Analysis of Concepts of European Identity - Term Paper Example

Analyze and Discuss Concepts of European Identity The of identity always has been vital to the study of comparative politics. Almost all the studies in comparative politics make supposition about the nature of performer. One of the most noticeable instances is the study of culture, which answers to the question of how actions are influenced by the identity of the actors. It is essential to admit the complex difficulties involved in methodically studying identity concepts in comparative politics. The theories on identity are often drawn from sociological or social-psychological study. In the recent studies identity comes into visualization as a dependent and also as an independent variable. Considering as a dependent variable, identity is repeatedly used to study the creation of racial or territorial identities. It is argued that Central Europeans formed a separate identity that was mainly defined in opposition to Russia and likeness to Western Europe. As an independent variable the study of identity uses to explain some facts of greater concern, for instance the nature of political rivalry. Arguments using cultures have been important in this form (Bruland, et al., 2003). After the World War II those who wished of a united Europe were searching ways to uphold a strong sense of European identity. Even though, thoughts on a European identity conceptualized ten years earlier to the World War II the political, social, and economic disorders linked with World War II, basically changed the European order. Hence it became necessary to assume of Europe in different ways. The formation of the European Coal and Steel Community, and the European Economic Community (EEC), were the outcome of those views (Williams, 1987). As the hurdles to trade within the EEC began to drop in 1960s, that resulted in the start of discussion of a sprouting United States of Europe. This was not only just a formal economic entity but it was presumed as a possible hub of identity for its inhabitants. The discussion over the nature and significance of European identity goes deep into many of the critical matters facing Europe today (Deflem and Pampel,1996; Delanty, 1995; Hodgson, 1993). Making the debate difficult are the suppositions that are made about the very nature of identity itself. These assumptions are the creation of political-territorial growth over the past centuries that have cast the state in the role of architect and symbol of international society (Murphy, 1996; Taylor, 1994). Hence, the concepts of nation and state became conflated and national identities to be considered as if they were the major matter of investigation in learning’s of international relations (Connor, 1994). European identity is supposed to be unsuited with state identity and to include a primary obligation by European people to Europe as a distinct political-territorial body operating in a world of ‘nation-states.’ People who view identity mainly in these terms, it is difficult to argue that European identity is well-built. Through the majority measures national and local allegiance remain deep-rooted, and support for the further awareness of power in the central decision-making bodies of the EU appears to be declining (Jenkins and Sofos, 1996). An increasing number of Europeans view Europe as a meaningful social-territorial construct, even though not as a super state. This progress reflects and shapes a variety of social and political alterations that are not diminishing to individual states and that are in some cases impairing conventional state area of authority. These alterations are obvious in the declining importance of international borders within the EU, in the growing willingness of sub-state groups to confront existing political structures and preparations, and in the efforts of former East European states to transform themselves in European terms (Haller and Richter, 1994). It is important know that Europe is treated as a cultural-cum-political construct in an array of background that ranges from international trade associations to area studies programs, which helps to promote the thought that Europe has some meaning. The meaning of European identity in this extended sense is obvious that demonstrates the sustained supremacy of state identities. Euro barometer survey shows that well over 50 percent of the population in most ED member states have certain level of identification with Europe, and those numbers expected be still higher if parts of former Eastern Europe had been included (Dobroczynski, 1989). These figures indicate the fact that ‘Europe’ is an ideological-cum-territorial construct that is deeply entrenched in modern cultural, social, economic, and political discourses and as a result Europe is an entity to which feelings of identity can be attached. The character of European identity in this broader sense is not easy to explain. It varies from place to place and it is persistently changing. However, it is that European identity coexists with other identities such as state, regional, ethnic, and local, in a way that is not strictly hierarchical. The notion of Europe is thus not similar to the idea of the state; in its place, Europe is one of several cultural-territorial constructs to which significance is attached. The logics attached to Europe influence the ways that other cultural-territorial constructs are conceptualized and understood. To have some idea what this expanded view of European identity means, it is useful to look at some of the ways in which the reality of Europe as a focus of identity outlines the development of European society. The two improvement measured here are the changing activities and responsibility of sub-state regions in Western Europe and the culture and politics of geopolitical realignment in Eastern Europe. The fall of geopolitical order after the World War II confronted the ideological foundations of West European concepts of Europe and it initiated vast complications into the attempt to form a more united Europe. Germany became preoccupied to get unified again and the rebuilding of relations with its eastern neighbors. The major powers of the European Community took various stands on political developments relating to the east, and extensive differences surfaced over the role that former East European states should act in the European unity concept. The geopolitical change in Eastern Europe has gone against European identity in a small measure. It has reduced the speed of efforts to form a new powerful, functionally unified EU, and it has questioned about the borders and purpose of the EU. However, if one take up an extended observation of European identity the outcome is not nearly as clear. Most visibly, the geopolitical disorders of recent years are behind the aforesaid hunt for the significance of Europe (Johnson, 1996). As a result, these disorders have elevated the visibility of Europe as an ideological construct. The significance of Europe as an ideological construct for Eastern Europeans is entrenched in after the World War II where Europe symbolized an option to the post-Yalta reality. The importance of this fact became obvious after the Czechoslovak revolt of 1968, when ‘Back to Europe’ became a strong notion amongst those eager to attach that country’s fortune to the West (Johnson, 1996). The countries with strong historical links to the west (Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Slovenia) supported this idea with greater significance. As According to Thomas Simmons (1993) the motivating forces behind reform in the East-Central European countries has been the ‘deep and broad domestic political accord for joining (or rejoining) Europe.’ Simmons further state that ‘this eagerness to become European, or become European ‘again,’ is strong, and it helps alleviate tumultuous processes, since it offers a centrist core of belief and a plan that opposes the violation of the radicalisms proliferate at the margins of East European politics” (Simmons 1993). If this is right it is basically shaping the future of the region. This encourages Eastern Europe toward liberal democratic models of governance and toward free market economics. The majority of the states in Eastern Europe have signed alliance with the EU, some of these agreements have been officially endorsed by the EU, and some are awaiting approval. The agreements are real expression of a thrust toward EU association in the eastern part of Europe that started after the fall of Communist rule in the region (Kramer, 1993). Considering the European citizenship, mean that it will not basically confront the structures of European identity inherited from the age of the nation-state. Quite the opposite, European citizenship creates a restructuring of identities which must be cautiously scrutinized. The creation of European identity and citizenship must not duplicate the history of European nationalisms. But it must pursue an inventive method which will direct to ‘the unprecedented construction of a political sovereignty which does not coincide with national sovereignty’ (Ferry, 1990). European identity is thus presented as being well-matched with the continuation of pre-existing national identities. The false creation of a political society, the nation cannot within this structure be simply separated from the construction and development of the state. This claim is not a plea for the status quo but it promotes one to understand that the appearance of European citizenship will incite a deep reordering of the structures of identity inherited from the significant process of state-building. This restructuring necessitate one to question the importance for identity of European citizenship, as it looks for to open the way to a democracy outside any reference to the nation-state. The most important question which arises is that of whether the European Union can be constructed without creating the type of identification which becomes by the fact itself an opponent with traditionally significant national identifications. One should examine the feeling of belonging to the European Union of divided or multiple political and cultural allegiances which upset existing national points of reference. One must also study the policy outline which go together with the emergence of European citizenship and, understand the extent to which European citizenship is noticeable by continuity with national citizenship. Basically, the assertion of a division between the cultural (the nation) and the political (the state) rests on a notional reversal of as yet undefined realistic consequence. National culture leads the society and gives to the person an identity which is not dependent on his set-up of primary social groups. This gives a base to the social unity of the political community. The imagined dissociation between the cultural and the political will be inclined to overturn the rapport between society and culture. The identity of the person is certain more by the formation of society than by a political culture encouraged by the state or by any other political body. European citizenship envisions like this does not assert to work out a determinant influence on the creation of cultural identity. The upholding of national identities deprives European citizenship of an indispensable resource. European citizenship lacks the capability to divide public belonging from association in other societal groups. Hence it cannot sensitize European citizens to the other generalized. The surfacing of such sensitivity would give sense to a contemporary citizenship which is extensive ahead of the national framework. Merely under this circumstance would European citizenship be able to gain from the allegiance and the exciting support which creates a group sentiment of belonging. The constitutional patriotism is definitely needed for the efficient performance of a post-national European democracy, but it is not likely to create a strong emotion of belonging to the European Union. A post-national European citizenship is premised on the division of public rights and duties. In the middle of the of disorders which are restructuring European policy, the thought of citizenship presents a significant idea of reference for rational sign on the gratifying content of modern political order. It also helps to venture into socio-historical studies on the development of citizenship itself and the way in which this idea may help to manage political identity within the setting of Europeanization. Because European citizenship asserts to inflict a novel pattern of standards and identities, it will meet the more or less open antagonism of various social actors. This is to know that any modification of social pattern which European citizenship may cause remains reliant on the societal and historical efforts by which it is made up (Déloye, 2000). French historian Ernest Renan envisaged the death of nations in Europe, over a century ago. He said, "Nations are not eternal. They had a beginning and they will have an end. And they will probably be replaced by a European confederation" (Renan, 1882). His prediction seems to be accurate as the millennium comes to a close, were it not for an inherent disagreement in European politics. Now as the growing European Union is starting to succeed the nation-state, the placard of nationalism is being raised all over the continent - not only in former communist countries but also in Western European states like Spain, Belgium and the United Kingdom. The supranational view held out by EU seems to be in danger by two reasons such as lack of European identity, and by a method of breakup into micro-nations. There used to perceive distinctly between two opposing concepts of the nation: the French notion, based on free, rational loyalty of the individual to a political group, and the German idea of objectively determined association of an organic body. On the other hand, the creation of European nations has involved a blend of both of these concepts, even though the magnitudes have varied with the political and social perspective (Thiesse, 1999). At present Europe is facing problems ranging from environmental degradation to racial conflict to a grand geopolitical restructuring in the after effects of the fall of the Iron Curtain. The thought that integration could give rise to a ‘Europe of the Regions,’ has always been part of the movement for European Union. The regions included by this, expression are typically understood to be just administrative divisions of states, but there is no reason why a more creative approach to regionalism could not be adopted. The extent that Europe can remain a significant focus of identity, the likelihood for more creative approaches to the spatial ordering of political and administrative life is enhanced. The state as one of several geographical arenas in which subjects could be cast and to devise positive responsibilities in the social and environmental monarchy in terms of territories defined along socioeconomic and ecological lines(Murphy, N.D.). These idealists thinking are far from reality, but the cautious steps are being taken to restructure the European political-territorial order are opening up significant cracks in the base of the European state system and its ideologies. These cracks are not the creation of national identity. To a certain extent, they are being motivated by new identity groups that embrace within them both the challenge and the promise of a new European order. 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