Constitutional Patriotism by Jan-Werner MüllerReview by: Philip H. GordonForeign Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 3 (May - Jun., 2008), p. 148Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20032676 .

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Constitutional Patriotism. BY JAN-WERNER MULLER. Princeton University Press, 2007, 186 pp. $19.95.

In the mid-198os, the German political philosopher Jiirgen Habermas popularized the concept of "constitutional patriotism," the idea, as Miler explains it, that political attachment "ought to center on the norms, the values and, more indirectly, the procedures of a liberal democratic constitution." The notion struck a chord in Germany, where even two generations after the Nazi era, many were still uncom fortable with traditional nationalism yet

wanted to belong to a political community that was more narrowly defined than humanity as a whole. Muiller carefully and fairly examines the history, the advantages, and the drawbacks of the concept and concludes that there is merit in the notion that political attachment can be based on liberal norms rather than blood or faith.

Muller's constitutional patriotism does not mean ignoring history or ethnicity in the definition of a political community (as critics of the concept imply it does) but rather means complementing them with the thought that people can be brought together by loyalty to a constitution. The discussion is particularly relevant to the case of the European Union, which, in the absence of a shared history or culture,

might find value in alternative concepts of political belonging.

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[148] FOREIGN AFFAIRS* Volume87No.3

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