Europe and the State: the Politics of Symbolic Domination

This article deals with the question of state in the European context. European countries have progressively achieved a modern form of domination on the basis of sovereignty and rule of law, by monopolizing the legitimacy and mobilizing the society. The European integration assembling national states can be analyzed as a process of new political center formation. The European Union has developed following a somewhat similar historical route of federalism, but a different trajectory on many important points. I suggest that a macro-historical approach of state is crucial in understanding European integration, using the concept of symbolic domination proposed by Pierre Bourdieu. After examining various cases applying the concept of state to Europe, I underline the possibility of analyzing Europe as a state of symbolic domination, meaning an indirect, informal, and unconscious form of domination, going further than the traditional concept of state as a mechanism of physical and direct domination. I conclude by a comparison with East Asia where the traditional national state model culminates at its apex.