Debating Europe, transforming identities: assessing the impact of deliberative poll treatment on identity (original) (raw)
Related papers
In this paper, we look at the relationship between European identification and political support for (or opposition to) EU membership. First, we argue that conceptualising political attitudes towards the EU as a direct product of European identification (a) neglects the distinction between the social reality of Europe and the political reality of the EU and (b) leads to psychological reductionism. We propose that the relationship should instead be conceptualised as mediated by legitimacy perceptions and as moderated by social-level variables. Second, we look at three spheres of European integration and propose that their perceived legitimacy is appraised through the following principles: (1) normative solidarity for wealth sharing; (2) political authority for sharing political decisions, and (3) collective self-realization for the sharing of practices. We illustrate the key mediating role of those principles by drawing on data from a survey ran across five European countries. Third, we argue that these meditational relationships are in turn moderated by social, political, and ideological realities, and illustrate this point by looking at the case of UK in the context of the EU membership referendum. We point to an ideological assumption in the UK political landscape about the illegitimacy of EU supranational decisionmaking and argue that this contributed to shape both the debate of the referendum campaign and its result.
The Influence of European Identity on Integration Efforts
Interdisciplinary Journal of Research and Development, 2023
The EU's recurrent crises underline its complex and debated nature. Truly grasping its intricacies is key to understanding the tie between European identity and integration. Central to the discourse are questions on whether a shared European identity influences member selection or if the emphasis is on upholding democratic values. Academic discussions have often overlooked a holistic examination of integration processes, treating EU expansions as standalone events without delving deep into the relationship between integration and European identity. This paper posits that the absence of a unified European identity, and subsequently, citizens' disassociation from Europe and its political structures, steers the course of integration, potentially causing stagnation or progression. It seeks to unravel: the nature of EU expansion, the current meaning of European identity versus EU identity, and the influence of identity (or its absence) on integration. Concludingly, it suggests that the EU identity's role in integration is a balance between constructivism and rationalism. Support for the EU seems rooted in citizens' perceived overarching benefits, encompassing peace, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.
Confronting European Diversity: Deliberation in a Transnational and Pluri-Lingual Setting
Javnost - The Public, 2014
In this article, we confront some commonly held assumptions and objections with regard to the feasibility of deliberation in a transnational and pluri-lingual setting. To illustrate our argument, we rely on an analysis of group discussions from EuroPolis, a transnational deliberative experiment that took place one week ahead of the 2009 European Parliamentary elections. The European deliberative poll is an ideal case for testing the viability of deliberative democracy across political cultures because it introduces variation in terms of constituency and group plurality under the controlled conditions of quasi-experimental scientifi c setting. For measuring group dynamics and interactions we apply a modifi ed version of the Discourse Quality Index (DQI) that is combined with a qualitative content analysis of selected sequences of discussions. Findings show that participants of transnational deliberative polling 1) generally recognise the EU polity as a reference point for exercising communicative power and impact on decision-making, and 2) are in fact able to interact and debate across languages and cultures, developing a self-awareness of citizens of a shared polity and thereby turning a heterogeneous group of randomly selected citizens into a constituency of democracy.
The Juridification of European Identity, its Limitations and the Search of EU Democratic Politics
Constellations, 2009
The idea of building a European democratic polity has been a part of the European integration process from the beginning. Advocates and critics of further integration agree that the process increasingly depends on the existence of European political identity as both a project and a legitimation of the "ever closer Union." Prosperity and peace in Europe have become inseparable from ever more cultural and "civilizational" reflections on European integration.
Deliberative democracy and the European Union: a reappraisal of conflict
2013
Connecting the relevant literature in sociology, political theory and European studies with original empirical research, this article calls for a reappraisal of conflict when addressing the issue of the democratic legitimacy of the European Union. It offers a critical account of rationalistic and consensus-based deliberative democracy both in the classical theories of deliberative democracy and in the practices institutionalised in the EU. Drawing on the model of 'discursive democracy' theorised by John Dryzek, it provides an account of the contentious debate over the EU Services Directive (also known as the Bolkestein Directive). It is argued that the EU can function as a polity where democratic legitimacy is granted by deliberation. However, this holds only under two conditions. First, deliberation must be conflict based; that is, it must allow for the voicing of dissent and its channelling into political institutions. Second, supranational institutions and decision making can only be responsive and engage in alleviating conflict through deliberation when conflict is structured along transnational-as opposed to national-lines.
Research in Applied Economics
Social and political sciences use the term ‘identity’ in describing a wide range of phenomena, whether these be personal explanations of self-understanding, descriptions of common interests or the shared experiences of a larger group. It has been used in the recent analyses of countries or larger communities, but also in the historical studies of very different societies in developing or industrialized countries. To make the concept more operational and open to empirical research, we dichotomize it into an inclusive versus an exclusive type. This enables us to carve out the different policy conclusions associated with each type. We then apply the concepts for analysing the emergence of European identity over the past decades, as well as its limits and recent headwinds. We present survey data on national and supranational identity and country differences concerning trust in national and European institutions. As a counterstrategy to populism and the exclusive type of identity, politi...
The role of identities in shaping the process of European integration: a comparison.
The role of identities in shaping the process of European integration: a comparison' 1 st Essay Word Count: 5596 'Constructivists hold the view that the building blocks of international reality are ideational as well as material; that ideational factors have normative as well as instrumental dimensions; that they express not only individual, but also collective intentionality; and the meaning and significance of ideational factors are not independent of time and place' 1 This widely renowned and concise synthesis presenting some of the most prominent theoretical assumptions underpinning the whole constructivist frame appears to be the appropriate instrument to introduce relatively innovative approaches in the field of European integration. 'As a process, European integration has a transformative impact on the European state system and its consistent units' 2 , in such a significant way that one is not allowed to disregard its anchoring on grounds of spatial and temporal considerations. Indeed, European integration has varied consistently in the course of time and it seems plausible to assert that 'in the process agents' identity and subsequently their interests have equally changed' 3 .
Rome, IAI, September 2020, 37 p. (EU IDEA Research Papers ; 6), 2020
This paper explores the ways in which national identities shape attitudes towards differentiated integration in two old member states, one relatively new member state and one candidate country – namely France, Germany, the Czech Republic and Turkey. It also observes how the impact of differentiated integration on European identity is perceived in these given countries in terms of preserving European identity (deepening), the dilution of European identity (disintegration) and the territorial/geographic limits of European identity (widening). By employing primary research and discourse analysis, the study finds that there is no single and monolithic national identity which produces a uniform attitude towards differentiated integration in member and candidate states, but rather that competing domestic national identity narratives produce differing attitudes within a state on differentiated integration. These national identity narratives can translate into starkly different policy positions concerning the policy area that is subject to differentiated integration, as well as on how differentiation is expected to impact the future of European integration and European identity.