Europe's odyssey?: political myth and the European Union

Abstract

The article argues that the European Union, despite being a different kind of polity, has political myths that are similar to those that have characterised nation-states. It examines two types of political myth -foundation and exceptionalismand demonstrates that they have been used in an attempt to make the European Union understandable and acceptable as a form of governing. The article also argues that political myths about the EU have had limited success not only because they are based on the same content as national myths but also because they do not always conform to recognisable narrative forms. The EU, with its ambiguous aim of creating 'an ever closer union', does not provide the basis for sacred narratives that become normative and cognitive maps that make the new polity 'normal' and provide the EU with ontological security.

National and European identity

“…The article is one of several deliberations (see Spieling, 1999;Cram, 2009;Antonsich, 2009;Della Sala, 2016) by students of nations and nationalism on the EU and national identity.…”

Two and a Half Tales of Europe: How the European Commission Narrates Peoplehood in Migration and Citizenship Policy

“…However, in the absence of strong characters of ‘we’ and the ‘other’, these narratives of incremental improvement were less explicit about creating social boundaries than romances can be (Özvatan 2020). Previous work has identified the lack of tension in European stories more generally as a weakness (Della Sala 2016, p. 538; Gilbert 2008). Also, in terms of the narrative's text, the Commission used dry language.…”

“…Peoplehood and policy narratives operate at different levels: The former operate as deeply held convictions, ‘public philosophies’ (Schmidt 2011, pp. 111–112) or political myths (Della Sala 2016, pp. 524–525), the latter as less entrenched ‘strategic constructions of a policy reality promoted by policy actors’ (Jones et al 2014, p. 9; Schmidt 2011, pp.…”

Nationalism and European disintegration

“…Yet, as both Ernst Haas and Lars‐Erik Cederman pointed out, whilst early neofunctionalism anticipated the formation of a European identity, and declarations such as the 1973 Copenhagen Declaration on the European Identity suggested early political intent to attain such a goal, the political and historical record suggests this has not been the case (Cederman, 2001: 139; Haas, 1993: 544). Notwithstanding the development of political myths to explain and legitimise European integration (Della Sala, 2016), the instability built into European integration prevented a legitimising identity at the European level from emerging. As Perry Anderson noted:

… the institutional origins of the European community were deliberately framed in dynamic, open‐ended terms … [It was] this teleological aspiration that set European integration categorically apart from the normal world of international agreements.

…”