History of European Identity.
Lecture I: A European Political
Identity?
Johan Wänström
johan.wanstrom@liu.se
Course expectations
• Do the readings for the lectures
– You will not pass the course without doing the assigned
readings
• Necessary for the exam
• Do the assignments for the seminars
– You will not pass the course without preparing for and
participating in the seminars
• Sign up for and write the exams
– 4 questions – 5 points each
•
•
•
•
0-9,5 points: F
10-14,5 points: C
15-17,5 points: B
18-20 points: A
Schedule and reading assignments
2015-01-19
13:15-15:00
Basic history and structure of the EU
Readings: Introduction to the EU
JW
D316
2015-01-22
15:15-17:00
Religion and European Identity I
Readings: Article – “Petrus de Dacia”
KOL
Key 4260
2015-01-27
10:15-12:00
Art History I. Middle Ages to Rococo
Readings: distributed at the lecture
KN
G37
2015-01-29
15:15-17:00
KOL
Religion and European Identity II
Readings: Article – “Lutheranism or Secularism”
Key 4260
2015-02-02
10:15-12:00
KN
Art History II. Ca 18th Century to Early Modernism
Readings: distributed at the lecture
KY41
Schedule and reading assignments
2015-02-06
10:15-12:00
European political identity
Readings: Checkel chapters 1, 2 & 3
JW
I102
2015-02-09
10:15-12:00
Seminar 1. Art History
KN
I102
2014-02-09
13:15-15:00
Seminar 1. Art History
KN
G35
2015-02-13
10:15-12:00
European political identity
Readings: Checkel chapters 5, 7 & 9
JW
D24
2015-02-13
13:15-15:00
Seminar 2: political identity
Assignment available at the website
JW
D24
2015-02-21
8:00-12:00 Written Exam
2015-03-23
8:00-12:00 Written Exam. Re-sit
The European Union (EU)
• 28 European indiviudual countries in a
politico-economic union
– Yet(?) not a federation
•
•
•
•
Population: 507 million
24 official languages
Capital: Brussels
Motto: ”United in diversity”
The European Council
• Sets the overall agenda for the EU
– Is not a formal part of the law-making procedure
• Includes all 28 heads of state or government
as well as the President of the Commission
• Meets at least four times a year
The European Commission
• Represents the intersts of the Union as a
whole
– 28 commissioners
• One from each country
– Jean-Claude Juncker the current President of the
European Commission
• The only EU-institution with the ability to
introduce/propose a new EU-law
The Council of the European Union
• Represents the govermnents of the individual
member countries
– The 28 responsible ministers on an specific area
• Votes on the legislation proposals from the
European Commission
– New EU-laws has to receive the approval of the
Council
The European Parliament
• Represents the EU-citizens
– Is elected by the citizens in the election to the
European parliament every 5th year
– 751 seats
• 96 from Germany, 20 from Sweden, 6 from Malta
• Votes on the legislation proposals (along with
the Council) from the European Commission
– New EU-laws has to receive the approval of the
EU-parliament
Ordinary Legislative Procedure
The European Commission
Implements the new law
The member countries
Implements the new law
The European Parliament
Votes on new law
The Council of the European Union
Votes on new law
The European Commission
Proposes a new law
Is there a need for a common identity when
identifying and implementing a new EU-law?
• Many nations has a long common history
– Common traditions, language, ideals etc.
• Japan, China etc
• Some nations has been created in a new area
– Different identities has grown togheter into a new in a
new geographical area
• USA, Australia etc
• Is it possible to create a common identity among
already existing nations?
– The European Union (EU)?
Why the EU?
Historical perspective
• 1950 – a continent destroyed by nationalism and wars
• Germany got to pay a high price for WW1
– Fostered revenge rather than reconciliation in Germany
– Focus on barriers rather than integration in France
• Resulted in an even larger disaster: WW2
• The European Union was set up with the aim of ending the
frequent and bloody wars between neighbours, which
culminated in the Second World War.
• Economically strong and integrated states had more to lose than
gain from starting a war
– Countries that are economically dependent on each other results
in economic growth
– Trade fosters cultural integration and understanding
The European Union
• As of 1950, the European Coal and Steel Community
begins to unite European countries economically and
politically in order to secure lasting peace. The six
founders are:
– Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the
Netherlands.
• The 1950s are dominated by a cold war between east
and west.
• In 1957, the Treaty of Rome creates the European
Economic Community (EEC), or ‘Common Market’.
• Economic growth during the 1960´s
1970´s
• Enlargement
– Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom join the European Union on
1 January 1973, raising the number of member states to nine.
• Economic problems
– The short, yet brutal, Arab-Israeli war of October 1973 result in an
energy crisis and economic problems in Europe.
