To be or not to be, European : the meanings of European identities from a people's perspective

Most notions of European identity conceptualise one idea what it means to identify with Europe. In this thesis, I acknowledge the possibility of variation in meaning of European identities. My conceptual framework of identity portrays Europe as a collectivity (Malesevic & Haugaard 2002). To operationalise European identities, I refer to Brubaker & Cooper’s (2000) distinction concerning the empirical use of the notion of ‘identity’. I develop viable models of the contents and the structures of European identities based on political and cultural perceptions of communality in Europe. Furthermore, I characterise European identities as utilitarian and/or affective across the European Union. Based on two surveys (EuroBarometer 57.2 and EuroBarometer 60.1), I present evidence of the different understandings of what people consider their European identities. With confirmatory factor analysis, I first show that people basically distinguish between political and cultural identities. Although combinations of both types can be found in most countries, people mention different reasons as to why they identify with Europe. Using proportional ordered logistic regression models, European identities are described as utilitarian and/or affective. Again, the results show differences. Identification with Europe is the outcome of both affective and utilitarian perspectives on Europe. But the varying degree to which people construct their identities as emotional or utilitarian at the national level highlights the need to consider plural European identities. Accepting this diversity, a comparison of both analyses shows in which ways the contents and the characters of European identities could be combined across Europe.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo