Collective Memory and European Identity

The Effects of Integration and Enlargement

Willfried Spohn, Klaus Eder

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780754644019
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351950596
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Human Geography
• Index: Social Sciences

Is it possible to create a collective European identity? In this volume, leading scholars assess the link between collective identity construction in Europe and the multiple memory discourses that intervene in this construction process. The authors believe that the exposure of national collective memories to an enlarging communicative space within Europe affects the ways in which national memories are framed. Through this perspective, several case studies of East and West European memory discourses are presented. The first part of the volume elaborates how collective memory can be identified in the new Europe. The second part presents case studies on national memories and related collective identities in respect of European integration and its extension to the East. This timely work is the first to investigate collective identity construction on a pan-European scale and will be of interest to academics and postgraduate students of political sociology and European studies.

Chapter 1
National Identities and Collective Memory in an Enlarged Europe

Willfried Spohn

Introduction

This chapter outlines a West/East-European comparison of the role of national identities and collective memories in the process of European East-West integration. It provides (1) a theoretical argument for the case studies on European and national identities in this volume, by including the dimensions of a European civilizational identity and of embedded collective memories; (2) it highlights the common civilizational features of a European identity as reflected in the contributions in part one; (3) proposes a comparative framework in order to explain the variation in national identities and collective memories in Western and Eastern European countries; and finally, (4) outlines the effects of national identities and collective memories in Western and Eastern Europe upon the ongoing dynamics of European integration and its extension to the East.

The architecture of the book

The contributions to this book attempt to address two crucial aspects of a European identity under the conditions of the extension of European integration to the East. Theoretically, the contributors propose to analyse the development of a European identity due to the reconstruction of national identities in an emerging European public sphere, where collective memories are contrasted, debated and reorganized. Empirically, the chapters in part one analyse elements of collective memories of a European past and the role for a European identity across the European divide, whereas the chapters in parts two and three represent case studies on particular national identities and collective memories, and their varying relationships to form a European identity in Western and Eastern Europe.

A triadic model for the analysis of the relations of European and national identities

Ongoing debates see European identity predominantly as a by-product of the emerging supranational institutional framework of the European Community/Union. Three theoretical positions define the options for analysing the national/European mix of collective identities. The first position, based on a confederational-intergovernmentalist conception of the European Union, sees European identity as a weak addendum to strong national identities (Lepsius 2001). The second position, following a federal-functionalist conception of European integration, assumes that a European identity will unfold and in the long run restructure the existing national identities by decoupling a European collective identity from the collective identities bound to the nation-state (Münch 1994, 2001). Between these two positions, corresponding to the wide-spread conception of the European Union as a multi-level polity, a third position can be identified postulating an enduring, though variable mix between national and European attachments and identifications (Hailer 1999, 2000; Kohli 2000).

All three positions presuppose a still weak European identity as compared to the still strong national identities, and this mix of national and European integrational identities is confirmed by the findings of empirical research. However, in terms of evolutionary tendencies in the formation of a European identity, the first position negates any repercussions of the Europeanization of nation-states on collective identities. The third position is limited primarily to empirical variations in collective identifications, whereas the second position proposes interesting arguments regarding the evolutionary social processes underlying collective identity formation in Europe. In this sense, the second position is theoretically the most innovative and challenging. It has been used in this book as the theoretical entry point to the comparative presentation and analysis of national and European integrational identities in Western and Eastern Europe under the specific conditions of the Eastern enlargement of the European integration process. The core question is whether the second position can be confirmed on the basis of the case studies on collective identities and memories in Western and Eastern Europe presented above, and, if so, how to confirm it.

To tackle this issue, three major propositions have been established. First, following recent criticisms of essentialist macro-sociological conceptualizations (Brubaker and Cooper 2000), is a proposal to define collective identity in a strictly analytical sense as the mode and extent of shared identifications and to see collective memories as a crucial cultural source of collective identities. Second, criticizing culturalist notions of collective identity and collective memory, both concepts are related to social structure as a combination of a social space, institutional framework and cultural communication sphere. Third, in a social-evolutionist perspective, it is argued that the more this socio-cultural space horizontally extends and vertically differentiates, the more a collective identity based on collective memory is functionally needed. Applying these propositions to the relations of Europe and its nation-states, the focus is on the development not only of a European social space, but of transnational interest networks, transnational institutions and transnational communication spheres as mechanisms of the evolution of a European civic identity and memory, as well as a simultaneous folklorization of national identities and memories.

In a historical-comparative sociological perspective, three propositions will be discussed: (1) to conceptualize collective identity and collective memory analytically as shared or composed forms of collective identification and mnemonic practices (Olick and Robbins 1998; Olick 1999); (2) to link collective identity and memory to culture and social structure (Eisenstadt and Giesen 1995); and (3) to assume a co-evolution of social differentiation and integration and the construction and reconstruction of collective identities and memories. The application of these propositions to the process of European integration however, needs further qualifications in two important respects.

