European identity European Societies

1. After Wallace November 2012 European identityEuropean Societies

2. 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?

3. 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.

4. 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?

5. 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.

6. 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).

7. 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".

8. "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..."

9. 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".

10. 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)

11. Four time zones ofEurope After Gellner Bride=culture Groom=Political 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

12. 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

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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

16. Identification with Europe

17. 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

18. 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

19. Problems with cosmopolitan concepts of European Identity * Not all countries can be described as "post-modern", multiple modernities * Nationalist backlash against cosmopolitanism/Europeanisation * Limits of constructivism * Increasingly Anglo-centric * Lack of passion?

20. 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?

21. 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.

22. 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.

23. European identities: Modern marriage? * Many strong and competing brides * Weak groom

24. Readings * Delanty, G., Is There A European Identity? Global Dialogue, 5:3–4, Summer/Autumn 2003 * Delanty, G., Models Of European Identity, Perspectives on European Politics and Society, (2002) 3:3, 345-359 * Smith, A. D., National identity and the idea of European Unity, International Affairs. 1992. 68:1, 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