Consensus, Benign Neglect, and Specialized Knowledge
Consensus, Benign Neglect, and Specialized Knowledge
Spanish Intellectuals and Europe*
Carlos Closa and Antonio Barroso show that Spanish intellectuals have long shown a “benign neglect” towards the EU and European integration. As a result of the link established between democratization and Europe in the post‐Franco period, the latter occupied an almost totally uncontroversial position. This provoked a vacuum which specialised intellectuals tried to fill. More precisely, public lawyers have assumed a central role in discussion on the EU and this has had the effect of turning it into a kind of arcane domain for specialists. Through a number of case‐studies, Closa and Barroso argue that it is the notion of constitutional tolerance as articulated by Joseph Weiler (2001) that best fits with Spanish intellectual debates on Europe. The insertion of Spain into the European constitutional architecture is broadly conceived as a way of perfecting national democracy.
Keywords: constitutional tolerance, public lawyers, democratization, specialization, Franco
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