First, the debate on European identity has primarily focused on the relationships between national identities and identifications with the European integration project, but it has neglected to distinguish between two basic meanings of European identity. The first meaning refers to the attachment, loyalty and identification with the European integration. The second relates to the broader cultural and civilizational identity of Europe. This distinction between the two basic layers of a European civilizational identity and a European integrational identity becomes central when the issue of European/national identity is taken in the context of the Eastern enlargement of the European Union.

On the Western European side, a pan-European identity underneath the identification with the European integration project has to be presupposed for the prospective inclusion of the post-Communist Central and Eastern European countries into the European Union. On the Eastern European side, it must be assumed that the post-Communist countries possess a European civilizational identity as a cultural basis for aspiring to become members of the European Union, but an attachment to or identification with the European integration project will emerge only with actual experiences with EU membership. Thus, in contrast to the predominant dualistic model of European and national identities a proposal for a triadic model of a European collective identity is made: a European civilizational identity, a European integrational identity and a European identity anchored in national identities (Spohn 2003).

Second, the evolutionary thesis of the making of a European identity often goes with the assumption of a simultaneous decline of national identities. This substitution thesis reiterates the well-known confederalist/neo-functionalist position in the debate on European integration, arguing for an increasing replacement of the nation-state by European institutions, against the intergovernmentalist/realist position, insisting on the continuing primacy of the nation-state.

Yet, as this debate on European integration has found a neo-realist/neofunctionalist middle ground in determining the European Union to be a multilayered, multi-level and multi-speed regulatory regime sui generis (Jachtenfuchs and Kohler-Koch 1996), it seems to be more adequate to assume a recombinant rather than a substitutive evolution of national and European integrational identities. Under the impact of Europeanization, national identities are transformed by European integrational identities, but are not dissolved by a European identity. At the same time, under the impact of Europeanization, national memories are transformed and reconstructed by layers of a transnational European memory, but not substituted by a European collective memory. A multi-layered constellation model, linking European civilizational and integrational as well as national and regional identities, whereby the European integrational layer gains weight under the impact of widening and deepening processes of European integration, but in constant interaction and interchange with the European civilizational layer and the diverse national layers is proposed.

European civilizational identities and collective memories

The European identity in its civilizational meaning or – to avoid essentialist reifications – the manifold forms of identifications with Europe are based on a 'European civilization', characterized by structural and cultural pluralism (Eisenstadt 1987), and related external and internal boundary constructions as well as long-term legacies and short-term memories (Eder and Giesen 2001). This civilizational identity refers to an encompassing identity of Europe as a geographical culture area (Jordan 1988) with boundaries separating it from non-European civilizations; this is not understood however, in any timeless sense, but rather, in a constant spatial and cultural construction and reconstruction (Delanty 1995). The roots of Europe lie in the Roman political-legal legacy, as well as the Greek, Judaic and Christian cultural heritages. However, Europe as a territorial-cultural entity emerges only with the decline, division and fragmentation of the Roman Empire as well as the institutionalization, division and expansion of Christianity. From the Carolingian Empire forward, Europe had a predominantly Western Christian core with marked boundaries against the Islamic civilization as well as Eastern Christianity. The Western Christian focus of a European identity characterized more distinctly in the modern age with the shift of the socio-cultural modernization dynamics to Western Europe, the evolving opposition to the Ottoman Empire and the increasing peripheralization of Eastern Europe, Both the boundary setting against the Islamic civilization and the East-West asymmetry of Europe remain in place to the present and define main geographical-cultural parameters in the current processes of European East-West integration.

The internal boundary constructions within the European civilizations are based on the specific structural and cultural pluralism of the European civilization, crystallizing in multiple refractions of a European identity in relation to its geopolitical location. This structural and cultural pluralism has its roots again, in the decline and fragmentation of the Roman Empire along the lines of the ethnic, linguistic, cultural and political diversity of the emerging European civilization. Nevertheless, European structural pluralism, on the one hand, crystallizes only with the rise of the modern nation-state, the formation of multiple political centers, and the related Westphalian inter-state system. Moreover, the development of European cultural pluralism, on the other, is linked to nation-state formation and the related processes of homogenizing national cultures and moulding nationalisms and national identities. The structural and cultural pluralism of the European civilization however, entails crucial power asymmetries between big and small states as well as cultural asymmetries between superiority claims and minority complexes, The European integration project and a wider identification of it, emerged only after the decline of European hegemony through imperial-nationalistic conflicts, the breakdown of this European power balance in the two world wars, the collapse of cultural-imperial superiority claims, and the need for an internal peace order to regain and preserve a power position in the globalizing world order (Spohn 2003).

