RICERCA ITALIANA     

Italians and Europe: sociology of a difficult transnationality

Università degli Studi di Firenze

Abstract

The theme of a “difficult” transnationality must be tackled by means of a unhurried analysis of the different cultural dynamics of openess and closedness with regards to the European Union that are present in contemporary Italian society. European sociology must not adopt an approach in which the hyperspecialization can prove damaging to an adequate interpretation of complex processes. In this case the synergy is between the sociology of change, political sociology and the sociology of cultural processes. The fundamental categories which can direct the research program are: cultural symbols/structural dimensions; institutions/actors; the elites/the masses; localism/transnationality; cohesion/ fragmentization; type/generations. Such a research functions under the cover of a meaningful disciplinary deficit as far as European sociology is concerned. The construction of sociological concepts is a social process in the sense that it is directly linked to the social dynamics that the concepts must interpret. Globalization and transnationality are reflected in the strengthening of the degree to which euristic categories are becoming obsolete. European sociology has as its goal, in this special case, the critical re-examination of “old” theoretical categories such as “cleavage”, the public sphere, ideology, and collective memory and its other goal is to propose new categories. The research program intends to study the them in question through the analysis of some social and political actors seen as significant when defining the relationship between Italians and Europe. The operative level focuses on the subdivision of the research in five study proposals: a) the represented ideology of Europe in political parties and in various political movements (the Florence team); b) the “informed elite”, organized civil society and the local media in the structuring of the public European sphere (the Trento team; c) the images of Europe in intellectual productions (the Rome team); d) the memory of Shoah and civil European religion (the Perugia team); e) the image of Europe in local perspective: the Genovese case (the Genoa team). The investigation will refer to a “mixed” methodology which will make use of comparative research techniques which complement each other. In addition to making use of the classification analysis of the contents of the documents and of the non-structured interviews (interviews that will be narrative and biographical), a deliberate poll will be employed as a revelatory technique which will consist of involving groups which will be provided with the materials and the information necessary for the construction of an informed and articulated opinion regarding the idea of Europe. In addition, an quantitative assessment will be attempted on the question of resistance/openess towards Europe, achieved through a “scaling” of the attitudes of the interviewed populations. The empirical goal is to construct a series of “scales” suitable in formulating the problem in order to measure the usual distinction between Euro-optimism and Euro-skepticism. Amongst the expected research results is that in the end that the research design can be exported to other European countries in order to provide the basis of a transnational comparative analysis. <<<

