1st Edition
Post-identity? Culture and European Integration
Collective identity, the emotionally powerful sense of belonging to a group, is a crucial source of popular legitimacy for nations. However efforts since the 1990s to politically support European integration by using identity mechanisms borrowed from nationalism have had very limited success. European integration may require new, post-national approaches to the relationship between culture and politics.
This controversial and timely volume poses the logical question: if identity doesn't effectively connect culture with European integration politics, what does? The book brings together leading scholars from several of the disciplines that have developed concepts of culture and methods of cultural research. These expert interdisciplinary contributors apply a startling diversity of approaches to culture, linking it to facets of integration as varied as external policy, the democratic deficit, economic dynamism and the geography of integration.
This book examines commonalities and connections within the European space, as well as representations of these in identity discourses. It will be useful for students and scholars of sociology, geography, anthropology, social psychology, political science and the history of European integration.
Introduction. Part I: Europeans’ Weak Cultural Identity 1. Bringing the Demos Back In: People’s Views on ‘EUropean Identity’ 2. Enlargement in Perspective: The EU’s Quest for Identity Part II: Mistaken Identity: Critical Perspectives on European Culture 3. Not Quite "Sui Generis" Enough: Interrogating European Values 4. Putting Culture in its Place: Anthropological Reflections on the EU Part III: Culture, Ideology and a Politically Viable EU 5. What Kind of Community and How Much Community Does the European Union Require? 6. Cleaning Up After European Identity: The Consequences of a Failed Political Strategy 7. European Identity: Lessons from 20 Years of Social Psychological Inquiry Part IV: Cultural Alternatives to Identity 8. Lessons from the Past? Europe’s Grand Shift from Cultural Homogenization to Multiculturalism 9. Cultural Networks as Vectors of European Integration 10. Horizontal Europeanization and Identification with Europe 11. How Culture and History Shape Europe’s Differentiated Integration: The Cases of Liberal International Relations and Northern Euroscepticism. Conclusion.
Biography
Richard McMahon lectures in history at University College Cork. He holds a PhD from the European University Institute, Florence and was previously a Brussels-based journalist of EU external relations and an ESRC research fellow in politics at the University of Bristol.
