Things can go fast sometimes. One day you are happily tinkering with the Politeia newsletter, and the next day Politeia’s main editor Ruud Veldhuis announces he has decided to retire (though he promised he will stay actively involved). One day you are happily walking around in one of the heartlands of the European Union, and the next day, the first of June to be exact, your fellow Dutch citizens massively reject the European Constitution. In this issue of Politeia, Luuk van der Meer describes the Dutch confusion on that first of June, while Ivo Hartman, the new main editor of Politeia, analyses the consequences of the French ‘Non’ and the Dutch ‘Nee’. Good initiatives are needed to foster European citizenship. Luckily they exist though they are few. The Austrian Citizenship Education Action Days attempt to raise awareness. European Schoolnet’s myEUROPE attempts to bring European citizenship into the classroom. Politeia attempts to connect people involved in European citizenship education. To further this aim we have decided to focus more exclusively on our website. Politeia will stop appearing in print, but in exchange www.politeia.net will grow more lively and up-to-date.
Krijn Peter Hesselink, Instituut voor Publiek en Politiek, Amsterdam
This arrticle was published in Politeia Newsletter 38 - July 2005
Today, on the first of June, the Dutch citizen is asked to take a position on a legal document comprising more than three hundred pages and three hundred articles that touch upon virtually all aspects of politics. Luuk van der Meer tries to get an overview of all the reasons why the Dutch seem so Euro-sceptic all of a sudden, ranging from an uninspired debate to elitist government attitudes.
We know now that nearly two-thirds of the Dutch citizens (63.3%) who bothered to cast their vote at the referendum on the EU-Constitution (again nearly two thirds of the electorate, 61.5%) voted against ratification of the treaty. Ivo Hartman argues that it is difficult to know why people voted no since there where as many reasons as votes. He hopes that at even though the referendum turned out negative, European politics and citizenship will stay on the agenda for a while.
From the 21st till the 24th of April, a conference took place on the role of NGOs in education for democratic citizenship in Warsaw, Poland. The main aim of the conference was to exchange successful project experiences and innovative practices in the field of democratic citizenship and human rights education. Ruud Veldhuis draws conclusions from the event.
Titling a book on social studies The Social Studies Wars might cause the sneaking impression that this is just to provoke and to sell the product. This impression, though, would not at all do justice to the author. Ronald W. Evans' book indeed does focus on the history of American social studies as a 'story of turf wars among competing camps struggling [...] to either retain control of social studies or influence its direction.'
To what extent is it possible for a true European citizenship to arise according to academics? This essay tries to give a short overview of recent scholarly debate on this issue and concludes that not all is lost.
myEUROPE is a web-based project developed by European Schoolnet. It aims at helping teachers raise their pupils' awareness of what it means to be a young citizen in Europe.
Next to this small reviews of some new web-sites that hope to use the potential of the Internet in achieving the goal of furthering and enhancing democracy, and attention for a newly founded NGO in Belgium that focuses on citizen participation.
What contributions have democracy promotion projects made in countries like Turkey or the Ukraine? And what are the possibilities in countries like White Russia or Iraq? You can read the answers in our next electronic issue. Or, even better, you can give the answers yourself and send your contribution to us before the 1st of September 2005.