Without going into further detail, it is precisely this level of a European civilizational identity where the specific topoi addressed by Hartmut Kaelble, Jerzy Jedlicki and Michal Bodemann is located in part one of the book. This civilizational level is a prerequisite and a component of a European integrational identity, but not coextensive with the identifications, attachments, and loyalties to the European community/Union. Kaelble's approach to European identity is highly original in that he turns the usual attention from the Eastern boundaries to an important Western boundary: the relation between the construction of Europe and the United States. As he has demonstrated in a recent book (Kaelble 2001), European migrants to the United States and their experiences in the American melting pot played a crucial role in overcoming their original local, regional and national identifications by constructing a common European identity as a counter-image to that of America. Based on this book, Kaelble's contribution shows how general elements of a European identity have changed over the 20^th century. He views the general topoi of a European identity as Europe as superior or threatened, Europe as the leading part of one global modernity or one form of modernity among many, and European unity in diversity. These five topoi change considerably in form and weight in the periods until WWI, the period of crisis from 1918 until 1960, and the period after 1960, with its renewed socio-economic prosperity and the emerging impact of European integration. The result is a middle ground of diminishing superiority claims and reciprocal feelings of fear, which foster the view of Europe as a diversified civilization and one civilization among others. At the same time, he links this identity shift to two major social-structural changes: the geopolitical change of Europe in the world from an hegemonic global power to one global player among others, and the social convergence of European societies in this century in terms of family and class structures, the role of the European city, and the impact of industrial work and mass consumption.

This account is clearly Western European centered, and the question may be asked that through the parallel article by Jedlicki in this book, how Kaelble's analysis of a Western European identity relates to Eastern European identities. As Jedlicki points out, the break-down of the Communist regimes and the political and social transformations in East Central and Eastern Europe have been accompanied not only by a reconstruction of national and European integrational identities but the atrocious experiences of WWII, the betrayal of Yalta, and the installations of Communist regimes under the umbrella of the Soviet Union, he argues, hardened forms of ethnic nationalism to which the Communist regimes adjusted in various forms of national Communism The overthrow of the Communist regimes created independent sovereign nation-states and set free these hardened forms of ethnic nationalism. Nevertheless, the democratic consolidation of post-Communist societies allowed for the pluralization, critical questioning and thus, reconstruction of these ethno-national identities concurrently.

In re-emphasizing Jedlicki's argument, this reconstruction of national identities has been linked to a reaffirmation of a European civilizational identity as articulated in the wish to return to Europe and to become a member of the European Union. However, this European identity has a typically ambivalent gestalt. It is oriented toward Western Europe as the model of a modern democratic and social capitalist market society; and the prospective integration into this Western European model recreates the long-term structural and cultural asymmetries between Western and Eastern Europe, and remobilizes particularly, the short-term memories and fears of a renewed dominance of a powerful Germany. Consequently, from the perspective of Kaelble, one may add that even if the progressive integration of East Central Europe into the EU will result in an increasing social structural convergence with Western European societies, the peripheral dependency and related cultural ambivalences will remain an integral part of Eastern European identities.

Another important aspect of a European civilizational identity is analysed in Bodemann's contribution to the book, Post-Holocaust European Jewry. Judaism and its translation into Christianity has been one of the central cultural components of the European civilization. At the same time, the Jewish diaspora, perceived as overcome by Christianity, became a marginalized and discriminated ethnic-religious minority. With the formation of modern nation-states and nationalism, European Jewry started to become acculturated to the various national cultures, though in contradictory ways, due to the unevenness of democratization and the persistence and strengthening of anti-Semitism (Birnbaum and Katznelson 1995). Concurrently, European Jewry remained a pan-European transnational community, generating transnational Jewish-Zionist nationalism as well as participating in international liberalism and socialism. The Shoah, then, annihilated and expelled large parts of European Jewry, but in doing so contributed to the foundation of the state of Israel (Eisenstadt 1992). The surviving post-Holocaust Jewry in Europe had been diminished to small ethnic minorities, adapting in conflictive and ambiguous ways to their new situation. As Bodemann demonstrates in the case of Germany, they were instrumentalized by a policy of Wiedergutmachung, used for the re-moralization of Germany and thus, becoming an integral part of the post-...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• 1 National Identities and Collective Memory in an Enlarged Europe
• PART I: COLLECTIVE IDENTITIES IN EUROPE AND EUROPEAN IDENTITIES
• PART II: EUROPE, NATIONAL IDENTITIES AND COLLECTIVE MEMORY IN WESTERN EUROPE
• PART III: EUROPE, NATIONAL IDENTITIES AND COLLECTIVE MEMORY IN EASTERN EUROPE
• THE ARGUMENT REVISITED
• Index