Britain and Germany Imagining the Future of Europe

National Identity, Mass Media and the Public Sphere

L. Novy

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137326072
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Politique

Through analysis of newspaper coverage on the debate over the future of Europe in Great Britain and Germany between 2000 and 2005, this book explores the intricate ways in which national identities shape media discourses on European integration. In doing so, it provides some compelling insights into Europe's emerging communicative space(s).

1

Introduction

The EU, the nation state and the news media

Since the 1990s, democratic legitimacy and the relationship between the EU and its citizens have often been considered as the ‘Achilles heel’ (Wilkinson 2002) of the European integration process. Irrespective of their normative or epistemological premises, a growing number of scholars have argued that the main challenge of democratization at a European level is not institutional reform, but communication and substantiation of a shared identity among the citizens of Europe. Gerard Delanty, for one, notes that the ‘search for new principles of European legitimacy is inextricably bound up with the attempt to create a space in which collective identities can be formed’ (1995: viii, see 9). It is the interest in the real – or alleged – incongruity between an increasing Europeanization in the political and economical sphere and in the realm of communication and deliberation that has prompted the following investigation.¹

Proceeding from the assumption that institutional and normative dimensions cannot be analysed independently of each other, i.e. that ‘institutional, political and normative aspects of “Europeanisation” are mutually interdependent’ (Winn and Harris 2003: 3), this book examines how the emergence of distinct structures of governance at the European level has affected the structure and content of political communication in the member states of the EU.² It analyses to what extent processes of Europeanization in the well-researched realm of politics, law and economics have been replicated in or interact with national discourses about identity, citizenship, political culture or the role of the state. The focus is thus broadened from European actors, be it the heads of state and government or civil servants, to include the citizenry at large, who are linked to the processes of European integration primarily via the mass media, and the question of how the political and cognitive changes brought about by European integration resonate in and are conveyed by public discourse.

With its focus on public communication and the role of the media ‘in the informational and educational components of European citizenship’ (Kevin 2003: 53), this book sheds light on an important dimension of the debate over the EU’s democratic deficit. Common wisdom has it that the EU is suffering from a communicative deficit or Öffentlichkeitsdefizit (see Gerhards 1993, 2000), an asymmetry between the integration of the political and economic spheres on the one hand, and the Europeanization of communication and deliberation on the other. While the former spheres increasingly converge, it is held that the latter remain nationally fragmented. Loth sees no

European public which could serve as a medium for self-reference in European society […] In line with that reality, the institutional development of the European Union has been mostly of a technocratic nature up to now, without broad public discussion or a lasting identification of the European Union’s population with its institutions. (Loth 2000: 27)

Hence, it is not only the democratic qualities of the EU’s institutions but its overall legitimacy (in the sense of its acceptance as a political system) that is under scrutiny and under attack. The well-documented lack of knowledge about and indifference to the European project, which is frequently confirmed by voters’ apathy on the occasion of European elections, testifies to the salience of this problem. Many scholars argue that this diagnosis has important repercussions: because of the non-existence of a European public sphere (EPS), a communicative space encompassing the EU member states, European policies and institutions are incapable of meeting public expectations of transparent, accountable and responsive governance. Indicative of this position is the question posed by the German historian Christian Meier:

How […] should a European democracy be possible? It lacks a common public, a common society, to which the Finnish lumberman, the Andalusian torero and the German lecturer [Studienrat] entertain an equal feeling of belonging. What is lacking are mediating institutions such as the media and European parties. (Meier 2004: 166 [my translation])

This, then, is the rub: the European peoples do not ‘talk’ to each other! And in the absence of institutions and mechanisms through which EU citizens can communicate with each other and develop a sense of belonging that transcends ethnic and social differences, the EU faces a lack of legitimacy that impedes further political integration. Any hopes that EU institutions could establish a direct connection to its citizens by means of deeper integration are bound to fail because of the lack of a European public realm (and electorate) linked together by transnational debates and a collective identity. By this reasoning, none of the EU’s various attempts to establish a constitution for Europe could possibly have led to a true democratization of the EU until it had been converted into democratic practice by the EU’s citizens (see, e.g., Lietzmann and Wilde 2003).³

It was within this context of the academic and political debate over the prospects of a European democracy that the notion of an EPS evolved into a catchphrase, a meta-concept that while denoting different things at different times, has become increasingly inflated through its use by academics, journalists and politicians alike.⁴ Since the ‘permissive consensus’ (see Lindberg and Scheingold 1970: 24–63; Abromeit 2002: 17), which had secured the integration project the tacit support of the national publics for decades, gradually eroded in the years following the Treaty of Maastricht of 1992/93 (which failed to carry the popular vote in Denmark), it has become a central theme, with political leaders in particular frequently mentioning the need to involve the public in the integration process. This recognition was one of the main driving forces behind the decision of the European Council in Laeken in 2001 to establish the Convention on the Future of Europe and charge it with the task of ‘pav[ing] the way for the next Intergovernmental Conference’ (Laeken 2001).