Principal Investigator

Gianfranco Bettin Università degli Studi di FIRENZE

Research Objectives

The following proposal is in thematic and methodological harmony with the research project “Becoming Europeans” (PRIN 2004) which is in its final stages. “Becoming Europeans” is a centered on the study of those actors that reshape their roles in the Europeanization prospect in both a gradated and a differentiated manner. The current conjuncture marks a significant countertendency regarding the delay and resistance of national societies to Europeanization. Some processes of external macromutation to European society are reflected in a determining way at various levels on the formation of a European identity. One thinks of globalization and the response in terms of exasperated localism.
To the affects of European broadening which nourish regionalistic or nationalistic closings one associated the influence of a complex process of sociocultural pluralism owed to migrations which translates to a reinforcement of the divergences and which produces uncertainties that distance diverse segments of civil society from Europe. The style of European life is affirmed in a tiring way in spheres and external elitist levels whilst the social representations of Europe on a mass scale are obscured by a weakening of the sense of belonging beyond the restricted municipal and national spaces.
The delay demonstrated by European society seems in good part to be owed to the obsoleteness of interpretative categories which are adopted for comparitive studies and also at a macroanalytic level. From here the usefulness of an empirical research project which has as its goal the re-establishment of a theoretical basis becomes apparent.
In particular the critical reworking and the moving away from the Rokkanian contribution is one of the major goals of a sociological research on the sphere of contemporary European society. For example, the concept of “cleavage” must be reconstructed in the light of the real process of socio-political development whilst taking into consideration the dimension of the transformation crisis of a single national society in a transnational context. Particular attention must be paid to a euristic interweaving between typologies and topologies: with special focus on the territorial roots and the relative mapping of the “phenomenology of the fractures”. The study of the Italian case conducted with a view to verify at a socio-institutional level the processes of resistance to Europeanization must be organized taken apart from every form of nationalism methodology and must be designed in such a way as to define an analytical paradigm useful on the comparative level within the VII Program framework.
The project then takes as a presupposed specific that to weave together the findings of the three specialized sociologies with the intent of making use of the analytical plane as interdisciplinary synergy. That corresponds to a choice according to which European sociology must adopt an approach in which hyperspecialization is damaging to an adequate interpretation of complex processes. In this case the synergy is between the sociology of change, political sociology, and that of cultural processes.
The fundamental categories which can guide the new project are: cultural symbols/ structural dimensions; institutions/actors; the elite/the masses; localism/transnationalism; cohesion/fragmentation; type/generations.
The research will examine the them of openess/closedness on the Europeanization process as to how it is lived in Italian society by reflecting on the interest shown by institutional dimension and various social actors. Such an approach can especially respond to the demand of a theoretical character, that is to question the euristic interpretative capacity of some key concepts in the analysis of social change which qualifies sociology as a modern science of European society (for example, concepts of transnationality, risk-uncertainty, identity, appearances, foreigners, integration, collective memory and the public sphere). Amongst the attainable objectives is the possibility to extract from them by studying the theme in question, namely the elements of the predictability capable of offering a reflection on the ends of implementation of specific instruments for political futures.
The theme of openess and closedness regarding the European process can be worked out with a double perspective: symbolic/cultural and structural. In specific it will deal with a study of the ideological elaborations which institutions propose as “Europe” and at the same time the social representations which emerge from some sectors of society and the eventual meetings or incongruities between the two levels, that of the ruling class (the political elites, the “informed elite”, the intellectuals) and that of common citizens. Such an approach can legitimately provoke thought about the tension/resistance in contemporary Italian society to the European theme, which could prove to be a resource for the process itself, more than a hindrance, because it testifies to the presence of a critical and politicized response to the integration process from the “top-down” matrix. The hypotheses that is to be tested is the development of a social and political model of Europe, truly responsive to the demands of a constitutional civil European society, which could represent an important alternative in confronting the perverse effects of an integration process socially regarded in a way that is overly determined and exclusionary from an economic point of view.
The investigation ought to avail itself of a mixed methodology which will employ research techniques which complement each other. The idea is to make use of the classificatory analysis of the contents of the official documents ( e.g. party programs, convention acts) and of public manifestos (e.g. articles in specialized newspapers, sector magazines and official websites, specialist books on the European theme) and of the realization of non-structured interviews (which will be narrative and biographical) of various segments of the national ruling class as well as the local aforementioned, as well as to the exponents of social movement. The deliberative poll will also be used as a revelatory technique which consists of using groups (of 15 people on average) which will be furnished with the materials and information necessary for the construction of an informed and articulated opinion on the idea of Europe. Questionnaires will be gathered on that and there will be recorded discussions subdivided in to groups of “before and after” having distributed the materials measuring the high or low shifts from the original opinions. Naturally the revelatory techniques will be taken into account and remeasured according to the specific objective of the research. For example, an attempt will be made to deal quantitatively with the question of open/closedness towards Europe by means of a “scaling” of the attitudes of the interviewed population. The research goal is to construct a series of “suitable scales” to problematize and measure the usual distinction between Euro-optimism and Euro-skepticism. Amongst the expected research results is the ultimate exportation of the research’s design to other European countries in order to nourish an analysis of a comparative transnational nature.
We foresee a series of initiatives for the diffusion of the research results. Above all the realization, taken care of by each team, of a synergistic relationship with the results of the respective investigations, publishable under the form of working paper and/or monographs. The contributions of each team will be successively debated in a convention which will involve the various teams together with a panel of Italian and foreign experts all discussing the theme in question. We also predict the drafting of a final report (published as a collective monograph) and the organization of an international conference for the presentation of the results. <<<

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

This research project has as its goal the re-establishment of a theoretical framework in a sphere whose disciplinary nature has not yet been defined: the sociology of Europe. This goal is hindered by a tendency to overspecialize that characterizes the empirical research and also by a literature on the Europeanization process that is counterdistinguished by a prevalently theoretical imposition that goes away from the concrete reference and systematical points of the European context as considered in a unified framework. The majority of the studies adopt a comparative approach, favoring a spatial relation. Another important thread of analysis takes into consideration the factors of long duration as the sources of both convergences and of the divergences between national societies. On the one hand we have works which theorize, more or less explicitly, the dominant value of the phenomenons relative to the social and economic organization, and on the other hand, we can find works in which the analytical bais of departure is instead constituted by the forms of civilization – such as the cultural and religious principles. Also regarding the subject of Europe the confrontation is proposed – classic in the history of sociology – between the structuralist and cultural approachs. In reference to this state of the art of European sociology, the research project proposed intends to furnish a contribution to the renewal of the conceptual apparatus, questioning itself on the euristic interpretative capacity of some key concepts for the analysis of social and political European change. Following a constructivist approach, the process of Europeanization is analyzed classically apart from the social presentations and the societal models elaborated by different segments of society that confront each other in a discoursive space. Considering therefore the Europeanization as a non univocal concept and the idea of Europe as a image with much senses, the project proposed intends to evaluate how diverse images and European “ideologies” fall into relationship with each other – in this case taking as a departure point the representations produced by various segments of Italian society – that then delineate a complete picture of “unsure and difficult transnationality”. In this light it is interesting to evaluate the breadth of the concordances/incongruities that emerge between the Europeanistic/AntiEuropeanist ideologies elaborated by those same elites and the social representations expressed by the actors of civil society and therefore also to connect to the direction that leads toward a stabilization in the communicative flows between the apex of society, the institutions and the citizens, with the goal the individuation as much of the Europeanization process characterized today by a “top-down” dynamic, as much as the opening to a redefinition of “from the bottom”, characterizing itself as “mass driven.”

I) The first hypothesis to be verified empirically necessitates a critical revisitation of a traditional category like that of ideology. This offers an analytical opportunity praticable as soon as it allows a reading of the Europeanization process focusing on the symbolic-cultural dimension. From this it becomes necessary to study the ideology, evaluating it in its critical knots and its historical mutations, in order to relate it successively to a transnational dimension that is both open and problematic. The two usual interpretative paradigms of the ideologies define the political ideas according to the criteria of true/false or rather catalogue them according to their usefulness, departing from a euristic definition. In other words the role of ideology can be identified as a myth justified by the status quo of the elites, which is opposition to Utopia, understood as a revolutionary myth of the classes that agitate to transform society (Karl Mannheim). In the sphere relevant to the Florentine entity, these distinctions constitute the interpretative path of the socio-cultural and political effects of the Europeanization process that shall be analyzed favoring two sphere: that of the political parties and that of the social movements. In concrete terms, in the research hypothesis we ask ourselves if a verticality exists between the ideological construction of the “Europes” to the work of the political classes and the social representations of civil society; from here arise the questions: what are the motives which permit an idea like that of Europe to take root and construct itself as an ideology? What are the ideological elements and how do they shape themselves as a proposed model of resistance to European integration? Taking the symbolic date of 1989 as a point of departure, the theory of the end of ideologies, elaborated in the second half of the twentieth century (Aron, Shils, Bell), has been taken up again and emphasized, associating it to the images of “the end of history”, and successively, of “the end of politics” (Fukuyama). During these problematic years Europeanism itself seems to offer be a candidate, in the context of an ideological picture and strongly emptied of sense, seems to be the new ideology of the present – even if viewed in a more programmatic and less “high” sense. In this view the growing conflictuality which has been developing on the theme of European integration, the different positions of the political parties and the movements, can be interpreted not as a resistance to Europe, but as a sign of the active participation in the integration process by the vast sectors of European society. This means that the emerging criticism after the referendum failure on the European Constitution (in France and Holland), even if directed towards the project’s approaches still represents an idea that is potentially innovative, acquired by discussing the legitimacy and function, inserting itself in to the reflexives of the communicative dynamics and contributing to the construction of the European Union by means of a different way of expressing the same Europeanism (Trenz and Eder 2004).

