Keeping the European Faith
Keeping the European Faith
Greeks protest austerity cuts (Athens, 2010) Photo Joanna CC-BY-2.0
Keeping The European Faith. Collective Identity before and after the Euro-Crisis
Ettore Recchi (OSC - Sciences Po, Paris) and Justyna Salamońska (European University Institute)
PaCo Partecipazione E Conflitto (The Open Journal of Sociopolitical Studies), vol. 7, n° 3, special issue New Directions in Political Sociology, p. 510-531.
Media discourses have conveyed the message that European identity has been severely un-dermined by the Euro-crisis. We test this contention with Eurobarometer data. Conceptually we distin-guish two dimensions of collective identity: ‘image’ and ’belonging’. We surmise that economic downturns can alter the superficial layer of identity (image-like assessments), but not its underlying substance (be-longing-like assessments) which depends on deeply ingrained socio-psychological mechanisms. These two dimensions are expected to be affected by the crisis in different ways: the image being a more volatile re-flection of historical circumstances, and the sense of belonging being more stable over time.
We find that the Euro-crisis damaged the EU image especially in the countries most affected by the eco-nomic downturn and among the unemployed, while declarations of ‘belonging’ remained relatively con-stant. Contrary to what is frequently said, the core component of the European identity of EU citizens was largely unaffected by the Euro-crisis.
