Formation Of European Identity Research Articles

Huwen in het hart van Europa: Europese binationale huwelijken in België

Research into interethnic marriages is mainly oriented towards union formation by non-western migrants. European binational marriages are still understudied. However, as is often assumed, in intermarried relationships group boundaries are blurring, European binational couples are particularly interesting because of the contribution they potentially make to European identity formation. In this article we first study the patterns and trends in binational European marriages in Belgium. Second we analyse the diversity in people binationally married and third pinpoint the characteristics of these European couples. We use the marriage registers (2000-2009) as well as the census data for Belgium. Findings show that binational European marriages form a relatively small proportion of marriages contracted in Belgium and patterns remain stable over the past decade. At the same time we find variety in the level at which intermarriage occurs among different origin groups. We finally distinguish six types of binational marriages with different characteristics.

Contentious Europeanization: The Paradox of Becoming European through Anti-Patent Activism

Through an ethnographic account of a pan-European activist campaign against software patents, I investigate how European identities emerge through contention rather than consensus. I apply anthropological literature on Europeanization and on intellectual property rights in order to rethink conventional theories about the relationship between European integration and the formation of European identity. I develop the term ‘contentious Europeanization’ to denote a set of identities and approaches to Europe that are intimately linked to EU policy-making, yet purport to develop an alternative Europe. More broadly, I argue that information technology and intellectual property law operate as frameworks for the formation of contentious political subjectivities.

Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity, by Rosamond McKitterick.

<i>Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity</i>, by Rosamond McKitterick.

Islam, England, and Identity in the Early Modern Period: A Review of Recent Scholarship

As RECENT SCHOLARSHIP HAS SHOWN, identities in early modern period cannot be sealed within regional boundaries; conceptions of self cannot exist without Other. This notion is not new: Samuel Chew's massive 1937 study of England and Islam opens by asserting that the Moslems were never, in Near and Middle East, wholly absent from anxious thoughts of Elizabethan travelers.1 Yet Elizabethan travelers did not anxiously ponder East in isolation; as England increasingly interacted with Islam, Islam increasingly played a role in shaping English identity. Since Edward Said's Orientalism (1979) gave primacy to role of Islamic Other in shaping European selfconceptions, scholarship has highlighted ideological formation of European identity in early modern period, an identity not formed behind cultural lines but forged in clash between cultures.2 In short, West imagined itself in contrast to East. Yet, as recent studies by Nabil Matar, Emily C. Bartels, and Barbara Fuchs, among others, have shown, dichotomies between self and Other, Christian and Muslim, and English and Moor are not stable: Cross-cultural encounters permeated not only commerce and international relations but diverse elements such as stage, fashion, horse riding, and sermons.3 In a world of expanding globalism, lines demarcating self and Other quickly became blurred. Since cross-cultural encounters in general and meetings between Islam and England in particular have become growing areas of concern in early modern studies, tracing recent research trends in these areas offers valuable insight into field. I will survey scholarship focusing on role of Islam in shaping European identity in an era of nascent globalism, focusing on last decade of scholarship on early modern encounters between Islam and England. The studies I will survey examine England primarily between 1560 and 1630. These dates

European Experiments

European science policy, as well as the creation of research agendas for converging technologies, functions as a testing ground for a transnational European identity. In light of competing conceptions of European identity formation, the European Commission’s Sixth Framework Program (2002–2007) adopted an experimental mode. Given that the quest for European identity is already an open‐ended experiment, the policy process invites experiments in governance, for example, by developing participatory schemes. Moreover, as European science studies scholars advance the notion of “real experiments” in the laboratory of society, one basis for identity formation among Europeans is to be the very fact that they all partake in “collective experiments” with new technologies. This analysis draws for its central cases on the creation in 2003/2004 of a “European vision” for converging technologies and a 2007 report on innovation processes in the “European knowledge society.” It thereby highlights also the contribution of historians, sociologists, and philosophers of science and technology to the European quest for identity.

What makes the European identity?

This paper aims to find out the factors that affect the formation of European identity, by which the author means a self-identification of individual citizens of the EU member states with this supranational entity. Following a comprehensive and critical review of the main approaches which try to explain the formation of European identity, i.e. the essentialist, rational choice, functionalist, social–psychological, social-constructivist, and neo-institutionalist approaches, the author establishes his hypothesis: what matter most in the shaping of a European identity are the factors of rational choice and institutional construction. This hypothesis is being examined with statistical analyses on the Eurobarometer Trend File Database, as well as against historical experiences.

