scholarly journals Reference points of European identity: conceptualizing identity beyond the nation-state

2015 ◽  
pp. 7-33
Author(s):  
Manfred Kohler
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Reference Points ◽  
European Identity ◽  
Collective State ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Private Associations

Reference points of European identity: conceptualizing  identity beyond the nation-stateThis article formulates and introduces a comprehensive conceptual framework for understanding the nature and characteristics of collective (state) identities, especially European identity here. This conceptual framework shall give impetus to conduct new and comprehensive research on collective (state) identities in and beyond the nation-state. It has the advantage of being applicable to all kinds of collective identities – from simple private associations, complex nation-states and supra- or trans- national political systems like that of the European Union. Punkty odniesienia tożsamości europejskiej: konceptualizacja tożsamości poza obrębem państwa narodowegoNiniejszy artykuł formułuje i wprowadza szerokie ramy pojęciowe dla wszechstronnego zrozumienia natury i charakteru tożsamości zbiorowych (państwowych), szczególnie zaś tożsamości europejskiej. Owe ramy pojęciowe powinny stworzyć impuls dla podjęcia nowych, kompleksowych studiów nad tożsamościami zbiorowościowymi (państwowymi) zarówno w obrębie państwa narodowego, jak i poza nim. Zaletą przedstawionego w artykule ujęcia jest to, że możliwe jest jego zastosowanie w odniesieniu do jak najbardziej zróżnicowanych tożsamości – od prostych prywatnych stowarzyszeń przez złożone państwa narodowe do ponad- i międzynarodowych systemów politycznych, takich jak Unia Europejska.

“My European feelings are not only based on the fact that I live in Europe”

2002 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michał Krzyżanowski
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Economic Impact ◽  
National Identities ◽  
European Identity ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
European Citizenship ◽  
Identification Processes

Identity has recently become one of the most frequently theorised and explored topics within various sub-branches of social sciences. Collective identities in general, and their ancestry and construction in particular, are being perceived in different ways by historians, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists and, last but not least, discourse-analysts. This article aims at shedding a new light on the concept of European identity, which, so far, has been most frequently analysed within the context of the European Union and its political and economic impact on European space. Despite drawing theoretically on some well-grounded traditions of research on European identity, such as, e.g., analysis of its contradiction and suplementariness with national identities, or, its interconnection with such concepts as European citizenship or European integration, the analysis of European identity presented here is put in the context of globally understood identification processes. Empirically, the article draws on the analysis of TV talk show thematically bound by the topics concerning European Union’s impact on national identities.

scholarly journals Archaeology and Ethnicity

2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-149
Author(s):  
Staša Babić
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Constructivist Approach ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Archaeological Investigation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ethnic Affiliation ◽  
Nation States ◽  
History Of

The paper examines the history of archaeological investigation into collective identities in the past. Culture-historical approachis fully based upon the concept of cultural group , deeply influenced by the modern understanding of nation-states – unity of territory, material culture, language and ethnic affiliation. The application of this concept led to devastating political abuses of archaeology, most notoriously in the case of Gustaf Kossinna in the Nazi Germany. The realisation that the very essence of thus conceived group identity in the past inevidably leads into the projection of the modern model of nation-state, resulted in thorough reconsideration. Over the last decades, archaeologists are investigating other possible paths of research into the group and individual identities in the past, informed by the constructivist approach.

Are We All Europeans Now? Local, National and Supranational Identities of Young Adults

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 169-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue Grundy ◽  
Lynn Jamieson
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Young Men ◽  
West Germany ◽  
European Identity ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
The Uk

The continued expansion and deepening of the European Union state raises important questions about whether there will be a corresponding development of pro-supranational feeling towards Europe. This paper is based on data drawn from a European Commission (EC) funded project on the ‘Orientations of Young Men and Women to Citizenship and European Identity’. The project includes comparative surveys of ‘representative samples’ of young men and women aged 18-24 and samples of this age group on educational routes that potentially orient them to Europe beyond their national boundaries. This comparison of samples is made in paired sites with contrasting cultural and socio-political histories in terms of European affiliations and support for the European Union. The sites are: Vienna and Vorarlberg in Austria; Chemnitz and Bielefeld in East and West Germany; Madrid and Bilbao in Spain; Prague and Bratislava, the capitals of the Czech and Slovak Republics; Manchester, England and Edinburgh, Scotland in the UK. This paper examines patterns of local, national and supranational identity in the British samples in comparison to the other European sites. The typical respondent from Edinburgh and Manchester have very different orientations to their nation-state but they share a lack of European identity and disinterest in European issues that was matched only by residents of Bilbao. International comparision further demonstrates that a general correlation between levels of identification with nation-state and Europe masks a range of orientations to nation, state and Europe nurtured by a variety of geo-political contexts.