– The EU regional policy starts to transfer huge sums to create jobs and
infrastructure in poorer areas
• Democratization in Southwestern Europe
– The last right-wing dictatorships in Europe come to an end with the
overthrow of the Salazar regime in Portugal in 1974 and the death of
General Franco of Spain in 1975.
• Democratization of the EU???
– The European Parliament increases its influence in EU affairs and in
1979 all citizens can, for the first time, elect their members directly.
A growing community
1950-1979
The 1980’s
• The EU keeps growing
– In 1981, Greece becomes the 10th member of the EU and Spain and
Portugal follow five years later.
• The EU is continuing its path towards a common single market
– In 1986 the Single European Act is signed. This is a treaty which
provides the basis for a vast six-year program aimed at sorting out the
problems with the free-flow of trade across EU borders and thus
creates the ‘Single Market’.
• Changes in Eastern Europe
– The Polish trade union, Solidarność, and its leader Lech Walesa,
become household names across Europe and the world following the
Gdansk shipyard strikes in the summer of 1980.
– There is major political upheaval when, on 9 November 1989, the
Berlin Wall is pulled down and the border between East and West
Germany is opened for the first time in 28 years, this leads to the
reunification of Germany when both East and West Germany are
united in October 1990.
The 1990’s
• With the collapse of communism across central and eastern
Europe, Europeans become closer neighbors.
• With the Treaty of Maastricht (1993) the Single Market is
completed with the 'four freedoms' of: movement of
goods, services, people and money.
– A small village in Luxembourg gives its name to the ‘Schengen’
agreements that gradually allow people to travel without having
their passports checked at the borders.
– Millions of young people study in other countries with EU
support.
• In 1995 the EU gains three more new members, Austria,
Finland and Sweden.
• People are concerned about how to protect the
environment and also how Europeans can act together
when it comes to security and defense matters – the EU
moves beyond trade and economy
A growing community
Peace and prosperity all over Europe?
1980-1999
A growing community
Peace and prosperity all over Europe?
2000-2014
Future enlargement?
• Could Turkey be a
part of the EU?
– Necessary to relate to
the European
identity?
• Economic culture?
• Poltical culture?
• Relgious culture?
Why do we need a common identity?
• Our identity says something about what we
are considering to be right and wrong
– Immanuel Kant: Categorical imperative
• "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at
the same time will that it should become a universal
law without contradiction.“
• Hard to get people to obey rules/laws that
they don´t agree upon
• Hard to get people to pay taxes for something
that they don’t agree upon
What are identities?
• Shared representations of a collective self as
reflected in:
– Public debate
– Political symbols
– Collective memories
– Elite competition for power
• Collecive beleifs about the definition of the
group and its membership, which are shared
by most groups members (intersubjective)
The need for a common identity
• Political communities – communities that
claim the legitimate use of force over their
members – require some form of allegiance
and loyalty – which is somewhat exclusive in
nature:
– Solidarity with our fellow citizens
• Towards those living close to us
• Towards those living further away (for example Greece)
– Defending our own community against external
threats
Why is European identity important?
• A viable and legitimate European polity requires some
degree of identification in order to be sustainable?
• Example: Parental leave
– Attempts to create basic European standards failed
• Different ideas of who we are and therefore what is right or wrong
– Hard to agree even within Sweden
• 15 months – government pays 80 percent of income
– Each parent can only use 13 months – 2 months have to be used by the
other parent
• Should there be 7,5 months for each parent (forcing parents to
split)
– Identity based on traditions?
– Identity based on reason?
A brief history of the concept of
identity
• What was it like to be, say, a peasant
somewhere in Europe 500 years ago? Where
did your identity come from?
• Your identity was ascribed to you by the
surrounding society.
A brief history of the concept of
identity
• Identity politics is a modern phenomenon.
Identity as we understand it did not exist in
medieval Europe.
• This changed with modernization (between
the 16th and 18th centuries).
– A distinction between ‘the social self’ and ‘the
authentic self’.
A brief history of the concept of
identity
• The political aspect of modern identity: The
importance of recognition.
• Friedrich Hegel (early 1800s): History itself is
driven by the struggle for recognition - by the
desire of human beings to have their
fundamental dignity recognized by other
human beings.
• This makes the struggle for identity into an
inherently political act!
A brief history of the concept of
identity
• This political struggle for recognition can be
found in modern nationalism – the most
dominant political struggle in Europe over the last
few hundred years.
• The “European project” was created in order to
come to terms with the destructive impact of
nationalism.
• Europe could not survive after two World Wars
unless “Europeans moved into a post-national
identity”. (Habermas)
A European political identity?
• Once again: A viable and legitimate European
polity requires some degree of identification
in order to be sustainable!
