RICERCA ITALIANA     

Becoming European. Actors, networks and processes in the construction of European identity

Università degli Studi di Salerno

Abstract

Our research deals with some networks, actors and institutions involved in the Europeanization of the Italian society. We aim to catch almost at its nascent stage the Europeanization of identities, norms and codes of action, ways of thinking and lifestyles. The different analyses conducted in the various projects are centered upon the construction of the European society as it results from two processes. The first one develops at the level of civil society, as a strategic whole of actions, relations and behavioural codes of individual and collective actors who view- more or less- Europe as the symbolic horizon within which the construction of their identity must be placed; the second one develops at the level of institutions as a strategic whole of actions taken by the European Union institutions or other public and private institutions that propose to take Europe as a framework of reference to actors, networks, associations and other institutions. The investigations planned by the project try to grasp the traits of the European society as they are emerging in the Italian society.
One of the aims of our research is to work out a model for the Europeanization process that could possibly be used to study other national settings.
Our research will specifically deal with some segments of population, social networks, associations or parts of institutions. They have been selected by means of a basic standard: their major or minor involvement in the Europeanization process. Based on the background research - the research units have been working for a long time on Europe and its identity - we have selected the following subjects, as they are more involved in the process: 1) couples composed of an italian spouse and a spouse from another European country, 2) the Erasmus students, 3) soldiers who served under the European Union flag; 4) regional, provincial and municipal (big municipalities) councillors and top managers of offices (councillor’s offices or others) involved in community policies; 5) young entrepreneurs. The following subjects were deemed distant in theory from the Europeanization process: 1) councillors and managers of local welfare; 2) actors of the private social sector; 3) catholic associations, more oriented towards universalism rather than europeanism; 4) political parties. Our research aims to understand whether, and to what extent, such actors, networks and associations are Europe-oriented or whether they still take the local or national context as the framework of reference for their action. In fact, the assumption we make in our research is that Europe is already taken as a frame of reference by many of them; therefore now we must tackle the problem of pinpointing the peculiar features of the process by which they are becoming European or identifying the hurdles and oppositions standing in the way of their becoming European, possibly suggesting strategies to overcome them; we would also try to spot out regularities or features that may constitute a sort of Italian model of how to become European.
By and large, the research Units have adopted qualitative methodologies particularly apt to grasp newly-emerging features that have not become common traits of a given society yet. Nevertheless, if it is possible, statistical samples will be set up to try and generalize the trends traced by qualitative analyses.
We will be carrying out research for two years.
The final expected products are reports in the form of working papers, journal essays, books. At least one publication is expected per each research unit, plus one all-inclusive publication edited by the coordinator. <<<

