Vicarious Evaluation: How European Integration Changes National Identities

Dublin Core

Title

Vicarious Evaluation: How European Integration Changes National Identities

Description

This paper explores how European integration impacts the national identities of Member States. Identity is an amorphous concept, and so this paper focuses on one dimension of it: the perception of the relative status of the nation that nationalized individuals possess. Perceptions of relative national status flow from the fact that the international system is characterized by hierarchy, competition, and concerns for relative gains and losses. A key motivation for the foreign policies of lower status nations is equality with higher status ones, and for the former, European integration is often perceived in equalizing terms. But, this perception of Europe as equalizer often does not correspond with objectively unequal power relations in Europe. This paper focuses on why, among nationalized individuals, perceptions of power differentials change, even though objectively the unequal inter-state power relations may remain unchanged. The case study is Italy entering the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union in 1999, which was perceived by many Italians in equalizing terms, even though the unequal power relations between Italy and Europe's elite countries remained objectively the same.
 
Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v7i2.219

Creator

Giurlando, Philip

Source

Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies; 2012: RERA V7:2 Special ECSA-C Conference Issue (backfile abstracts)
2562-8429
10.22215/cjers.v7i2

Publisher

Centre for European Studies, Carleton University

Date

2012-08-01

Type

info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Peer-reviewed Article

Identifier

Citation

Philip Giurlando, Vicarious Evaluation: How European Integration Changes National Identities, Centre for European Studies, Carleton University, 2012, accessed November 22, 2024, https://igi.indrastra.com/items/show/2752

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