Upholding Shared Values in the EU: What Role for the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights?

Toggenburg, Gabriel N.; Grimheden, Jonas

doi:10.1111/jcms.12404

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 2 publications

(2 reference statements)

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“…The EU avows to be based on and to pursue shared values. Indeed, one of the EU’s declared primary goals is to promote certain values both internally and externally (Akaliyski, 2019; Toggenburg & Grimheden, 2016; Oshri et al, 2016). This relates to the image of the EU as a “value entrepreneur” (Gerhards, 2008, 2010) and a normative power (Manners, 2002).…”

Section: Theoretical Framework and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Clashing Values: Supranational Identities, Geopolitical Rivalry and Europe’s Growing Cultural Divide

Akaliyski

Welzel

2020

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology

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Soon after the collapse of Soviet-type communism in Central and Eastern Europe, a new geopolitical division began to reshape the continent. Our study demonstrates that this newly emerging geopolitical divide has been underpinned by a corresponding cultural divergence, of which “emancipative values” are the most powerful marker. Using the European Values Study/World Values Survey 1990 to 2014, we find that the former Iron Curtain no longer constitutes a cultural boundary because the ex-communist states that joined the European Union have been converging with the West’s strong emphasis on emancipative values. Instead, a new and steeply growing cultural gap has emerged between the European Union and its Eastern neighbors. The two competing geopolitical formations in the West and East—the European and Eurasian Unions, respectively—have diverged culturally in recent decades. The divergence goes back to contrasting supranational identities that originate in different religious traditions, which rulers have increasingly accentuated to strengthen their nations’ endorsement or dismissal of emancipative values. Through this sorting-out process, emancipative values became an increasingly significant marker of a Western-vs-Eastern cultural identity. Our study is the first to link this groundbreaking cultural transformation to civilizational identities and geopolitical rivalry.

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Section: Theoretical Framework and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Clashing Values: Supranational Identities, Geopolitical Rivalry and Europe’s Growing Cultural Divide

Akaliyski

Welzel

2020

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology

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“…In particular, the EU's expansion to the east exacerbates the problem of shared political values as a requirement for EU legitimisation (Fuchs & Klingemann 2002). Internalisation of the EU's values are not only obligatory for any member state or potential candidate (Toggenburg & Grimheden 2016), but cultural compatibility has been a central concern in public debates about EU enlargement. For example, 68.9 per cent of European respondents (N = 22,744) worry that the 'cultural differences between Turkey and the EU Member States are too significant to allow it to join the EU' and 93.6 per cent (N = 23,609) agree that to 'join the EU, Turkey will have to systematically respect human rights' (Eurobarometer data, calculated in Gerhards & Hans 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

United in diversity? The convergence of cultural values among EU member states and candidates

Akaliyski

2018

European J Political Res

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The European Union (EU) is considered to be a unique economic and political union that integrates most European countries. This article focuses on the cultural aspect of European integration, which has been increasingly debated over the course of deepening and widening integration and in the context of the legitimation crisis of the EU. Among the main goals of the EU is to promote certain values, which raises the question of whether it has been efficient in (or enabled) reducing cultural value gaps among the participating countries. World polity and institutional isomorphism theories suggest that cultural values may trickle down in a vertical manner from the institutions of the EU to its member states and candidates. Furthermore, hybridisation theory postulates that values diffuse horizontally through intensified interactions enabled by the EU. These two perspectives imply the possibility of cultural convergence among countries associated with the EU. By contrast, the culture clash thesis assumes that differences in cultural identity prevent value convergence across countries; growing awareness of such differences may even increase the pre‐existing cultural value distances. To test these different scenarios, distances in emancipative and secular values are compared across pairs of countries using combined repeated cross‐sectional data from the European Values Study and the World Values Survey gathered between 1992 and 2011. This study finds that the longer a country has been part of the EU, the more closely its values approximate those of the EU founding countries, which in turn are the most homogenous. Initial cultural distance to the founders’ average values appears irrelevant to acquiring membership or candidacy status. However, new member states experienced substantial cultural convergence with old member states after 1992, as did current candidates between 2001 and 2008. Since 1992, nations not participating in the integration process have diverged substantially from EU members, essentially leading to cultural polarisation in Europe. The findings are independent of (changes in) economic disparities and suggest the importance of cultural diffusion as one of the fundamental mechanisms of cultural change. This empirical study contributes to the literature on European integration, political and sociological theories of globalisation, and cross‐cultural theories of societal value change.

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“…20 Underlying these suggestions is the correct assumption that proactive protection of fundamental rights is a means to prevent rule of law crises. 21 This conclusion is echoed in the 2016 FRA Opinion on the development of an integrated tool of objective fundamental rights indicators, wherein the FRA argued for the overarching nature of human rights for Article 2 TEU values. 22 The Opinion then compellingly outlined the possibility of utilising existing information and data for the population of indicators to measure compliance with shared EU values.…”

Section: The Rule Of Law In the Fra's Mandatementioning

confidence: 99%

Upholding the rule of law in the EU

Pech¹,

Grogan²

2019

Human Rights Law and Evidence-Based Policy

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Upholding Shared Values in the EU: What Role for the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights?

Cited by 8 publications

References 2 publications

Clashing Values: Supranational Identities, Geopolitical Rivalry and Europe’s Growing Cultural Divide

Clashing Values: Supranational Identities, Geopolitical Rivalry and Europe’s Growing Cultural Divide

United in diversity? The convergence of cultural values among EU member states and candidates

Upholding the rule of law in the EU

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