Principal Investigator

Vittorio COTESTA Università degli Studi di SALERNO

Research Objectives

In today’s globalized world, wavering between multipolarity and imperial designs, Europe seems to have trouble finding its own place. Such trouble appears to originate precisely from uncertainty about European identity. It is neither a state nor a nation, it has no constitution but it has its own currency (the Euro), that nevertheless is not circulated throughout Europe. What is Europe then? What will be its future identity like? The generally-accepted way to tackle this issue is to go back to the European states’ history: states create nations, nations create states. The European Union does not follow this path, therefore it is pointless to try and understand it by that approach. The European Union is a unique, sui generis reality. It arose from a great project for cooperation among states, it adopted the method of nonstop negotiation on open issues, it has formulated principles and directives, but it has never imposed codes, norms and laws. Moreover, the Union lacks the fundamental feature of a state organization: the monopoly of legitimate violence. While history – and not only European history- proves that a state, once it is established, tries to expand its borders forcing its sovreignty upon other peoples (its neighbours are most at risk), countries that wish to become members of the Union must stand the test of a lengthy procedure: if they pass muster, they then become “member-States of the Union”. If compared with the past, the European Union experience is a paradox. Furthermore, in the last few years a “big transformation” has been started: the European currency was adopted, the Constitution has been drafted, ten more countries have become members thanks to the enlargement process. The European Union actually does not encompass Western Europe only or mostly anymore. Much of its identity is going to be shaped by decisions that will be made in the next few months. They will also determine its capacity to stay in a globalized world either as a strongly autonomous stakeholder or as a weak one that is not capable of wielding its own world policy. Of course many scholars feel it right and timely to focus their research on European identity and its changes. So far such research has been tainted with a basic misunderstanding. As a matter of fact, the identity of Europe is seen more as a summation of common traits than as a way of living within the same symbolic, cultural, political and social horizon. In other words, Europe is not the sum total of all European peoples, even though it incorporates them; Europe is a way of living within the same symbolic space made up of commonly shared meanings, values and lifestyles.
The question we try to answer by this project is the following: does a European society exist? Does a European way of living exist? If it does exist, what are its distinctive features? Sociological research (see for example Delanty 1995 and 1998; Giner 1994 and 2001; Haller 1994; Crouch 199 ….(sic); Touraine 2001) already started to deal with this problem. Nevertheless it takes general and comparative approaches that eventually point to the constitutive features of complex society already highlighted by reaserch on European and Western modernity (Weber 1922; Parsons 1966 and 1971; habermas 1982; Luhmann 1984): the separation of political order, economic structure and civil society and their relative mutual autonomy; self-reflexive construction of personal identity; competition among rival world views, the existence of religious pluralism, the primacy of the future over the past (Eisenstadt 2001). The “program of modernity”- which is exemplified by the above-mentioned features- has not produced the same results everywhere. The building of modern society has taken place with different pattern of time , form and modes even in Europe. Moreover, in each country there are cultural, religious, even ethnic differences that compound pluralism within each European nation-State. The objective of the present research program is to see whether and how a commonly shared European identity, a way to become European is evolving from multiple national ways of life. By a quite widely used term, that lacks elegance though, we may say: the aim of our research is to study the Europeanization of important life practices, of institutional life practices and forms of civil society, the emergence and expression of a feeling of belonging to Europe as to a “common homeland” for which it would be eventually worthwhile dying. The transformation process of European identity is not studied in general. Just because it is a process, we mean to grasp it in its making, at its nascent stage. That is why we have studied new actors(for instance the soldiers who served in European missions, couples composed of an Italian citizen and a citizen from another European country; students of the Erasmus-Socrates projects) and some social or institutional networks, in order to grasp the emergence of the new features of the European identity and civil society. With reference to that, some relevant questions are the following:
1) What does it mean to be a soldier of Europe? What does one feel (pride, self-respect, brotherhood) when joining a military force that acts on behalf of Europe? What is the (friend-enemy) configuration taken on by the political and military space?
2) What are the traits of the European family? How are different tasks shared by spouses? What are the cultural patterns they transmit to their children? What notion of good and evil? What religious belief, what idea of God?
3) What feeling of belonging to Europe do young people express as new clerici vagantes who study in a foreign country, building new friendship relations networks and establishing novel human and professional rapports?
4) What kind of actions are taken by political parties to bestow a “European” dimension upon their programs? What are the prevailing communication styles and contents in this respect?
5) How do local institutional networks get structured? What are the traits of their “ being European”?
6) What is the direction taken by the established actors of civil society? What are the styles, opinions, practices peculiar to their “being or becoming European”?
7) As to the economic sphere, that has been quite systematically analyzed, are behavioural codes and strategies that may be called European emerging among young entrepreneurs?
Each research unit formulates the question about the European identity transformations in a specific way. By making such inroads into specific sectors of the Italian society, we intend to see whether a European social space is emerging with distinctive features peculiar to a European civil society, such as uniform practices, norms and life patterns that can be defined as typical of Europeans, not of this or that European member-State. Each research unit (see the projects of the research units) has developed the indexes that can determine the existence, characteristics and complex phenomenology of the Europeanization of the population segments and institutional networks that came under their investigation. <<<

First Results

The work carried out in this phase will yield the final elaboration of research hypotheses and preparation of survey and data collection tools to be used in the subsequent phase. Expected products are layouts of interviews and, in some cases, exploratory interviews, annotated bibliographies on the subjects under study. We plan to circulate such products only within the research groups taking part in the general project.Various materials: interviews and focus groups protocols; database derived from interviews and questionnaires administered to samples; early reports on research findings and short analyses of the importance and value of the products obtained in the two research phases.The products expected at this stage are short reports on the quality of collected material, general reports on the overall results obtained by means of the investigations.The products expected in this last phase of research are papers in the form of working papers, books or short monographic studies. A publication containing the overall results will be edited by the research Coordinator <<<

