One narrative or several? Politics, cultural elites, and citizens in constructing a ‘New Narrative for Europe’

ABSTRACT

European Union (EU) institutions have cultivated narratives of European integration for a long time. For its 2013–2014 ‘A New Narrative for Europe’ project, however, the European Commission for the first time explicitly used the ‘narrative’ label. Drawing on non-participant observation, semi-structured interviews and qualitative discourse analysis, this article contrasts the drafting process and the resulting declaration’s narrative structure and content with its discussion by citizens in a web-based consultation. The analysis shows that participating citizens forcefully demanded a bottom-up debate and advocated pluralistic perspectives. In these circumstances, elite-driven attempts at strengthening European identity and EU legitimacy are likely to be ineffective.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural committee
• European Commission
• European identity
• European Parliament
• integration narratives
• narrative pluralism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Wolfram Kaiser is Professor of European Studies at the University of Portsmouth, UK, and Visiting Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium.

Notes

1. 13 September 2014, 1:31 pm.

2. 16 September 2014, 9:46 pm.

3. 16 September 2014, 9:46 pm.

4. 16 September 2014, 9:50 pm.

5. 23 September 2014, 9:36 pm.

6. 18 September 2014, 9:51 pm.

7. 18 September 2014, 10:13 pm.

8. 19 September 2014, 7:17 am.

9. 20 September 2014, 6:19 pm.

10. 30 September 2014, 12:58 pm.

11. 17 September 2014, 3:24 pm.

12. 5 October 2014, 2:25 am.

13. 17 September 2014, 7:55 am.

14. 23 September 2014, 5:39 pm.

15. 6 October 2014, 9:20 pm.

16. 30 September 2014, 1:08 am.

17. 17 September 2014, 2:54 pm.

18. 21 September 2014, 8:31 pm.

19. 9 October 2014, 11:09 am.