Explaining European Identity Formation

European identity and citizens' support for the EU: Testing the utilitarian approach

“…The concepts of identity and identification with the EU have been analysed in the literature in terms of individual and collective European identity. Individuals' identification can be explained as “citizens' self‐categorisation as European together with their evaluations of their membership in the European collective and their affective attachment to Europe and other Europeans” (Bergbauer, , p. 6). Bergabuer's definition is grounded on Tajfel's () work in the social psychology field.…”

“…The cognitive and evaluative dimensions are at the core of the concept of collective identity as defined by the social psychology approach (David & Bar‐Tal, ), while the we‐feeling or sense of community lies at the root of the sociological perspective towards collective identity put forward by Easton (). Bergbauer () combines the two approaches by offering the following normative definition of European identity: “A collective European identity will be stronger, the higher the number of EU citizens who identify with Europe, the stronger citizens' identification with Europe, and the more citizens are aware of other citizens' identification with Europe” (Bergbauer, , p. 25). As highlighted by Jiménez, Górniak, Kandulla, Kiss, and Kosic (), in contrast to historically rooted national identities, European identity is primarily instrumental, in so far, it is at least partially influenced by the citizens' perception of the benefits they get from EU integration.…”

“…Therefore, Bergbauer () affirmed that European identification differs conceptually and empirically from EU support. While identification with Europe shows citizens' self‐categorisation as European and their affective attachment to Europe and other Europeans, the EU support refers to positive orientations towards the EU institutions and/or further steps in EU integration.…”

“…Consequently, we expect individuals who are more informed about the EU, more prone to get involved in its political events and more appreciative of the way it works to be more supportive of the EU integration and to feel a higher sense of identity. According to Bergbauer (), European identification and EU support differs conceptually, in what they are, and empirically, in how they are measured. By using the same utilitarian framework, our analysis allows to identify similarities and differences between the two conceptualizations.…”

Mapping citizens' identification with the EU

“…The model is theoretically grounded on the concept of individual identification with Europe derived from social psychology, defined as “citizens' self‐categorization as European together with their evaluations of their membership in the European collective and their affective attachment to Europe and other Europeans” (Bergbauer, , p. 18). Thus, individual identification involves cognitive, affective and evaluative dimensions of identity: the cognitive component refers to self‐categorization as European; the evaluative component refers to the assignment of value connotation (negative/positive) to their membership in the European collective; and the affective component refers to the emotional attachment and feeling of love and concern for Europe and other European. …”