The new geopolitics of division and the problem of a Kantian Europe

Immanuel Kant is today often invoked as an emblematic figure for Europe. In works by thinkers such as Zygmunt Bauman, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Jürgen Habermas, among others, Kant's work stands as a core reference for discussions of the European Modern and the legacy of the Enlightenment, even if this appropriation is not uncritical. The spectre of Kant also haunts Europe in more pedestrian understandings of the ideal. Prominent politicians such as Gerhard Schroeder, Joschka Fischer, Dominique de Villepin and Romano Prodi have all paid tribute to his influence, while in a variety of popular-academic texts Kant's 'cosmopolitical' dream has been invoked as a paradigm for Europe-if not a shorthand for the European social model tout court. Copyright © British International Studies Association.