• What we get then, is the problem of
constructing a common European political
identity!
• Normative theories try to deal with this
problem – how should a European political
identity be constructed?
A European political identity?
• Two distinct aspects of political identity:
– Identification
• Who we are?
– Allegiance
• Solidarity to whom?
– Who are we willing to defend?
– Who har we willing to give an helping hand in times of need?
Two ways of understanding the relationship
between European and national identities:
Nation-like, or
essentialistic, conceptions
• Zero-sum game between
identities: the priorities of
people’s political
identities must change.
• Makes no distinction
between identification
and allegiance
Post-nationalist, or
constructivistic,
conceptions
• Positive sum: ’Nested’ or
’cross-cutting’ identities
possible.
• Distinguishes between
identification and
allegiance (but
sometimes acknowledges
the psychological
connections between
them)
Jürgen Habermas
• How do we determine what is right or wrong (or our
identity)?
– In an objective way
• Nature
• Religion
• Impossible?
– In a subjective way
• No common determination – only individual
– In an intersubjective way
• Rational communication/discussions among people, free from
traditions and individual status
– Yet important trying to understand each other
• Shared meaning - changes (slowly?) over time
• It is possible to identify common solutions to all problems if we only
communicate well enough
• Identity is something we construct in a rational way
together with others (from Habermas perspective)
A European political identity?
• Jürgen Habermas’ ’Constitutional Patriotism’
– An attachment to the European polity based on its
”civic”, or cosmopolitan, values, rather than on
”thick” cultural attachments.
– Open to inclusion of ”the other”.
– Combines both universalism (cosmopolitan
values) and particularism (attachment to Europe).
A European political identity?
• Habermas argues that the creation of such a
common identity is both necessary and possible.
• It is necessary because Europe has moved beyond
the point where functional conceptions of
European citizenship are plausible.
– Functional conceptions (based on efficiency, the
common market, and bureaucratic administration)
ignore the importance of emotional attachments for
loyalty towards the community and the political
system.
A European political identity?
• Functionalism is exhausted because of the new challenges
for Europe:
– Governing the enlargement.
• EU is growing – more members
– Political consequences of increasing economic unification:
redistributive justice. Redistribution in times of economic crises.
(Greece???)
• Is it possible to have a common currency (Euro) without common
politics?
– The need for a common foreign and security policy (the new
geopolitical situation after 9/11).
• These challenges call for a new understanding of European
identity which embodies loyalty towards the European
political community.
A European political identity?
• Is Constitutional Patriotism possible?
• Habermas:
– National political identity was also crafted as a
“solidarity among strangers”. This can be done with
Europe as well.
– There has been a development in national
identification, from an identification with a national
community to an identification with a democratic
community.
– Europe has a common history, and common values,
that we can build upon, e.g. secular politics, certain
liberal values.
Castiglione
• A Constitutional Patriotism is not enough
• Habermas fails to recognize the importance of
political conflict
• Identity also includes an idea of ”the other
side” – the exclusive side of politics
– ”We are not them”
Integralism as a response to a liberal
and cosmopolitan EU
• Integralism, or Integral nationalism, is an
ideology according to which a nation is an
organic unity.
• Integralism defends social differentiation and
hierarchy with co-operation between social
classes, transcending conflict between social
and economic groups.
– Our common national/cultural identity is more
important than our social/economic differences
Integralism continue
• Integralism claims that the best political institutions for
given nations will differ depending on the history,
culture and climate of the nation's habitat. Often
associated with blood and soil conservatism, it posits
the nation or the state or the nation state as an end
and a moral good, rather than a means.
• The term integralism was coined by the French
journalist Charles Maurras, whose conception of
nationalism was illiberal and anti-internationalist,
elevating the interest of the state above that of the
individual and above humanity in general. (Wikipedia)
Integralism
• The paradoxical nature of European Integralism:
While stressing the importance of national
identities and while being euro-sceptical, it is at
the same time an attempt at creating a
Europeaness.
• The example of Le Pen: Integralist (or nationalist)
politicians all over Europe are modelling their
ideologies on Le Pen’s French culturalism.
– Hungary, Greece etc
Europe is changing?
• Traditional economic tools has disappeared
with the introduction of a common currency
•
When the economy is bad
–
•
It is now impossible to devaluate the national currency
When the economy is overheated
–
It is now impossible raise the interest rates
– Instead: Europeans are expected to do like the
Americans?
•
Move to other parts of the union where the economy
is doing well
Europeans used to move around
• There’s an image of the 21st century European
as being deeply rooted in strong national and
local identities, predisposed not to move.
• But Europe before and during the
industrialization was characterized by
extensive population movements, within
Europe and to the New World.
• What happened?
