Politics & International Relations supplement (October 2014) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Memory, Identity, and Nationalism in European Regions
Reference book
Memory studies is a well-established academic discipline, but the revised issue of ethnicity poses a new set of research questions, particularly in relation to the problem of the operational character of memory and ethnicity in the context of traumatized identity. Contemporary political processes in Europe, populism and nationalism lift in addition to ethnic challenges in the form of demographic shifts have created a situation, in which new national identities have been developed simultaneously with emerging new competitive historical memories. The interaction between politics and managed historical memory is of scholarly and practicality interest. This book is to shed light on the evolution in the politics of memory in European regions and beyond, as well as the tools and techniques of their empowerment. The topic of the book is a subject of public debates since it introduces new theoretical frameworks for collective memory, and European nationalism and regionalism analysis. All questions being discussed accentuate the urgency of memory and forms of nationalism during periods of crisis and/or austerity measures in contemporary Europe. As a comprehensive collection of cases, the publication represents the efforts of experts in the European and Eurasian regional development. The volume combines theory and empirical study; each chapter is based on a particular case, offering a coherent and pragmatic picture. Although different methodologies are used, cases address the key theoretical concepts of memory, identity, nationalism, and security as discursive practices and introduce public policies in contemporary European regions and those stated on the European track of values. By this approach, the volume provides a new lens to formulate a concept of Europe as multifaceted identity and diverse practices.
Political Studies Forum, 2024
At the end of the Cold War, the geopolitical struggle for the shaping of reunified Europe, the rise of populism, and the reemergence of neo-nationalism on both sides of the old Iron Curtain created the premises for a competition between the new master narratives associated to the two dominant paradigms of the politics of the past: the cosmopolitan / transnational and the antagonistic / national(istic) one. Against the background of the persistent crises following the transition processes in Eastern Europe, the Great Recession, the new geopolitical challenges, and the subsequent waves of neo-nationalism, the “memory games” intensified on both national and European institutional arenas. These games had a significant impact, detectable especially at the level of the institutionalized memory formats (the political and the cultural memory focused on the “founding traumas”, including the revisionist national historical politics), which encompassed the deepening of the ideological, political, and cultural cleavages within and beyond the nation states. In the same time, the mnemonic and cultural struggles over the conflicting “painful pasts” allowed the preservation of the old fault line which has divided “Europe’s Europes” during the Cold War. Against this mnemonic background, the new paradigm of the “agonistic memory” seems to offer a “decent” and “realistic” third way for dealing with the contested pasts, by means of a multiperspectivist approach which also allows the overcoming of the impasses revealed by the two other competitive memory models.
Europe To No Good: Collective Security, the Migration Crisis, and European Identity
The migrant crisis has been a sobering test for Europe as both its solidarity and humanitarianism have been called into question. But what about its identity? This paper proposes a framework on ‘European identity’ that departs from the conventional assumptions about how European identity is constructed through interactions, transactions, and community generations by the density of EU institutions and practices. This framework aligns with the expectations and predictions of social psychology and social identity theory, which predicts that group identification is as much—if not more—driven by these external processes of boundary creations as by any inter-group dynamics. The paper then asks under what conditions migrants from outside Europe become the cultural ‘other’ defining or deepening European citizens’ identification with Europe by their very exclusion? Using empirical data from the British and Maltese press, I look for the degree to which there is evidence for a coherent European identity, based on the sociological construct of collective identity developed in opposition to an ‘other,’ in the rhetoric and framing of migration. With this data, I found that ‘Europeans’ are more likely to identify as such when faced with a non-European ‘other.’ This group membership appears to be creating an impetus for security cooperation because it has recently become more salient in Europeans’ self-identity.
Dimensions of Heritage and Memory: Multiple Europes and the Politics of Crisis
Dimensions of Heritage and Memory: Multiple Europes and the Politics of Crisis, 2019
This is a landmark contribution on the politics of the past in Europe today. The book explores the meanings of heritage in a time of crisis, when the past permeates social and political divisions, identity contests and official projects to forge a European community. Chapters 1, 3, 4, 9 and 10 of this book are available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. They have been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Providing an overview of the literature and an analysis of the assumptions, values and philosophies embedded within European-level policy, the book explores different dimensions of heritage and memory, from official sites, museums and policy, to party politics, historical re-enactments and the everyday ways in which people use the past to make sense of who they are. The volume explores how different understandings of and attachments to the European past produce different ‘Europes’ in the present, accounting for today’s tense social and political relations. The book also explores formative histories for European identities that are neglected or hidden because of political circumstances and non-official heritage. Contributors consider the meanings of interlocking crises, such as economic fallout, xenophobia and the fragmentation of the EU, for new understandings of Europe’s past in the present.
