Narrating the Process: Questioning the Progressive Story of European Integration*

Abstract

Underlying scholarship on the EU is the conviction that the institutions of the EU are the outcome of a historical process whereby national institutions are being superseded and replaced by supranational ones. The article criticizes this tendency, for two reasons. First, it argues that the progressive conception has led to the story of the EU being told in over-simplified and unhistorical ways. Second, it suggests that the progressive conception has blinded authors to the possibility that alternative narratives of European integration are possible and that these may come to predominate if the European project loses its aura of success. Copyright (c) 2008 The Author(s). Journal compilation (c) 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Introduction: a narrative turn in European studies

“…The growing interest in narratives in the EU can be seen as a result of the decay of the grand narrative of an ever deeper integration amongst the peoples of Europe (Gilbert 2008) and the emergence of competing explanations and projects resulting from the politicisation of the EU in recent years. In the wake of the financial crisis the EU is now becoming an issue in member states' internal politics and has never been so present in the public sphere (Beck 2013).…”

“…The question of agency has been discussed by debating whether hegemonic narratives of Europe are constructed by the institutions and national leaders or whether they are shaped by societal and cultural forces (Chenal and Smelders 2012). Authors have also noticed the evolution of public narratives from an uncontroversial perspective of ever closer union to ever more dramatic narration of European crises (Gilbert 2008;Trenz 2016). Attention has also been paid to the role of narrators and narrative genres focusing on mediators as diverse as intellectuals and quality media (Koopmans and Statham 2010;Lacroix and Nicolaidis 2011) or museums and history teaching projects (Calligaro 2013;Charlety 2006;Kaiser 2015) as well as forms of banal Europeanisation narratives conveyed by tourism, mass culture and sports (Trenz 2016).…”

More or Less Europe? The European Leaders’ Discourses on the Refugees Crisis

“…In the European integration context, in contrast, the study of narratives, with some notable exceptions, is relatively new (see Gilbert, 2008;Eder, 2009). The discursive approach of Europeanization considers that this process is intrinsically linked to the meta-narrative of Europe as a social entity: European society (Trenz, 2014).…”

Forestillinger om fred. Den norske Nobelkomiteen og den europeiske integrasjonsprosessens historiedidaktikk

“…Risikoen ved mer offentlig inngripen er slik sett å penbar. Den teleologiske diskursen om EUs suksess med stadig tettere integrasjon kan også gjøre historikere og politikere blinde for at historien kunne ha utviklet seg annerledes, og de blir dermed då rligere rustet til å møte politiske og økonomiske kriser som kan føre til stillstand eller oppløsningstendenser (Gilbert, 2008).…”