Читать книгу When Culture Becomes Politics - Thomas Pedersen - Страница 6

It is impossible to deal satisfactorily with the question of European identity without clarifying one’s assumptions regarding the nature of Political Man and the prospects for gaining knowledge about questions of identity. The ontological question is particularly important. Indeed, the analysis of European identity has launched me on the track towards a reflection upon more general issues to do with Political Man and the limits of politics.

The European experience raises some fundamental questions to do with the motivations of political actors. Looking back, one is first struck by the prevalence of irrationality in European history. The 20th century saw the emergence of political ideologies in continental Europe that turned their back to the entire tradition of the enlightenment. To be true, after the Second World War Europeans rediscovered enlightenment values launching Europe on a path of regional integration initially based upon technocratic elitism. Yet, in European society the restored belief in rationality all too soon gave way to a new political irrationality epitomized by post-modernism. Earlier periods in European history reveal a similar pattern. Thus the part of the world which gave birth to rational values that could be said to have become universal, has witnessed a continuing pendulum movement between romanticist irrationality and enlightenment rationalism in its thinking about Political Man.

One of the key puzzles we face when trying to come to terms with European identity is how to separate changes in European identity politics from general changes in social identity. If Zygmunt Bauman is right in claiming that contemporary modernity is characterized by “uncertainty, fragility, insecurity, fluidity, volatility and precariousness”, then surely this makes it more difficult to envision the emergence of a cohesive and durable Europeanness and in our evaluations of European politics we would have to take this into account.¹ Zygmunt Bauman’s empirical analysis is interesting and his message certainly popular. It seems, however, that his pessimistic conclusions derive from overly idealistic criteria of normality. His analysis does not seem incompatible with the view that human choices form the backbone of human existence. The change he observes appears to relate mainly to the time factor. Arguably, what has changed is mainly the durability of identities.

Against this background it is pertinent to ask, how one should conceive of Political Man. First of all, one can distinguish between a conception of Political Man as rational and on the other hand as fundamentally irrational. The rational view is epitomized by rational choice theory; the irrational view by post-modernism. Now both of these positions are unhelpful. I propose that one should opt for a third position, a broader view depicting Political Man as both rational and non-rational. The term non-rational should not be misunderstood: It does not seek to denote a conception of Political Man as unpredictable, but rather seeks to broaden our understanding of rationality to include i.a. spiritual and emotional motivations. Very few analysts would assume that Political Man is purely irrational, thus I prefer to contrast the rational view of Man with the view that Political Man is often motivated by non-rational motives but that he is capable of rational behaviour. Please note that I avoid the term irrational. This is because irrational has purely negative connotations. What I want to stress is that non-rational political behaviour may have both positive and negative consequences. Having a realistic understanding of Political Man enhances our explanatory capacity and makes for moderate reactions and moderate political solutions. British, political history with its pragmatic incrementalism and its sense of the importance of political ritual, shows how a broad conception of Political Man can help keep extremism at bay.

Secondly, one may distinguish between the ontological view that holistic structures constitute the main phenomena in human existence and, on the other hand, the view that acting human beings are the main entities. Holistic or structural theories depart from the assumption that structures are not the products or aggregations of agency but take on a life of their own, or, in the more radical versions, constitute the real entities behind everyday phenomena – the classical example being Platon’s dualistic notion of the realm of ideas lurking behind the surface of human action. As Jerrold Seigel has argued, Platon is only the first in a row of Western thinkers, including Hegel, who reasoned in terms of a fundamental dualism in existence and conceived of individual freedom as fundamentally constrained.