The issue of an EPS is, indeed, an increasingly important topic, for the peoples of the EU are already part of a different kind of sphere – a sphere of power. No matter whether one subscribes to more representative or deliberative strands of democratic theory, the EU’s system of governance presupposes some degree of accountability and participation which, in turn, presupposes an informed citizenry. By this logic, a functioning arena for trans-European exchange of information and opinion is vital for the democratic legitimacy of the Union. It could be harnessed, potentially at least, by pan-European collective actors such as social movements, NGOs and, ultimately, European parties.

It was Jürgen Habermas who, in his groundbreaking work on the public sphere (1989b), convincingly demonstrated the historic relationship between the rise of the nation state as the major form of political organization and the emergence of communicative spaces which involved citizens in public debates, deliberation and opinion formation. Since then and on the basis of Habermas’s influential contribution, a number of authors have stressed the relevance of public communication as an essential precondition for further integration.

If Europe is not merely a place but a space in which distinctively European relations are forged and European visions of the future enacted, then it depends on communication in public, as much as on a distinctively European culture, or political institution, or economy, or social networks. (Calhoun 2003: 243)

‘Communication in public’ in modern societies means first and foremost the mass media. As important intermediary institutions, they provide a link between the citizens and politics. Since direct relations between policy-makers and the citizens are even more unlikely at the remote EU level than at the national level, the EU depends increasingly on mediated information and debate. The latter ‘constitutes the normal mode of citizen connection with the EU’ (Kevin 2003: 3) with more than two-thirds of EU citizens consistently identifying the media as their most important source of political information (see, e.g., Eurobarometer 2005: 95).

Thus, from a normative standpoint as well as in practical terms, the EU’s development as a new kind of polity is indissolubly linked to its development as a communicative space. Undoubtedly, its policy output already impinges on national political systems, thereby setting the agenda and shaping the content of the mediated political discourses in national publics. Consequently, European integration has had implications for media organizations in terms of their allocation of resources, their placement of correspondents and editorial staff, and choices for constructing news stories. Although media organizations have been cost-cutting and downsizing in recent years, until the economic crisis hit in 2008 more and more correspondents from different European countries were gathering in Brussels and the press corps there outnumbered the accredited journalists in other European capitals (see EurActiv 2010; Teichert 2000: 12).

Yet, compared with the level of integration reached at the political level, Europe’s communicative space appears underdeveloped. For decades and despite the growing relevance of EU politics, the amount of coverage the mass media dedicated to European affairs was relatively low (see Gerhards 2000; 293ff.; Norris 2000; Eilders and Voltmer 2003: 259f.; Sievert 1998: 282f.). While this has changed with the euro crisis, the EU’s communicative dimension until today remains somewhat ambiguous in nature: on the one hand, Europe constitutes part of the national agenda and is ‘inside the nation state’; on the other, it is still ‘another place, a different political level and locus of decision making that may be represented as outside’ (Schlesinger 1999: 265f.).

These observations beg for a better understanding of the news media’s role in the European political order. However, for decades, neither political science nor European studies researchers devoted much attention to the media’s representations of the EU or the ways in which journalism has responded to the transformations that advancing European integration has entailed for politics (see Hodess 1997b; for a review see Gavin 2001). Since the turn of the century this shortcoming is increasingly addressed as more and more scholars have recognized that in the EU context, too,

mass media and politics are inextricably intertwined not only on the institutional (macro) and collective actors (meso) levels, but also in influencing the way individual citizens form fundamental views on politics. (Kaase 2000: 399)

It is this normative dimension that constitutes the subject of this book, which aims to explore the nature of the emerging EPS by discerning the process by which events, in this case those relating to the debate over the future of Europe, are translated into public knowledge through the media. As it is intrinsically linked to the question of the development of a public sphere, the study of the news media’s role in the process of European integration complements research within the field of European studies on the ability of the EU to operate democratically (see Eriksen and Fossum 2002: 403). While the analysis of news media cannot explain elite and public opinion, in the sense of quantifying the media’s impact on opinion (or vice versa), it is reasonable to assume that media both shape and reflect people’s understanding of politics (see Castells 1997: 371; Louw 2005: 37–58, 141–52; Schenk 1998: 387–9). Thus, in order to explore the question of representation and legitimacy in EU politics, it is useful to explore the communication of those politics in the news media.

