Nationalism and multiple modernities: Europe and beyond

JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 2008

Time of Transition, edited by M. Demossier (New York: Berghahn, 2007, ISBN 9781571816269); xiv + 110pp., £16.50 pb., £50.00 hb. The Europeans: Political Identity in an Emerging Polity, by D.M. Green (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2007, ISBN 9781588263551); xv + 203pp., £31.95 hb. The Religious Roots of Contemporary European Identity, edited by L. Faltin and M.J. Wright (New York: Continuum, 2007, ISBN 9780826494825); xvi + 230pp., £65.00 hb.

The Global Studies Journal, 2015

The issue of European identity as distinct from the national identity one possesses within European Union is a perplexing one, which goes beyond the usual understanding of the domains of the geographical frontiers or cultural ideas encompassing identity. As different approaches to understand European identity evolve, including the supranational thought of building a collective European identity, there are also strong nationalistic forces striving to maintain their respective national identities. However, with time, it appears that the national identities are being threatened, national borders are being eroded, and the changing dynamics of nation states are leading to the emergence of a newer kind of European identity, which is characterized by a state of "a-identity". This paper emphasizes the fluid state of European identity, which changes in accordance with context. The paper seeks to discuss the unstable nature of collective identity of an individual in Europe through Jacques Derrida"s views on deconstruction. It aims at the construction of a perceptive paper based on the notion that the transient character of the contemporary European identity leads toa state of non-identity. The terms "differance" and "traces", propounded by Jacques Derrida are used to grasp the emergence of multiple identities, in the contemporary Europe. The paper explores the possibility of this process subsequently leading to a-identity: a state of absence of the essential identity itself as an identity, which is necessarily a state of fluidity of identity.

European National Identities

Paper presented at CEVIPOF, 2008

European Politics and Society, 2015

2019

This chapter deals with a few aspects which illustrate the basic context of European identity and discusses the development of national identity into European identity European identity. In this chapter, I try to combine different scientific disciplines, such as social anthropology, political science, political economy, European studies and linguistics, in order to approach European identity in an interdisciplinary context and specifically, as a supranational identity that is created by political elites. Hence, in this chapter, I mention some basic theories of nationalism and national identity that I consider necessary to the study of European identity. Thereafter, I focus on the nation state, its crises and its replacement by post-national regimes, such as the European Union, given that European identity, from my viewpoint, is directly linked to state and suprastate apparatuses. Moreover, I refer to different approaches to European identity (transnational, post-national, etc.), and...

Journal of Language and Politics

To date, the concept of 'European identity' remains quite vague and obscure. Who is European and who is not? What values do Europeans share, and who is included in or excluded from the European community? This paper deals with the renegotiation of European identity/ies and the simultaneous increase of discourses about national security and nationalism in Europe, especially during the financial crisis since 2008. We first discuss a range of theoretical approaches to European identity from an interdisciplinary perspective. In a second step, after summarising the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) to Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) and especially the concept of topos, we illustrate the link between discursive constructions of European identities and cultural 'Others' via some recent examples of European and national debates on migration and economic issues. More specifically, we first analyse a speech by Geert Wilders on immigration and multiculturalism after the clashes in Tunisia in 2011 and the subsequent arrival of many refugees in Italy; secondly, we focus on a speech about British relations to the European Union in the 21st century by the British Prime Minister, David Cameron. It becomes apparent that debates about European identities -especially since the financial crisis of 2008 -have increasingly been accompanied by debates about both more traditional racialised cultural concerns and more recently, about economic security, leading to new distinctions between 'Us' , the 'real Europeans' , and 'Them' , the 'Others' . In this way, the socio-political unification of Europe is challenged -once again.