However, there is another tradition in Western thinking that emphasizes precisely the freedom, potential and responsibility of human beings. It is a powerful current in British political thinking and also in French philosophy. In France holism represented by sociologists like Durkheim fought a fierce battle with highly individualist conceptions of Man, the likes of which were not found in Britain or Germany. In thinkers such as Maine De Biran, Benjamin Constant, J.J. Rousseau and later among artists and philosophers like Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Bergson and Sartre, we find the notion of the perils of social life to the individual.² The most important figures are, in my view, Henri Bergson and the early Jean-Paul Sartre, in whose works we find a political existentialism, which would seem to hold promise as a way out of contemporary theoretical predicaments. Ironically, the late 20^th century emergence of influential, holistic theories such as discourse analysis represented by theorists like Derrida and Foucault were largely the result of borrowing from German philosophers, mainly Nietzsche.

The key concept in Sartre’s early philosophy, which is essentially a theory of freedom, is the concept of autonomy. Sartre believed that individuals are or may become self-determining and that the self may develop a sense of its own authentic identity. Essentially, Sartre defined personal autonomy in terms of an ability to “negate” situational pressures and achieve a form of “critical distance” between the self and the situation. Here Sartre is inspired by Descartes, who stressed i.a. “the active use of doubt” to escape from the influence of external forces.³ In abstract formulations that may easily be misunderstood Sartre argued that the Self has to first engage in a kind of “nihilating withdrawal” from the situation by means of questioning, thus bringing a kind of creative “nothingness” into the world. Precisely the power to “nihilate” is indestructible. The essence of Man is then his ability to detach himself from the world in “systematic doubt” and hence the possibility of suspending the situation and suspending his judgement in an “Ecstatic” detachment. This line of thinking is, I would argue, very promising. It is reminiscent of Kant’s distinction between freedom in the negative and in the positive sense, and it reappears in the influential book “Penser L’Europe” by Edgar Morin, in which Morin defines the European spirit as “l ‘Esprit qui nie toujours”.⁴ All this, however, does not make the early Sartre an extreme voluntarist. What he calls “facticity” remains important in his ontology, but remains clearly secondary. Sartre thus offers a clear argument in favour of voluntarism, while arguing that human beings have at one and the same time facticity and transcendence (or free consciousness). This notion is much more helpful than the rather ambiguous, social constructivist paradigm arguing that structure and agency are mutually constitutive, and the holistic social constructivist analysis, in which language and meaning is always social. Autonomy it would seem is one of the few universal human needs. Importantly, autonomy is (even) more important than liberty. One may be free without being autonomous. But one can hardly be autonomous without being free. In other words, autonomy is a deeper and more ambitious goal in human life. Liberty has a strong legal dimension, whereas autonomy relies upon human acts of will.

Jean Paul Sartre: 1905-1980. French existentialist, philosopher and writer. Photo shows Sartre at the Café de Flore, 1945. Photograph: © RMN/ Michèle Bellot. © Estate Brassaï - RMN

Returning to Sartre he goes on to show, with considerable psychological perspicaciousness, how human beings are forever yearning to “fill the void of consciousness with solidity or meaning”. Man is tempted to try to bridge the irrevocable divide between disembodied consciousness (the for-itself) and concrete situation (facticity, the in-itself). Sartre calls this “bad faith”, since it amounts to a renunciation of authenticity. This notion is reminiscent of the irresponsible “flight from freedom”, which Erich Fromm was concerned about in the 1960s. Group-think and stereotyping are typical examples of this.

Sartre’s sophisticated thinking also provides insight into the non-rational nature of human beings. Far from pinning his hope in some starry-eyed “mutualism”, Sartre wants us to face the uncomfortable fact that mutual antagonism is a fact of life. This pessimistic outlook is perhaps the less promising part of his thinking, but instead of focusing upon the pessimist key in which his philosophical voice is pitched, one may also regard his thinking as realistic; a set of assumptions that makes political set-backs understandable, and a set of premises that seem very useful in trying to come to terms with contemporary politics and identity in all its fluidity.