The notion ‘Future of Europe debate’ here refers particularly to the period between the influential speech by Germany’s former Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer at Humboldt University of Berlin in May 2000 and the rejection of the constitutional treaty by French and Dutch voters in referenda in 2005. With its emphasis on future forms of governing, or better, governance, in the EU this debate constitutes an ideal aspect of the endless variety of issues at stake in the European discourse. It touched upon the meanings connected to the process of European integration in the member states (see Rosamond 1999: 667). Besides, those initiating the process, the heads of state and government, emphasized the need for a Union-wide debate to accompany the discussions at the political level. Such a debate had, by any set of standards, to be public and engage the European citizens. If these criteria were not fulfilled, and the citizens did not know, understand or care about the issues deemed important by the EU’s elites, then, arguably, this had implications for both the representative and deliberative aspects of EU democracy.

However, while the development of a sphere of debate for European issues can thus be regarded as an important indicator of the level of integration in Europe, it is precisely this process that was invoked in different ways and contexts in the future of Europe debate (see Rosamond 1999: 667): ‘Quo vadis, EU?’, ‘What sort of Europe?’, ‘how much Europe?’ and ‘For what purpose?’ – such questions resonated differently through the EU and its member states. The debate was shaped by different ideas about the EU, its purpose and future political set-up. These in turn were determined not only by material interests, but also by national identities and certain deeply entrenched ideas about statehood and governance.

Analysing British and German media discourses on the future of Europe, this book pursues a comparative approach. It explores how images of an emerging European order interact within existing national identities and to what extent the two reinforce or contradict each other as the political order in Europe changes and exclusive ideas of nation state democracies are increasingly challenged. Special attention is paid to ideational key concepts that include the issue of sovereignty, a written constitution and federalism. These concepts are chosen because they relate to state, nation and Europe, that is ‘“we-concepts”, identities we hold simultaneously and which therefore have to be articulated with each other’ (Waever 2004: 205).

Specifically, this book analyses the British and German media reporting in relation to the then Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer’s influential speech ‘From Confederacy to Federation – Thoughts on the Finality of European integration’ (Fischer 2000a), given at Humboldt University in 2000, to the Convention on the Future of Europe, which drafted the constitutional treaty between 28 February 2002 and 10 July 2003, and to the French and Dutch referenda in 2005. Fischer’s speech, the post-Nice process on the future of Europe and the Laeken Declaration’s (2001) reference to a ‘constitution for the citizens of Europe’ during this period gave a strong impetus to the constitutional discourse in the EU. That it failed to materialize in a constitutional treaty acceptable in 2005–2006 in all member states does not undermine the value of this analysis. For the present purposes, after all, it is not the outcome but the process that matters. In concentrating on distinct, yet thematically related events within the future of Europe debate, it is envisaged to unveil the specific cultural and structural factors that shaped this process.

Scope of the book

This book is organized around the description, problematization and explanation of national discourses. There are two interrelated aims of analysis: while the question of whether something like an EPS exists cannot be answered in simple ‘yes or no’ terms, it is nevertheless possible to analyse the media’s impact on the development of an EPS by examining the degree and form of ‘Europeanization’ evident in the British and German media. By reconstructing EU topics on the British and German news agendas, an answer is sought to the question of how Europe impacted upon debates in the member states between the years 2000 and 2005 – from Fischer’s speech at Humboldt University and the agreement on the European constitution to the referendum crisis. Can we talk about a Europeanized discourse that is mutually responsive and covers the EU as a discrete and independent political force beyond the national (corresponding to advancing integration in the political and legal sphere)? Or is this discourse predominantly or even exclusively conducted from a national perspective? If so, which factors condition this national perspective?

The purpose of this study calls for a comparative, interdisciplinary research strategy as well as a problem-oriented contextual perspective.⁵ It combines different approaches in EU theorizing such as social constructivism, discourse theory and (the concept of) Europeanization. Since the focus is on the integrative potential of the national media, i.e. the ‘discursive conditions’ for communicative integration, various levels of analysis need to be taken into account. Consequently, before analysing mass-mediated discourses on the EU, it is necessary to tease out the historical and political fields within which the discourses were produced and mediated (referred to below as ‘nation state identities’). Moreover, the institutional context for news production, i.e. the principal dimensions of variation between the two different media systems, are identified wit...