European Identity Politics
Posted: 14 Oct 2020
Date Written: June 1, 2020
Abstract
Social and political sciences use the term ‘identity’ in describing a wide range of phenomena, whether these be personal explanations of self-understanding, descriptions of common interests or the shared experiences of a larger group. To make the concept more operational and open to empirical research, we dichotomize it into an inclusive versus an exclusive type. This enables us to carve out the different policy conclusions associated with each type. We then apply the concepts for analysing the emergence of European identity over the past decades, as well as its limits and recent populist headwinds. This paper ventures a proactive strategy of four steps to localize the root causes of the success of populism, offering an inclusive vision for the long run, policy instruments for economic improvements and a new narrative. These concepts are linked to the strategy of the European Commission of a Green Deal and a Social Europe "striving for more”, which acts as a program to strengthen the inclusive European identity and pre-empt the renationalization requested by the exclusive type. The differences in the initial reactions of countries to the emerging COVID-19 pandemic, bashing foreign sources for its creation and misusing the crisis for restoring autocratic leadership on the one hand and looking for solidarity on the national as well as international level on the other, may be attributed to the concepts of exclusion versus inclusion.
Keywords: : identity politics, European integration, migration, renationalization, populism, European Green Deal, cultural homogeneity, partnership policy
JEL Classification: D70, F15, F52, Z13
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation