Socio-territorial psychic constructs, such as national identities, are perhaps the most important psychic phenomena for political science, with their strength so consequential for wars and inter-ethnic conflicts. The construction of the EU has faced scholars and practitioners with two identity-related problems: (i) whether the socio-territorial identities can be conceptualized as being multi-layered (nested, hyphenated, with non-conflictual relationships among the components), and (ii) whether the higher levels of these identity constructs can be confined to civic aspects (e.g. to a Habermasian constitutional patriotism), as opposed to traditional nationalisms relying on assumptions of common origin, and shared culture. The most entrenched classification of nationalisms relies on an obvious difference between the kinds of nationalisms endorsed by the Irish and Germans, on one hand, and the French and white immigrant countries like the US, on the other hand. These versions are generally labeled "ethnocultural," involving the consciousness of a shared ancestry and history, and "civic", relying on the idea of belonging to the same state. My argument is that a schism within the "civic" approach to nationalism can theoretically be expected and empirically supported on the basis of the ISSP 2003, Eurobarometer 57.2 and 73.3 surveys. These datasets confirm the existence of three principal components of nationalism, which can be labeled "ethnocultural", "great-power-civic" and "welfare-civic". While the great-power-civic approach is concerned with and takes pride in the country's military strength, international influence, sovereignty, and national character, the welfare-civic approach takes a more civilian stance and it is concerned with common rights, fair treatment of groups, social security, and welfare within the country. In addition, support has been found for the assumption that people tend to construct their supra-national identity layer according to the molds for their national identity.
Global studies, or the study of globalization, is a diverse field of research, with different disciplinary focuses and with some national versions. Russian Alexander Chumakov constructed it as a philosophical discipline, while in U.S. academia it is considered an empirical inquiry at the intersection of area studies, international studies, and international relations. This paper focuses on American global studies, pointing out the heavy epistemological burden it inherited from the field of knowledge dominated by international relations, which enshrines both methodological and political nationalism. International relations makes claims to be the sole theory originator in this field, but it may be criticized for several methodological and ethical issues (such as unwarranted simplifications that purge empirical contents to the point of unfalsifiability, antiquated epistemic ideals, Western and hegemonic biases, besides methodological nationalism), thus alternate theorizations are highly desirable.
Most of what has been written on the ECSC/EEC/EC/EU, has not been done by international relations (IR) theorists, but by comparativists, sociologists, historians, anthropologists, legal scholars, and many others. These writings are in general classified as intergovernmentalist, federalist, and supranationalist (functionalist and neofunctionalist) in most accounts of the theoretical perspectives on the EU (Webb 1983, Rosamond 2000. Wiener and Diez 2004 add a rational choice institutional category, as well, as they think that the policy analysis within the polity developed into an autonomous brand of literature. It is only Andrew Hurrell in his chapter in Fawcett and Hurrell 1995, who makes an attempt to present the EU, as a regional integration, from the point of view of diverse IR approaches. Drawing on his classification scheme, I conduct an inquiry of the IR theories about European unification from the point of view of whether they allow for the iteration of the European experience in other parts of the world or not. The basic conclusion is that almost all IR work on Europe falls in the intergovernmentalist category, which tends to conceptualize the European Union as representing an n of 1. (Intergovernmentalism is the choice of realism and neo-realism, English School, and neoliberal institutionalism.) Within the liberal IR paradigm, there is a tension between law-focused and security-focused approaches, on the one hand, and economic approaches, on the other. The first believe in the possibility of multiple integrations, while the latter does not think that they are desirable. Critical theories are also hindered by divergent normative commitments, though the class-based theorizing is very clear about pursuing the social control of markets. Keywords
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