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

1.Research theoretical background and aims.
The project originates from the long-standing cooperation among the Universities of Florence, Genova, Perugia, Salerno and Trento both in terms of scientific activity and of high school education (master degree).
The research theoretical framework takes as its points of reference both sociological studies (Mendras, 1999; Crouch, 1999; Delanty, 1995 and 1998; Thernborn,1995; Eder, 2004; Cahloun,2003; Smith, 1992 and 1995) and political science studies of the Europeanization of the European Union member-States national contexts (Checkel 2000, Featherstone 1998; Kohler-Koch 1996; Radaelli 2000).
The present project tries to take another step forward in the study of the European identity and of the Europeanization of national societies. At the theoretical level it subscribes to a different definition of the European identity and of the process of becoming European. Future Europe, whatever its characteristics may be, will result from two interpenetrating processes:
- the first one develops at the social level, being a bottom-up process that manifests itself as voluntary action taken by citizens, who experience the European dimension through the mechanisms of social participation, of communication activated even informally via the social networks connecting groups, of interaction among more institutionalized networks and associations, such as professional associations, representative bodies and agencies and civil society organizations taking Europe as their life world;
- the second one develops at the level of institutions, being a top-down process effected by multiple pressures towards integration; it results from measures and action plans carried out in national societies by the European Union institutions.
The process by which such a supranational entity as the European Union was set up is so inherently complex that it demands a revision and innovation of the whole range of sociological categories suitable for analyzing and interpreting such an epochal turning point. The project covers a central area of sociological studies concerning social and cultural change, the sense of belonging to Europe and its symbolic form.
Our research takes into consideration two closely interconnected phenomena:
1. Actions taken by European institutions and Italian local governments (Regions; Provinces; big Municipalities) aimed at making civil societies and the public space more European. In regard to this, we aim to study from the institutional standpoint the meaning taken on by their becoming European. In particular, we will carry out research on. a) European Union campaigns on four key points: the enlargement to new members; the future of EU (Constitution and institutional reforms); the space of freedom, security and justice (discrimination, ethnic prejudices and racism); the role of the European Union in the world (defense and foreign policy) (COM 2002); Europe-oriented actions taken by local political and bureaucratic systems;
2.The sense of belonging, the imagery of organized social groups and the networks of individuals within procedures and mechanisms of European character. In this case we aim to identify the attitudes and perceptions of the process of becoming European in organized and nonorganized actors of national civil societies.
More specifically, our analysis will focus on the joint study of the social representations of different actors deemed important for studying the European integration process:
- couples composed of an Italian spouse and a spouse from another European country;
- councillors and managers of regional, provincial and municipal offices managing relations with the European Union;
- parties and their European activities;
- students who have participated for at least six months in the Erasmus projects;
- soldiers involved in Eu peace-keeping missions;
- Catholically oriented associations;
- young entrepreneurs;
- managers of the European information structure working in the different information networks scattered over the national territory;
- the representatives of the social parties involved in the activities of the Economic and Social Council.
Our research will also dwell on resistance, obstacles and sluggishness in implementing the Union policies in order to detect the mechanisms that prevent society from becoming European and possibly to suggest ways to boost the European identity construction.
1. The state of the art.
In the Italian sociological literature we find studies of the sense of belonging to Europe, of imagery connected to Europe, of social movements,of transnational movements. Instead, political science literature has tended to focus on the Europeanization process of Italian politicians, campaigns on the euro, on environment, against racism.
The proponents have worked on political elites, institutional transformations, European society and institutions (Florence); European economic elites (Genova); young people’s values and attitudes (Perugia); Europe and globalization, the representations of Europe by young Southern Italy students (Salerno), the representations of Europe at the transnational level, European identity and security, the EU communication policy (Trento).
As a whole, institutions having major impact on EU policies have been studied more thoroughly; instead less research work has been carried out on local settings, parties, professional groups, social networks and associations having minor impact on the EU policies.
