European Imaginaries and the Intelligibility of Integration

Dados Bibliográficos

ID12736722
AutoresWilliam Biebuyck (Carleton University, autor correspondente)
Ano2010
Volume18
Fascículo2
Páginas161-180
Data de publicação2010-06-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Contemporary European Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1478-2790 • E-ISSN: 1478-2804
EditoraTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14782804.2010.486967
OpenAlexW1995256639
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas6
Referências citadas55

This article subjects 'Europe' and 'European politics' to critical reflection. The article advances in three parts. The first section discusses the importance of narrative in the broader discursive construction of Europe as a political object and reality. The aim of this section is to demonstrate the utility of two conceptual heuristics in particular—'imaginary' and 'field'—insofar as they help to delineate specific discourses and practices related to European politics. The second section explores two imaginaries now influential in shaping the intellectual common sense around Europe: the 'academic' and 'bureaucratic' imaginaries. The article closes with the third section arguing that to contest Europe requires the destabilization of two assumptions that are foundational for both imaginaries of Europe: (1) the idea that Europe is something 'already there'; and (2) Europe is something we 'already know'. Keywords: imaginaryeuropean integrationnarrativediscourse Acknowledgements I would like to thank Michael McCrossan, Chris Rumford and William Walters for comments and critiques on earlier drafts of this article. Notes 1 Vighi and Feldner (Citation2006) provide an interesting interpretation of the 'No' vote to the Constitution in 2005. They do so by drawing on the writings of Slavoj Žižek. They argue that the rejection of the Constitution could (possibly) signify the 'traumatic' (Lacanian) act necessary to pull the EU away from its neoliberal and ethnocentric moorings. Of course, while the rejection itself may not have happened for 'radical' reasons—and in fact likely occurred for the 'wrong' ones (xenophobia, nationalism, etc.)—a certain public and intellectual space has nonetheless opened around this rejection-spectacle. This 'dialectical' case for change seems even more appealing now that Western Europe has experienced the most serious economic downturn since the inter-war period. Both problems—how to deepen integration and to promote economic growth—have only intensified as a result of the recent crisis. Is a radical rethink of Europe possible under these new conditions? 2 As Rumford (Citation2009) points out, the EU is often presented as (the limits of) European politics. This is, of course, problematic. Many important aspects of European politics do not involve directly the institutions of the EU (for example, welfare state retrenchment or various social movements). But more importantly, argues Rumford, this assumption that the EU = Europe leads to an intellectual obsession with 'integration' at the cost of other social phenomena that escape the logics and language of EU studies-inspired 'integration theory'. 3 We are reminded that the articulation of any collective political identity is often the result of having a threatening 'outside' to juxtapose against a vulnerable but more civilized and authentic 'inside' (see especially Campbell, Citation1998). In addition to taking place between states, this 'inside/outside' logic can also transpose within a territorial political unit (such as the EU). Interestingly, this is not the first instance where Europeans have used some manifestation of themselves as an 'other' to consolidate a particular identity. For much of the post-war period, argues Diez (Citation2004), Europe's 'other' was in fact Europe's own destructive and violent history; colonialism, fascism, two 'world' wars. Crucially, this 'other Europe' remained a constant incitement for pursuing the goals of peace, prosperity and supranationalism that formed the core mission for a post-war 'integrated' Europe (see Weiler, Citation1995). In any event, it is important to recall how the formulation of a European idea or identity will often not resort to the 'other' that lies outside, but rather the 'other Europe' it wishes not to be/become again. 4 In a slightly different manner, Foucault stresses the same sentiment. We will not gain a full understanding of modernity by conceptually separating our ideas from our institutional practices: 'Discourses would thus be seen in a describable relationship with a set of other practices. Instead of having to deal with an economic, social or political history which encompasses a history of thought (which would be its expression and something like its duplicate), instead of having to deal with a history of ideas attributed (through a play of signs and expressions, or by relations of causality) to extrinsic conditions, one would be dealing with a history of discursive practices in the specific relationships which link them to other practices' (Foucault, Citation1991, p. 64) 5 Biebuyck (Citation2009) discusses another imaginary of Europe prevalent in numerous 'popular-academic' books written on the European project (see especially Reid, Citation2004; Rifkin, Citation2004). While these works are written in a different style, with a broad but generally educated readership in mind, the strategies for representing Europe have some overlap with the imaginaries discussed here; notably, the assumption that Europe has a definite historical and cosmopolitan form. Unlike the imaginaries reviewed here, the 'popular–academic' genre places greater stress on Europe's differences from the United States (Europe as (un)American)

Epistemology · Intelligibility (philosophy · Political science · Central European national history · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · European Union Policy and Governance · Philosophy