Habeas Corpus? Pierre Manent and the Politics of Europe

This article examines and assesses Pierre Manent’s critique of the European political project and his concomitant endorsement of the nation-state. It first presents Manent’s basic arguments against the European Union, focusing on his Aristotelian understanding of political forms and his notion of the body politic. Subsequently, it argues that Manent’s position, in part due to its Aristotelian underpinnings, is deeply problematic, in that it disregards the contingency and the element of representation that are necessarily inherent in the foundation of every body politic. As a result, Manent’s critique tends to downplay the contingency of the nation-state and to overplay the contingency of the European Union