The Dialectic between Romanticism and Classicism in Europe

This article provides an application of Alvin Gouldner's dialectic between Romanticism and Classicism to the constitutional process of European identity formation. Gouldner introduced his dialectical sociology in a critical attempt to destroy compulsive identification with any fixed idea of order. In an attempt to destroy compulsive identification with any Romantic or classical idea of Europe, this article shows how Europe's identity, as it has been represented in the Constitutional Treaty (CT), as well as in sociological works, is being shaped by predominant Romantic and classic thought structures and social movements. The central argument is that the dialectic between Romanticism and Classicism in Europe is most clearly observed in the debates about democracy, human rights and rule of law — the classical values that constitute the EU's entry criteria.

Russia, The Turks and Europe: Legitimations of War and the Formation of European Identity in the Early Modern Period

AbstractAn essential criterion of belonging to a community is the expressed willingness to play by its rules. "Europe" in the Early Modern period can be seen as a moral community of "Christian" and "civilized" states which abided by the principles of ius gentium. The core of this code was the limitation and regulation of warfare. Although moral and legal principles of bellum iustum were often overruled by considerations of interest, there was at least one thing common to all European wars: the states always took pains to prove publicly that they were waging a just war. This essay examines the significance of printed legitimations of war for the formation of European identity. It focuses on the case of Muscovy, which before the end of the seventeenth century had not been concerned with its image in Europe, and was thus left at the mercy of the propaganda of its western neighbors who were instrumental in constructing the image of Muscovites as Asiatic barbarians, more similar to the Turks than to Christians. Tsar Peter the Great, however, took a novel decision to launch a campaign of public legitimation of Muscovy's attack on Sweden in 1700. The legitimations of war published during Peter's reign can be seen as essential components of his quest for the acknowledgement of Russia as a fully-fledged member of the European moral, legal, and political community.

Technology-centred Discourses in European Audiovisual Policy: Will Euro-Techno out-Fox the US Assembly Line?

This paper outlines the region-building initiatives of European audiovisual policy that are justified by a technology-centred discourse. While highlighting technology as a central and powerful theme in the European policy discourse, this paper begins to challenge the discourse’s depiction of reality. Specifically, the existing audiovisual environment suggests that notwithstanding Europeanization rhetoric in cultural policy decisions, there is a de facto Americanization of audiovisual space. Because of the apparent failure of the European Union to establish a unified competitive market, this paper analyzes the relationship between three variables competing in cultural policymaking. The first section lays out policy discourses characterized by European identity-formation. The second section describes the reality of cultural patterns in the EU that are characterized by diversity and audience fragmentation. The third section explains the reality of audiovisual space that is characterized by American products. A discussion follows of the restrictive effects that such policy discourse has on future policymaking decisions in the EU, bringing to question the success of any new policy orientation that is based around technology in both harmonizing European broadcasting policy and in rivaling its American competitor.

ヨーロッパ市民権制定と「ヨーロッパ人」アイデンティティーの形成

ヨーロッパ市民権制定と「ヨーロッパ人」アイデンティティーの形成

Book Review: Uses of the other: ‘the East’ in European identity formation

Book Review: Uses of the other: ‘the East’ in European identity formation

European identity and the myth of Islam: a reassessment

There has been a fashionable tendency in some recent scholarship on European history to look for some of the most important roots of European identity formation in the cultural, social and political interaction with the Islamic world. This article argues that this view is an exaggerated and over-simplistic one. In a long historical survey from the era of the Crusades to the nineteenth century, it seeks to show that the theme in European continental identity was frequently subordinated to political and diplomatic rivalries. While cultural themes in IR are important, they do need to be distinguished from realpolitik in the dynamics of international power politics.

Human Rights Curricula in the Formation of a European Identity: the cases of Greece, England and France

This study involves a content analysis of the social studies curricula of England, France and Greece. The purpose of the study is to identify all direct and indirect references made to human and childrens' rights, a supranational theme, which transcends national cultures and is linked with European identity. The analysis revealed that the curriculum of Greece exceeds France and England in quantity at both direct and indirect references. The evidence at hand indicates that human rights as a transnational theme is occasionally and indirectly treated in the national curricula of the selected countries and it does not pervade all social studies subjects, neither can it be found transversally in various other subjects, especially in the case of England. Thus, the findings indicate that, as far as the curricula are concerned, the claims, policies and rhetoric about human rights articulated by politicians in the civil community of the European Union (EU) and cited in several documents, remain unsupported, since they are not fully reflected in the written curricula. It is concluded that nation states in the EU and elsewhere can no longer afford to offer students parochial pedagogy, ethnocentric and Eurocentric orientations ignoring supranational and global views, and themes such as human rights, which can mediate effectively for the formation of European and world identity.