Therefore this research aims to study the way in which individuals, social and professional groups and certain actors, both institutional and noninstitutional, participating in the European integration process become European.
We should stress the fact that European institutions have taken measures concerning their relation with their citizens (see COM 1976; COM 1985) as early as in the seventies and eighties. Furthermore the rules regulating the policies of citizens’ Europe and European citizenship became actual and cogent under the Maastricht treaty.
Many criticisms have been brought against Europe as it was shaped by the Maastricht treaty. They focus on two crucial points: the gap in EU democracy (see Schmitter,2000; Lippolis,1994; Scartezzini, 2002; Cotesta L., 2003; La Torre,1998; Shore, 2000); the perception that citizens remain considerably distant from European institutions.
Such problems, that are so to say inherent in the Union structure, are compounded by those created by the enlargement of the Union from 15 to 25 member-States.
So for all these reasons a reform of the Union institutional structure (see the project of the Constitution) has been recently initiated. It affects not only the balance of power among member-States, between the Parliament and the executive power, but also the relationship between the Union and European citizens. One of the reform aims, in fact, is that of securing a wider participation of citizens networks and civil society organizations in planning and implementing the Union policies (see the Green Paper on European Governance). The reform issue has raised a lively debate in the academic community, that approached the definition of European public space in agreement with the principles of Multilevel Governance. Several research studies (see Calhloun, 2003; Eder & Trenz,2004, Schlesinger,2003) advocate the need to create a European communicative space characterized by multiple levels.
In recent years academic literature has discussed at length the actual possibilities to define a European public space. Some authors infer from the starting point that there is no demos, no such thing as the European people (Grimm, 1995; Offe, 2002) that it is utterly impossible to do so. Others, instead, believe it is important to promote a sense of belonging to and identifying with Europe supported by different demoi. Within this perspective, the generally-accepted idea now is that of multilevel public space, characterized by diverse actors and audiences, with diverse forms of identification. (see for example Soysal, 2002).
Therefore in our research study we assume that the action program carried out by the Community institutions to define and represent the objective meaning of European belonging and identification with the European space must be compared with the action strategies of individual and/or collective actors participating in the construction of the European identity. One of the aims of our research is to develop a sort of analytical model concerning the theme of Europeanization of national civil societies that may be “imported” by other countries.
3.Composition of the research units and international collaborations.
Research units are mainly composed of researchers working for the Universities that propose the project. Anyhow, given the intense relations among the groups concerned, researchers from a certain unit may join another one depending on the subjects of study and his/her personal specific interests. Such an opportunity on the one hand allows researchers to enjoy more freedom and on the other hand ensures the formation of a truly national group and a higher level of communication for the project.
Both in the course of research and during the discussion of outcomes, we will constantly collaborate with sociologists from other European universities, such as:
-the Observatorio Europeo de Tendencias Sociales (Obets) from the Universidad de Alicante, directed by prof. A.Alaminos and J.M. Tortosa;
- the Network of Excellence „Social Cohesion in the Diversified European Knowledge Based Society“, directed by prof. Jan Spurk from the Université Paris V „la Sorbonne“;
- the British Centre for Durkheimian Studies, Oxford (UK), directed by W.S.F. Pickering and W. Watts Miller;
- the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences of Cambridge (UK);
- the Humboldt University, Institut fur Sozialwissenschaften (prof. Klaus Eder and Hans Jorg Trenz).
4. Research methodology.
Both qualitative and quantitative methods are continuously used in the research. Such interpenetration breaks new ground in comparison to the merely quantitative approach taken by other research studies carried out on the same subject. We will conduct surveys by using different techniques of data collection and analysis, depending on the targets of each individual line of investigation (see Description of the Program etc.; Projects for the individual Units). As to the study of individuals, groups, social and institutional networks, we will mainly use focus interviews, biographical interviews and focus groups. As to the study of soldiers, couples, entrepreneurs, in addition to biographical interviews, questionnaires for homogeneous, not very big samples will be prepared. As far as the Union policies are concerned, we will analyze qualitatively and quantitatively the contents of documents, directives and other materials used for communication by the European Union. We should finally stress the outstanding quality and experience of the group of researchers engaged in the project and their long-standing commitment to these subjects. <<<