A new standard after WW2
• The Versailles Treaty of 1919 (peace treaty at the end
of WW1) established the principle of national selfdetermination: People of the same nationality have the
right to govern themselves, and one nationality should
not have the power to govern another.
– Necessary standard outside Europe??? (Colonies)
• Holmes: This set radical experiments with cultural
identities in motion within Europe, most destructively
it was used by theorists of fascism and national
socialism to formulate their ideas of collective
belonging.
Trying to get people to
move around again?
• The wars of the 20th century and the Cold
War stopped population movements and
cemented the national identities of European
peoples.
• The Maastricht Treaty (1992), establishing the
European Union, has opened up opportunities
to once again ”experiment with identities”, to
reconstruct Europeaness.
Immigration and the ”duty to
integrate”.
• Governing migration has become a highly
politicized issue in most European countries
during the 2000s.
– Especially in the UK
• Migration could potentially serve as a
foundation for the construction of new
European identities.
Migration for integration
• But migration is mainly governed at the national
level, and there is strong notion in all European
countries that immigrants have ”a duty to
integrate”.
– Exemple: Sweden
• Romans (Gypsies) begging outside the food stores
• Immigrants where the mother stays home with the children
as well wears a veil
– By some people considered “un-swedish”
• Paradoxically, immigration paired with the duty to
integrate works against the construction of a
common European Identity.
All immigrants are not
treated in the same way
• We could complicate this picture however, by
distinguishing between different types of
migration (see Favell, Ch. 7):
– Non-European migration.
– West-European “Eurostars” (the liberal
”Cosmopolitan Europeans”)
– East-West post-Enlargement movers
Historical debates about the European
identity
WHAT IS EUROPE?
Three periods of debate about Europe
during the last centuries:
• The first political debate
– The Enlightenment (17th- and 18th-century).
• Voltaire, Rousseau …
– “Reason” became a major aspect of politics
– The influence of the Church decreased
• Followed by a decline of debate during the rise of
European nation-states.
– Traditions, history became major aspects of politics
Three periods of ’debate about
Europe’ during the last centuries:
• The second debate
– A new debate was sparked by the rise of the US
(end of 19th century) and the economic and moral
crisis in Europe during and after the World Wars.
- Followed by the Cold War which dived Europe, excluded
Eastern Europe; intellectual and political attention shifted
towards “the West”.
The first two periods
• These two debates did not focus on the
specific content of the politics, but on issues
of:
– Common culture
– Values, economy
– Society
– Religion
– The Church.
Three periods of ’debate about
Europe’ during the last centuries:
• The third debate
– Since the mid-1980s, the focus is on the EU as a
centre of politics and the discussion is about
common European political issues.
• The EU is not only about the economics of a common
market – it has become an issue of all kinds of political
issues
– In example common standards for parental leave
Politicization and the European Union
• Before the mid-1980s public support for the EU
was diffused, widespread and uncontroversial.
• The issues EU dealt with were perceived as
technocratic, complicated expert decisions,
concerning e.g. the creation of a common market
and a common agricultural policy.
• These issues were not perceived by the general
public in EU member states as directly affecting
their daily lives.
– No impact on the daily lives of regular people
Since the mid 1980:s
• Debates on Europe have become more
contentious, and the contrasts between
supporters and opponents of the European
project have become sharper.
• The EU and the issues it deals with have
become increasingly politicized
• Why?
1. The growing power of the EU.
• During 1986-2007 the EU has been redesigned (through treaties and agreements).
– The competence of the EU now expands well
beyond the sphere of economics
• security, social policy, migration, border control,
consumer policy, environmental policy, cultural policy
– The consequence has been a politicization of the
EU and the issues it deals with. The EU now
intervenes more in the daily lives of EU citizens.
2. The geographic expansion of the EU.
• The latest expansions (the inclusion of Central
and Eastern European countries) and the
discussion regarding Turkish membership,
have raised debates over Europe’s:
– boundaries
– criteria for democratic governance
– minority rights.
• These debates about boundaries and basic
values of the EU have increased politicization
3. Globalization.
• Europe has become more closely linked to
global markets since the 1980s; in trade,
capital investment, migration, transport,
communication, culture and media and so on.
• This has raised a debate about Europe’s role
as a global actor; is it waning?
Conclussion
• Identity matters
– But how much and in what way?
• Three different perspectives of a European identity
1. Liberal cosmopolitan only
•
Looking backwards is not ”rational” – the common European
market as well as liberal political ideals should be the only thing
that matters
2. Nationalistic integralism
•
The cultural traditions are different and should be respected –
the only thing that connects us is that we are different
3. Cross-nested identities
•
Impossible to ignore cultural differences but it is at the same
time possible to identifty/create common political values