2020
1 This article is the result of the research activities related to the Jean Monnet Project “We, the People of the United Europe: Reflections on the European State of Mind” – Project reference: 612070-EPP-1-2019-1-ITEPPJMO-PROJECT, supported by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.13135/2611-853X/4515 De Europa Vol. 3, No. 2 (2020), 21-38 ISSN 2611-853X www.deeuropa.unito.it
Divided national memories and EU crises: how Eurosceptic parties mobilize historical narratives
Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research
Historical grievances of different political groups in the EU contributed to the rising opposition to "Brussels". This opposition is often framed through memories that contest the official EU narrative of the peaceful and prosperous continental integration that was able to overcome the destructions of the two world wars and the Cold War divisions. Based on the analysis of the development of some of the most prominent Eurosceptic parties (le Front National, die Alternative für Deutschland, Syriza, Podemos, Fidesz, Prawo i Sprawiedliwość), it is argued that recent EU crises and especially their interpretations have been influenced by the legacies of some of the most important periods of twentieth-century European history. The legacy of the Second World War and its aftermath in two founding member states (France, Germany), the legacy of right-wing dictatorships in two Southern European member states (Greece, Spain) and the legacy of communist dictatorships in two Central and Eastern European member states (Hungary, Poland) still shape narratives and stances towards European integration.
Narratives of Redemption: Memory and Identity in Europe
After centuries of being torn apart by conflicts that remain deeply embedded in the European collective memory, Europe’s most recent history is being written as a narrative of redemption. In order to establish itself as a political, economic and social entity, Europe has been emphasizing its common cultural roots and historical features of unity. For this purpose, narratives of identity have been produced in the context of European and national institutions that seek to replace fractures by pluralisation and forgetfulness by redemption. However, the codification of European culture and identity has turned out to be an extremely difficult task: the conceptual devices for theorizing Europe as a social unity and cultural identity are insufficient and unsuitable. In addition, the conceptualization of identity tends to be primarily related to notions such as belonging, memory and continuity rather than to the idea of an in-progress project taking place in the present and in the future. Recent theoretical approaches reveal how European identity narratives require hybrid multilayered configurations in order to accommodate national, ethnic and cultural features, as well as post-national political and economic unification. This paper attempts to explore some processes of identity construction in an European context and to discuss how elements that embody the ambiguity that runs through European culture - unity and diversity, commemoration and forgetfulness - are registered in the social memory.
European Review, 2020
The new nationalism emerging across much of Europe is ready to forgo and forget lessons of history that had successfully domesticated and democratized the nations of the EU over the last 70 years. If the nation, however, is an important resource for integration, and integration is seen as a common project for both its citizens and its migrants, how can it be reimaged and supported to live up to this difficult and important task? This article will analyse these problems in the light of new and older concepts.
Editorial Europe's New Identity: The Refugee Crisis and the Rise of Nationalism
Europe is nowadays at a crossroad, divided between the need to remain faithful to its core democratic values and freedoms, maintaining an area of freedom and justice and the need to protect its citizens against the new terrorism and the rise of nationalistic leaders and parties that require less Europe and more power back to the nation states. We are witnessing a return of the politics of fear; in Hobbes terms, convincing people that there is no other alternative and that politics has been exhausted; it remains the fear (Furedi, 2005). In the age of the war on terror, fear was a necessary argument to be brought on for justifying the US foreign policy in the Middle East (Robin, 2004). Nowadays, in the Middle East radical Islamism is justifying the war on the West through its faceless jihadist warriors spread across Europe, on the new hybrid terrorism that replaced wars on the ground. Hence, the enemy is becoming present and imminent, so the protectors arise justifying, once again, the language to legitimate new policies or public choices (Robin, 2004). The rise of extremism, radicalization and populism are facets of the same politics of fear. When the refugees arrived, the protectors against the identified enemy emerged. In the following article the mechanisms used to prepare the society for the arrival of the populist Messiah will be demystified from a political science perspective and also analyzed from a legal point of view; the only bonding agent to a real European identity through various political disagreements is throughout law and the guiding common values. However the most critical factor in the success or failure of this type of leadership and in the seductive appeal of extremism is the emotional factor, the tactics employed to trigger the raw emotions present in the human nature particularly in crises. Beyond politics of fear we also need to look at and understand the politics and policies that took us here: the multicultural discourse with its policies of integration, assimilation and tolerance partially produced the adversary effect: a generation of young people who do not feel they belong, who do not wish to assimilate and who are not embracing either being tolerated or tolerate. They are the European jihadists, who took policy makers and politicians by surprise. To understand the psychology of these people will enable us to properly fight against the root causes of extremism, radicalization and terrorism; moreover, might lead us to understand what should be the adhesive of a genuine European identity.