BRINGING THE DEMOS BACK IN

ABSTRACT

The creation of a EUropean demos is often debated by referring to forms of ethnic or civic identities. The present article aims to expose the theoretical shortcomings of this dichotomous approach, which confines the complexity of EUrope within a simplifying methodological nationalism. By relying on empirical data collected in four different EUropean regions, the article points to the relevance of a functional or utilitarian rationale which EUropean interviewees use to justify the existence of EUrope. Although this rationale does not obliterate cultural and civic narrations of EUrope, I would argue that it invites to reconsider the traditional role played by identities in the construction of political institutions. Accordingly, I believe that scholars should take more seriously the metaphor ‘EUrope as a laboratory’ – a convenient, but often empty metaphor.

Keywords:

• EUrope
• identity
• demos
• ethnic
• civic

Notes

¹I use henceforth the spelling ‘EUrope’ to suggest the conceptual overlapping which, both in public discourses and scholarly research, characterises today Europe and the European Union. It is not here possible to critically engage this hegemonic representation, yet the spelling EUrope aims to remind us of the politically charged character of this overlapping.

²‘Identity, norms, community, discourse: Cultural approaches to European integration’, University of Bristol, Department of Politics, Bristol, 13–14 May 2010.

³Interestingly, this same ‘national’ view also informs the legal-constitutional debate about EUropean integration. See for instance the reservations made by the German Federal Constitutional Court to the Treaty of Maastricht on the basis that a minimum common identity is necessary for legitimate democratic rule (Mahlmann 2005).

⁴For a similar argument see Chalmers (2006), whose invitation to think of a post-national EUrope as a balancing act between ‘the ethnic’ and ‘the civic’ remains however merely stated rather than discussed in terms of how actually balancing the two dimensions.

⁵See survey data for ‘Meaning of the EU’ available on the Eurobarometer Interactive Search System (http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion).

⁶Special Eurobarometer 74.1 (fieldwork: August–September 2010; publication: November 2010), pp. 63–4. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/topics/eb741parl_en.pdf. In Germany, the country most financially exposed to the bailout of Greece, this figure was only slightly lower: 46%.

⁷Standard Eurobarometer 74 (Autumn wave; fieldwork: November 2010; publication: February 2011), p. 15. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb/eb74/eb74_cri_en.pdf.

⁸Standard Eurobarometer 74 (Autumn wave; fieldwork: November 2010; publication: February 2011), p. 16.

⁹See Eurostat News Release 105/2011 available at: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/3-14072011-BP/EN/3-14072011-BP-EN.PDF