“If one had to choose one movement in ideas and party politics that has created the political world in which Europeans still live today, the answer has to be Christian Democracy”, writes Jan-Werner Müller, political philosopher and historian of political ideas working at Princeton University.
Christian democracy has had a decisive influence on post-war European politics and social order and has led the process of European integration. Europe, ravaged by the Second World War, was rebuilt under the leadership of Christian Democrats. Christian democracy provided answers to post-war disappointment, practical solutions for reconstruction, and a peaceful third way alternative to the extreme right and communism. Under the leadership of Konrad Adenauer, Alcide de Gasperi, and Robert Schuman, Christian Democrats built a more united Europe. European integration was seen – quite rightly – as a way of preventing the rise of extremism and the threat of war, and of strengthening democracy, peace, prosperity, and the common good. The European Union that emerged as a result of this work can rightly be called a Christian Democratic peace project.
Despite all this, hardly any other political ideology of such significance has received so little attention. Relatively little has been written about Christian democracy in English, French, and German, and even less in Finnish. The book Christian Democracy – The Third Way, published by the Kompassi think tank with the assistance of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung's Regional Programme Nordic Countries, aims to fill this gap.