identity is, however, also one of the most topical and arguably most important issues, witness the huge debate on the subject. Surely, not all of this attention can be completely misplaced. The fact that a topic attracts attention does not necessarily mean that it is important, but when serious scholarship addresses an issue, this is certainly one reason to pay attention to it.
How important is it for Europeans to share a common identity? This is hotly disputed. Some argue that a close and well-functioning European collaboration is possible without a common identity, however defined. In fact, the same people tend to argue that European collaboration should not concern itself with such normative issues, but ought instead to concentrate on practical collaboration. Others – typically those analysts who regard the EU as a polity with federal features – argue that a common European identity is a prerequisite for a functioning European democracy. What cannot be disputed is the fact that the topic is being intensively discussed not least in the new member states, for whom the return to the European family of cultures has been a costly affair in terms of legislative adaptation etc. Nor can it be disputed that the study of political and social identity touches upon some fundamental and fascinating problems relating to the nature of Political Man, of society and indeed of Mankind.
Identity like culture belongs to the words that everybody uses, but very few understand. In Samuel Huntington’s apt formulation … “it is as indispensable as it is unclear”.6 Having a common identity is not about being identical. A person with a strong identity is first of all a unique person. The same applies to nations and civilizations. Defining identity involves asking at least two sets of related questions, both of which exceedingly complex: First of all, to what extent identity relates to underlying sociological factors; and secondly, how identity relates to power. None of these questions can be examined in any great depth here, but by way of illustration one may, for instance, ask how a factor such as urbanization and more broadly globalization with its attendant stress relates to identity formation. It may be surmised that nations with a strong and stable common identity are nations with a high degree of stability on underlying sociological factors. But this goes against the widely held view that the formation of states was related to factors like major wars against “external others”. The power-identity nexus is equally complex and it will be touched upon in several chapters. As a preliminary definition we may say that identity is about belonging, about distinctiveness and about demarcation. Which of the three aspects is the most important is difficult to establish, but all of these dimensions are surely important (see chapter 4).
The process of central and eastern enlargement – as well as the specific problem of Turkish accession to the EU – has in recent years prompted a heated political debate about European identity and culture, inspiring scholars to examine the nature of European identity. Central and Eastern Europeans have historically displayed a keen interest in issues of identity and culture as a part of their own fight for the preservation of a threatened, national identity. Another stimulus for this interest has been the “nation-building” and more recently the “legitimacy-building” efforts of the European Commission. Finally, the Euro-American disagreement on the invasion of Iraq has prompted a debate about European identity in the sense of common (foreign policy) values within Europe.
Even though many will object to my use of the word “nation-building” in the EU-context, and identity-building is indeed a more precise term, not only are the kind of measures used by the European Commission in its attempts to strengthen its popular legitimacy and add an emotional dimension to the European endeavour well-known from the history of nation states, but some academic scholars have also explicitly addressed the problem of European identity in these terms. By way of illustration let me draw attention to a learned article by Jos de Beus, which carries the title “Quasi-national European identity and European democracy”.7 The article contains an attempt to define nationality in broad heuristic terms, which in all its legal clarity seems helpful to the following analysis as a way of demonstrating the relevance of parts of the literature on nation-building and nations.
A nation can be defined as an extensive set of non-relatives who think and feel that they have important things in common and that they differ so much from other large groups that they constitute a distinctive and self-contained society. Nationals share a certain way of life and attach meaning to it to the point where it turns into a self-enforcing culture.8
I do not regard the EU as anything approaching a fully-fledged nation-state, but I do think that some EU-actors are using strategies inspired by nation-building and to the extent that they do, scholars have to acquaint themselves with the nation-building literature.
In recent decades, the EU has through a series of history-making changes in the treaties developed formal governance structures to the point where, today, the EU not only constitutes a political system but also a regional polity, which some scholars argue can be characterized as a special kind of decentralized federation. It is true that the EU is a very atypical state-structure in that regulation is much more developed than for example re-distribution, and that the EU lacks a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Yet, it is difficult to dispute the fact that EU decisions are considered “authoritative” within the EU area. Having said that, it must be added that states – and major states in particular – continue to play a particularly prominent role in the European policy process. Indeed, the informal politics are particularly important in Europe, creating a layer of strong coalition politics and informal leadership mechanisms beneath the formal structures.9 Intergovernmentalist scholars such as A. Moravcsik have a point when they argue that transnational preference formation is very weak in the EU.10
Obviously, the strengthening of the supranational decision-making structures draws attention to the question of legitimation, which is reflected in the considerable body of literature published in recent years on the problem of democracy within the EU. Now, the question is if, apart from legitimation, a supranational decision-making system also requires some kind of common culture or identity, in any case some kind of emotional glue?
The challenges posed by rapid polity-building at the supranational level are fundamental. It can be argued following Joseph Weiler that the precondition for acceptance of supranational majority voting on a large scale is the existence of a feeling of mutual belonging within the boundaries of the polity. Without such a feeling a legitimacy crisis may soon emerge. Some would say that such a crisis is already visible in the EU, witness the negative outcome of the referendums on the first version of the new EU treaty in several EU member states. De Beus points out that “European identity sparks attachment of some existential meaning to European politics as a shared practice as well as participation in the cooperative conflict of European integration for better or worse”. And further … “the rise of European identity stimulates the rise of this constitutive willingness”, and, “the rise of European identity contributes to the rise of commitment to public reason beyond the sphere of the nation state”.11 In other words, if a stronger European identity were to emerge, it could be expected to give European democracy a new resilience.
The Oxford scholar Larry Siedentop’s warning against a hasty federalization of the EU seems pertinent.12 At least it needs to be examined to what extent the discrepancy between the developed “state-dimension” and the undeveloped “nation-dimension” within the EU constitutes a fundamental problem. To the extent that it does, the next question becomes: what does it take to make European decisions legitimate at a deeper level, and moreover: How does a common political identity come about? What are the sources of common identity? Finally, how far has the EU come on its way to a common identity, and what is the more precise nature
