European identity European Societies

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European identityEuropean Societies

• After Wallace
• November 2012

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European identity v. national and regional
identity

• National identity and nationalism
• How do we account for national identity?
• Different types of national identity in Europe
• European identity, is it the same as national
  identity?

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What is Nationalism?

• Nationalists argue that nations are timeless
  phenomena. When man climbed out of the primordial
  slime, he immediately set about creating nations.
  
• The next major school of thought is that of the
  perennialists who argue that nations have been
  around for a very long time, though they take
  different shapes at different points in history.
• While postmodernists and Marxists also play in
  the larger debates surrounding this topic, the
  modernisation school is perhaps the most
  prevalent scholarly argument at the moment. These
  scholars see nations as entirely modern and
  constructed.

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Construction of Nations

• Similar to ethnicity and race, nations are
• socially constructed entities, and are not
• natural and stable.
• How do people construct a nationalistic
• identity?

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Three Phases in the rise of Nationalism

• End of 19th Century. from period of 1848
  uprisings against the Habsburg Empire. Break-up
  of the Habsburg Empire into many small
  nation-states (principle of "self-determination").
  Completed after end of WWI. Unification of Italy
  and Germany
• End of British Empire after WWII. Rise of new
  states in Africa and Asia in 1950s and 1960s
• Break-up of USSR. Re-emergence of older
  countries Czech Republic, Poland, Georgia,
  Armenia, Baltic States, and creation of new ones
  Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Slovakia, Kazakhstan,
  Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia.

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Nationalism Debates

• Ernest Gellner nationalism is a modern
  phenomenon. Based on idea that cultural/ ethnic
  community and territory should be congruent in
  form of a state. Created by elites. Education
  system essential.
• Anthony Smith nationalism based also on older
  cultural/ethnic groupings "primordial".
• Hobsbawm/Anderson nation is an "imagined
  community" (post-modernist).

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Thought and Change, Ernest Gellner, 1964

• "Nationalism is not the awakening of nations to
  self-consciousness it invents nations where they
  do not exist, but it does need some pre-existing
  differentiating marks to work on, even if...
  these are purely negative".

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"Gastronomy or geology?...",Anthony D. Smith,
1994

• "Nationalists have a vital role to play in the
  construction of nations... as political
  archaeologists rediscovering and re-interpreting
  the communal past in order to regenerate the
  community. Their task is indeed selective, they
  forget as well as remember the past..."

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Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson, 1983

• "It is imagined because the members of even the
  smallest nation will never know most of their
  fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them,
  yet in the minds of each lives the image of their
  communion... The nation is imagined as limited
  because even the largest of them, encompassing
  perhaps a billion human beings, has finite, if
  elastic boundaries, beyond which lie other
  nations. No nation imagines itself coterminous
  with mankind... It is imagined as sovereign
  because the concept was born in an age in which
  Enlightenment and Revolution were destroying the
  legitimacy of the divinely-ordained, hierarchical
  dynastic realm".

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Different types of nationalism

• Civic nationalism associated with membership of
  a particular nation and community of citizens
  (from French Revolution) (possible basis of
  European identity) Habermas "constitutional
  patriotism"
• Ethnic nationalism based on cultural and/or
  linguistic Ethnic communities become political
  communities. Often in revolt against alien
  rulers.
• (not possible basis of European identity because
  no common language and culture)

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Four time zones of Europe

• After Gellner
• Brideculture
• GroomPolitical movement or state
• 1. Western Seaboard strong dynastic states that
  unified national territory from middle ages
  onwards. The state existed before the nation.
  Nationalism was a "present of history". Language
  and culture already present.
• Bride and groom had been cohabiting before
  marriage

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Four time zones... cont.

• 2. Central time zone High cultures existed
  (Italian and German) but fragmented political
  states. Need to create states under a common
  cultural roof. Unified in the 19th century.
• Bride was waiting for groom to appear

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Four time zones... cont.

• 3. Central-East time zone mixture of many small
  ethnic and cultural groups. Ethnic groups mainly
  peasant cultures with no literate tradition.
  Nationalism began with ethnography
  (descriptive/normative) folklorists, school
  teachers, Awakeners at end of 19th century and
  beginning of 20th century. But difficult to build
  a territory. People had to be assimilated,
  expelled or killed.
• Groom had to be created and bride had to be
  found.

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Four time zones... cont.

• 4. Eastern Tsarist Empire became Soviet Empire.
  Controlled territories forcefully and
  incorporated models of ethnic nations. But
  collapse meant rise of new nationalisms.
• Harem model.

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European identities Three theories (Spohn)

• 1. European identity a weak addendum to National
  identity
• 2. In the long-run European identity will replace
  national identity
• 3. People will hold both identities

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Identification with Europe
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European identity as cosmopolitan identity

• According to Delanty, European identity is a
  cosmopolitan conception, unlike monolithic
  national identity
• Identities can be multiple, overlapping, nested,
  cross-cutting, mixed, hybrid, co-existing
• We can have a number of identities simultaneously
• Assumes variety and plurality of tongues and
  peoples and cultures
• Ethnic, regional, and national identities relate
  in different ways
• European identity contained in national identity
• Flux and change is normal

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European identity as cosmopolitan... cont.

• Can it replace national identity? According to
  Habermas it needs late modern society to be
  well-developed.
• In post-national society identity not based on
  territory, or culture, or state. Reflexive and
  critical influence of modern culture. Late
  modernity/post modernity

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Problems with cosmopolitan concepts of European
Identity

• Not all countries can be described as
  "post-modern", multiple modernities
• Nationalist backlash against cosmopolitanism/Eur
  opeanisation
• Limits of constructivism
• Increasingly Anglo-centric
• Lack of passion?

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Bases of European identity

• Civilisational/historical (WW2, Romans)
• Economic instrumentalism
• Integrationist
• Civic identity/ civic patriotism (not ethnic),
  but lack of civic engagement with EU
• Symbols/Ritual
• State building, increasing powers
• Elite project (so was national identity)
• Sites/heroes (Monnet, Schumann)
• Construction of "the Other", is it strong
  enough? Anti-war? Anti-Muslim (but Bosnia)?
  Anti-American?

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Bases of European identity, cont.

• Convergence family and class, work and mass
  consumption, the European city, the welfare state
• Education system missing dimension
• Culture but no common language
• Loyalty missing due to lack of trust and
  community and legitimacy
• Democracy/Modernisation
• But according to Delanty, a post-national
  loyalty is gradually emerging, thin kind of
  loyalty. Reflexive loyalty and solidarity.

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European values

• Social justice
• Welfare
• Environmentalism
• European capitalism? Scandinavian model?
• Collective identity relative to the EU
• Thin and thick identities
• Thick identity (comprehensive) ethnic/racial
  tie that organises a great deal of social life
  and both individual and collective action
• Thin identity (less comprehensive)
  ethnic/racial tie that organises relatively
  little of social life and action.

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European identities Modern marriage?

• Many strong and competing brides
• Weak groom

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Readings

• Delanty, G., Is There A European Identity?
  Global Dialogue, 534, Summer/Autumn 2003
• Delanty, G., Models Of European Identity,
  Perspectives on European Politics and Society,
  (2002) 33, 345-359
• Smith, A. D., National identity and the idea of
  European Unity, International Affairs. 1992.
  681, 55-76
• Spohn, W., The Role of Collective Identities in
  the Eastern Extension of European Integration,
  2002
• Walkenhorst H., The Conceptual Spectrum Of
  European Identity, Limerick Papers in Politics
  and Public Administration, 2009, No.3