II) With an ever greater strength we are becoming aware of become aware of the importance of analysing the social construction of Europe (Delanty1998), putting special emphasis on the transformation of the European space and on the processes of socialisation and social learning which have been happening within it (Checkel 1999, Rumford 2002: Delanty and Rumford 2005). The theoretical approach which provides the backdrop for this ensemble of studies is that to which the Trento group also makes reference, and it is that of social constructivism, whose assumption is the existence of a European space of becoming, in which diverse processes of identity formation exist and which must consider the effects of the Europeanization process on the sense of belonging. To the current state it appears altogether evident the difficult I considering the social construction of Europe in a scenario in which resistance processes seem rather imposed by the various social actors at different levels, taking into account the ever more complex path toward Europeanization. That very concept of Europeanization, of which multiple definitions have been given (Borneman and Fowler 1998; Rosa 2003) is central to the analysis that the group in Trento wants to conduct, with particular reference to three considerations. First of all, one considers the idea of Europeanisation as a process which implies all the discursive modalities of adaptation and reception of European norms and which does not simply concern an impact of institutions “Above nations” over national systems (Olsen 2002; Radaelli 2004). In this sense, in the process which leads an institution or a group of actors to acknowledge European norms it seems useful to enquire into the discursive processes on which the so-called resistence to the Europeanisation process is built. In the second place, Euopeanisation is conceptualised as a process which leads to a change in the structures of meaning and in the social representations of individuals (Breakwell and Lyons 1996; Cotesta and Pendenza 2004; Scartezzini 1998). It therefore seems useful to understand on what cognitive bases the resistence to European integration is built. Thirdly, Europeanisation can be conceived as a process which leads to the continuous changes of the EU borders and to the definition of a homogeneous identity with which one can present oneself on the chess board of international relations. In this case, it is interesting to question oneself about the real capacities the EU has to influence the global scene and the important basic questions that structurally define this field (Whitman 2002).

III) The epistemolgical question is if the orientations of public opinion follow the position of the governing bodies or rather if it is the governing bodies that must express their convictions based on public opinion. It is reasonable to sustain that between the two phenomenon there is a reciprocal game of influences, with oscillations and tensions, a sort of “double hermeneutic” (Giddens 1979). According to this concept, between social theory and the opinion of the citizens, there would be a dynamic interpenetration in the send that the first would elaborate the problems deemed relevant by the second, and those would in their turn form themselves be the formulations of social scientists. A similar dynamic can exist in act not just amongst the social science theories, but also amongst the less systematic positions of those intellectuals active in the discourse on Europe and in the opinion of the citizens.
One of the hypotheses of this research is that the intellectual production on Europe contributes in a notable way both to the formation of the convictions of those in governing positions as well as to the orientation of the citizens.
The questions is in synthesis the following: which ideas of Europe and of the EU are the Italian intellectuals proposing? What are the models in Europe elaborated and discussed in the public sphere? The construction process of the EU, with its expansion to the eastern countries and with the petition for admission by Turkey, is about to fill in the distance between the physical and cultural form of Europe and its political form? In fact, the EU and Europe tend to be confused with each other on an ever greater basis in both the public discourse and in the discourse of the intellectuals and the experts. But at the same time, this semantic ambiguity hides the real dimensions of the European identity that are deserving of serious and attentive scientific investigation. We hope to comprehend if, and eventually to what degree, the models of European identity produced by the intellectuals can elaborate ways for the future in which Europe appears as a positive or rather if they will express fears, uncertainties, risks for collective and personal, developing in such a way a role of opposition, resistance and obstacle to the Europeanization process.