The Role of the Nation State in International Environmental Policy

2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Trittin
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Policy ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Transnational Corporation ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Environmental Legislation ◽  
International Environmental Policy ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Global Environmental

In this article, the German Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety analyzes the role of the nation state in international environmental policy. With reference to the European Union, he argues that independent national environmental policy no longer exists inside the Union. Brussels now has greater influence on environmental legislation than any nation state in Europe—a development that the minister expressly welcomes. He argues that it has proven highly useful for Union members to speak with one voice at global environmental conferences and to present a united front just like one strong nation state. On the other hand, the communitarization within Europe does not prevent members from becoming front-runners in environmental policy. The minister further calls for changes at the global level to ensure that global environmental institutions and environmental law are given much greater weight. The historic task of nation states today is to introduce global environmental legislation that is more powerful than any nation state or any transnational corporation. The German government therefore strongly favors transforming UNEP into a world environment organization that can stand up to the WTO, the FAO and transnational corporations.

scholarly journals Christianity and Tolerance: A Genealogy of European Identity

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Augenstein
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Religious Diversity ◽  
European Identity ◽  
Religious Tolerance ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Intractable Conflict ◽  
European Nation ◽  
Nation States ◽  
European Culture ◽  
Over Time

In the process of European constitutionalisation, the European Union continues to struggle for an identity that can generate widespread support amongst its peoples. Against this background it has been suggested by some that a European identity should embrace the Christian values that underpin Europe’s national traditions and cultures. In this paper I shall argue that, instead of relying on a communitarian vision of a ‘Christian Europe’, a European identity should build on a culture of religious tolerance. A European culture of religious tolerance draws on the enduring of difference and the acknowledgement of persisting and intractable conflict as essential experiences of Europe’s Christian past. Thus understood, tolerance lies at the roots of a European identity. At the same time, and through the conditional inclusion of religious diversity in the European Nation-States, a European culture of religious tolerance creates over time new commonalities between Europe’s religiously permeated national traditions. Thus understood, tolerance only brings about the conditions for the development of a supranational European identity that amounts to more than (the sum of) its national counterparts.

Competing Visions: Discursive Articulations of Polish and European Identity after the Eastern Enlargement of the EU

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-356
Author(s):  
Magdalena Góra ◽  
Katarzyna Zielińska
Keyword(s):  
European Parliament ◽  
National Identities ◽  
European Identity ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
New Members ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Supranational Level ◽  
The Eu

The enlargement of 2004 and 2007 significantly transformed the European Union in political, economic, and social terms. It also challenged the collective identities of Western Europeans as well as each of the newcomers. However, for new members, the prospect of joining a supranational political entity posed a threat to their newly established or regained sovereignty and nationhood. The integration triggered a process of redefinition of both their self-perception and the perception of Europe as a common project. The article offers a case study of how the Polish Members of the European Parliament discursively (re)construct national and European identities and how these constructions relate to each other. The analysis reveals three main visions of the European identity that are voiced by the Polish representation and corresponding visions of national identity. By focusing on the supranational level of the European Parliament and contextualising the analysed constructions with references to national debates, the study is able to nuance the existing theoretical accounts of European and national identities.

scholarly journals Common currency, common identity? The impact of the Euro introduction on European identity

2020 ◽  
pp. 146511652097028
Author(s):  
Fedra Negri ◽  
Francesco Nicoli ◽  
Theresa Kuhn
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Data Model ◽  
Dynamic Panel Data ◽  
European Identity ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Dynamic Panel ◽  
Dynamic Relationship ◽  
The Impact

Does European state building go hand in hand with European nation building? This article engages with the scholarly debate on the dynamic relationship between the construction of supranational political institutions that exert key functions of sovereignty and collective identities by investigating the extent to which the adoption of the Euro as a currency is associated with a decrease in the share of Europeans who identify exclusively with their nation and not with the European Union. In detail, by using a dynamic panel-data model on 26 European Union countries in the post-Maastricht period (1996–2017), our results show that the Euro has fostered European identity, leading to a small but significant decrease (-3%) in the share of Europeans with exclusive national identity.

The Interface of Nation-State Building and Transnationalism

2021 ◽  
pp. 45-74
Author(s):  
Luis Roniger
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Central America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
State Building ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Transnational Social Movements ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Latin American Countries

This chapter discusses how separate nation-states crystallized, turning Latin America into a multistate region subject to persistent transnational trends. The story of Latin America as a multistate region is one of contested territorial boundaries and a tension-ridden consolidation of separate collective identities out of a tapestry of transnational interaction. The chapter traces how states were constructed and narrated national formation; how transnational visions continued to reverberate; how transnational events such as wars were framed as national; and how transnational social movements promoted interstate connections, sometimes trying to recreate the lost unity of earlier times and the transnational visions of some of the founding fathers of independence. The textual discussion addresses cases of the Southern Andean and Río de la Plata expanses, namely Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay, and Brazil, as well as Central America, including primarily El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. The chapter also embeds references to the Latin American countries.

Nation States and Political Unions

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Michael Keating
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Distinct Form ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Union ◽  
Common Values ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Unions

A political union is a distinct form of polity. Unlike the nation-state, it does not require consensus on demos (the people), telos (purpose), ethos (common values) or the locus of sovereignty. At one time it was believed that unions would give way to nation-states in the process of modernization. In recent years, the concept of union has been revived, to refer both to plurinational states and to international bodies like the European Union. Thinking about sovereignty has been revised to encompass shared and divided sovereignty. Union has several dimensions, including political, social and economic, which do not necessarily coincide in space. Managing unions requires distinct forms of statecraft to balance centrifugal and centripetal tendencies.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document