Entrapped.
32 Brunkhorst, Solidarity. From Civic Friendship to a Global Legal Community, 175.
33 Fakete, “Migrants, Borders and the Criminalisation of Solidarity in the EU,” 73.
34 Tomasini, “Solidarity in the Time of COVID-19?”.
35 Meacham and Tava, “The Algorithmic Disruption of Workplace Solidarity”.
36 European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies, “Statement on European Solidarity and the Protection of Fundamental Rights in the COVID-19 Pandemic”.
37 Prainsack, “Solidarity in Times of Pandemic”.
38 Portes, “Boris Johnson’s ‘Common Sense’ Lockdown Logic has an Obvious Flaw”.
39 United Nations, “How can we vaccinate the world?”; De Bolle, “Current Vaccine Proposals are not Enough to End the Pandemic”; Mueller and Robins, “Where a Vast Global Vaccination Program Went Wrong”.
40 Jiang, “Precarity in the Academy and Solidarity Amidst COVID-19”; et al., Prainsack, “Solidarity in Crisis? A Better “Pandemic Preparedness”.
41 Hangel et al., “Solidaristic Behavior and its Limits”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Alessandro Volpe
Alessandro Volpe is Lecturer in Moral Philosophy at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University of Milan. His research focuses on contemporary critical theory, the idea of solidarity, and the philosophy of Europe. He was a research fellow at Fondazione Fratelli Confalonieri (Milan) and visiting fellow at the University of Antwerp and the University of Frankfurt-am-Main. For more information about Volpe’s research and teaching endeavours, please check his staff profile at https://www.unisr.it/docenti/v/volpe-alessandro.
Francesco Tava
Francesco Tava is Associate Professor of Philosophy within the School of Social Sciences at the University of the West of England (Bristol, UK). His primary research centres on political philosophy, phenomenology, and applied ethics, with a specific emphasis on unravelling the complexities of political solidarity within the European context. For more information about Tava’s research and teaching endeavours, please check his staff profile at https://people.uwe.ac.uk/Person/FrancescoTava.