IV) In the picture of the development of sociological studies and culture, an interest has recently developed as to the meaning that the traumatic events have on the formation of a collective identity (cfr. Allexander, Eyerman, Giesen, Smelser and Sztompka 2004). In the context of European studies, this interest is translated into a reflection on the significance that memory of Shoah can have on the future of the European identity. From a sociological point of view of the culture we ask ourself, in other words, if the memory of Shoah can be a unifying factor in the memory of a new Europe under construction, to the point that it could potentially constitute a form of civil religion that will make a counterpoint to “negative universalism” or if, on the contrary, it could not become a symbolic resource of conflict and division (cf. Giesen 2004). The scientific expectation of these studies is that its constructive epistemological nature (Alexander 2004 and Giesen 2004). Considered from this point of view as much as European identity as how much the idea of Shoah as an “icon of evil” are the result of a process of scioal construction. By using an approach that is constructive, we propose to study Shoah as a traumatic event that is invested in European collective identity. The event becomes a trauma in relation to a collective identity after following a process of social construction that applies a symbolization with normative connotations. From the event we pass to the social normative representation by means of a social construction whose subjects are producers-trasmittors-destined vessels for the memory (cfr. Cavalli 1996), and by means of a process mediated by the essential function of the practices of the remembrance. The institution of the January 27th as the “Day of Remembrance” is about to indicate that the process of the construction of the social memory of Shoah has already successfully completed the initial phase, and it is just that them that turns around these celebrations that intend to take as a principle reference that very empirical research, to investigate the waves and the processes of the social construction of that event.

V)The European project, does not propose simply the renewal of the processes for the construction of national identities, but it also turns towards the dynamics at a local level. From there the choice of the political sphere to draw closer more significantly to the urban and comunitarian territories, appreciating them in the specific attempt to recuperate a legimiting capacity to act in times of crisis. In the sphere of cultural political communitarian studies, some contributions have emphasized the relevance assumed by the manifesto “European City of Culture.” This event, This event, on the one hand, promotes a new image of chosen urban areas in decline, like Glasgow in 1990 and Rotterdam in 2000 (Booth and Boyle 1993: Hitters 2000). ON the other hand, the project “European City of Culture” is being taken care of by the citizen administrations as an occasion to appreciate the specifics of the urban space in the broader European context (Sassatelli 2003). On the expected results and on the hesitations of the strategy elaborated at Brussels, the research and the sociological reflection complain of a strong gap. The occasion to analyze the Italian empirical case is offered by the experience that has recently taken place in the Ligurian capital with “Genoa
European Capital of Culture” (2004). This event is linked in a particular way to the Europeanization process in which the attempt to reinforce and appreciate a specific locality in the broader European context. In substance, the reinforcement of a nuclear identity of “Genovesity” has significance, projectecting it onto the European plane that is not negligible segment of its ensemble. We propose as a case-study the particular interests since the city of Genoa represents the Italian archetype of a possible “region” of Europe, specific in its characteristics, eligible as “Mediterranean”, the significance of which was declared by many. The goal of this section of the research project is to analyze, from a distance of two years, the results obtained by this initiative. We intend to examine the image of Europe proposed by the institution during this event reconstructing the networks the administrations had activated for the event’s implementation. We would also like to consider how much of an impact such an image had on the two segments of the population: the younger generation and the older one. This case-study on the one hand, integrates with the project of the other entities working to focus the analysis on the relationship elites-masses of the symbolic production of Europe and introducing, on the other hand, the generational dimension who characterizing feature is the local context in question. <<<