Europe’s Contending Identities: Supranationalism, Ethnoregionalism, Religion, and the New Nationalism ed. by Andrew C. Gould and Anthony M. Messina (review)

The volume is concerned with the vexed question of how ‘European’ is Europe and whether or not a European identity is likely to consolidate in Europe. The assumptions informing the volume are that, on the one side, a degree of collective identity is necessary for any kind of political community and, on the other side, some evidence can be found for such an identity on a European level. The key question is how extensive is it. It is evident that a strong case for a supranational identity cannot be sustained, but it is equally true that Europe is some sort of reality. The editors, in their theoretical introduction, are in accord with the general perspective that is now much agreed on in other studies that European identity is not simply one thing but multiple. However, they correctly object to the tendency to over-pluralise identity to a point that it ceases to have any real content. They thus argue that a political identity, such as European identity, must have some degree of group boundness and with this comes a certain sense of group specificity that inevitably entails a distinction between an ‘us’ and a ‘them.’ On this uncontroversial basis the editors make a case for the necessity of European identity, if it is to exist at all, as a relative coherent political identity that is constantly challenged by counter-vailing tendencies that invoke national identities.

The studies collected in the volume are addressed to what the editors see as three key challenges that severely test the viability of a European political community developing a coherent post-national identity. The ten chapters, in addition to a lengthy Introduction and Conclusion, offer very detailed analyses of ethnoregionalism, the new nationalism and ethnic religiosity as potentially challenging the viability of a European identity. The studies, which are informed by very orthodox political science analysis, offer sound empirically based evidence that challenges strong claims on European identity, but overall are on balance cautious of drawing conclusions that suggest a dominant trend. Their view is that a European polity does not as such exist and that while there is some evidence of a European political identity taking shape it is not being consciously or very enthusiastically embraced by Europeans.

The volume is organized into four parts. The first part contains two general theoretically driven accounts of European identity. The first of these by Citrin and Wright sees national identity tempering European identity and the second by Messina sees such identities as highly variable and is very much shaped by political strategy and thus lacking real substance. A key point in made in Messina’s chapter that it is not supra diversity as such that threatens European identity and political community but its political framing and manipulation by anti-European political actors. A decisive factor too is the positioning of the mainstream parties. The second section deals with ethnoregional challenges. Here there is a clear trend towards support for European integration by regional parties but with Euroskeptical cases at the extremes. This is particularly clear in the case of Scotland, the subject of Kincaid Jolly’s chapter. A wider spectrum of examples would be more interesting but some generalisations can be made in the case of ethnoregionalism that confirm a diverse picture. The next chapter by Meguid explores the relationship between decentralisation and European integration with regard to the rise of ethnoregionalism, showing that both trends provided opportunity structures and that regionalism and integration reinforce one another. The following chapter by Gomez-Reimo casts more doubt on the salience of European integration for ethnoregionalism, seeing it as highly conditional.

The third section concerns religious challenges to European integration. A study of the Scottish national party by Miller and Hosain shows that in fact Scottish nationalism while being Anglophobic is not significantly Islamphobic. An interesting conclusion in the next chapter by Cinnirella and...