European identity

Despite its unequalled history of success, the European Union is still far from its citizens. In the aftermath of the failed referenda on the European constitutional treaty in France and the Netherlands in the early summer of 2005, the EU is facing a severe crisis of trust. Hence, the questions arise: how much pressure can the community tolerate in order to persist and what does hold it together in times of scarcity, conflict, danger, and threat? The contributions of this volume do not only provide a variety of conceptualizations of European identity in the broad field of social sciences such as sociology, political theory and International Relations, but first and foremost intend to enrich the present research by offering new theoretical perspectives and recent empirical findings.