My position, which I call integrism, leans upon Sartre’s ontology but without embracing his early view of human beings as totally devoid of social needs. His voluntarist ontology is usefully elaborated in his theory of character, which I find promising notwithstanding the somewhat different normative conclusions Sartre later drew from his philosophical reflection.⁵ A person’s character is normally defined as a set of traits and these can be defined as relatively stable inclinations to think, feel and behave in certain ways in certain situations. Importantly, in Sartre’s view, character traits do not determine behaviour, and are within the agent’s control. In Sartre’s view, character consists in life projects.⁶ Such life-projects must be assumed to have a certain durability, but are also open to change. The concept of life projects seems helpful in trying to escape the twin risks of cultural determinism and randomness. Whereas sociological thinking tends to think of stable patterns of personal behaviour in terms of dispositions, Sartre opts for the more voluntarist concept of inclinations. Inclinations may change as a pure result of an act of will. Sartre thus argues that character traits that result from interactions with the environment are freely chosen responses to one’s situation or facticity. This is what is meant by his early slogan “existence precedes essence”.

In a famous paradoxical formulation Sartre defines the “human reality” as “a being which is what it is not and which is not what it is”.⁷ What Sartre wants to express here is essentially a kind of open individualism, in which the key point about the person is not his or her attitudes or behaviour in the here and now, but his or her ability – and I guess Sartre would whisper likelihood – to change from one moment to the next. Therefore it is also true to say that the person “is not what it is”.

In my view this perspective offers a much more promising dynamic conception of Political Man than the social constructivist view with its somewhat obscure assumptions regarding the interplay between structure and agency. Sartre’s theory helps us grasp the many known instances of changes in meaning caused by individual choices and actions. This of course prompts the question, how the incessant struggle for authenticity and the realisation of projects on the part of both individuals and cultures can be reconciled with mutual recognition, social communication and indeed societal stability. It would seem that Sartre’s theory of freedom is compatible with the idea of a “private language”, a notion rejected by i.a. Wittgenstein. In this debate Sartre would seem to have the stronger argument, since it is not evident that all language is social. It is true that acquiring a language involves a social dimension; but the evolution of language would appear not always to be a social process. Indeed, some of the problems in contemporary Western societies might be related to growing fragmentation in patterns of meaning as a result of human beings having become more aware of their innate, expressive freedom.

To be a Self requires a minimum of permanence and coherence of personality. How is this achieved? Here a lot can be learned from revisiting Henri Bergson’s philosophy. The key proposition in his thinking is that beneath the social Self (le moi superficial) there is a deeper, inner Self (le moi profond). While our everyday Self is characterized by space, our inner Self is characterized by duration, a key concept in Bergson’s thinking. In Seigel’s interpretation … “to say that the mind exists in the mode of duration is to envision its life as flowing along like a stream, all the parts of which course in and out of each other”.⁸ Thus our memories and experiences cannot be neatly divided into parts and arranged as a series of chronological numbers. The personal life of duration consists of experiences that flow into each other like the notes in a melody. The inner life of duration is always on the way to formation and veiled by social relations and it has to be recovered. Intuition plays a key role in the mental operation giving access to this spiritual realm. Here Bergson accords artistic vision an important role⁹. In moments of free action the Self gathers up all its part in a single unity, which may pave the way for artistic genius or political revolution. Memory and imagination are seen as the great unifiers in life. Every person fights to penetrate the shell of social life in order to get access to the durable Self. Individuals suffer from a fundamental duality and many remain caught up in habits and postpone the act of will, by which they recover their inner self. Much like Sartre Bergson calls upon the individual to temporarily withdraw from relations with the world, so that social relations may no longer impede his or her genuine mode of existence. Although at times Bergson’s writings can be read as a downgrading of the role of reflection, it is more accurate to interpret him as arguing in favour of an extended rationality. When Bergson talks about “good sense” it characteristically is on the side of both reason and feeling.¹⁰

Following John Stuart Mill and Merleau-Ponty, one can furthermore say in a modification of Sartre’s position that the development of character provides the anchor necessary to give the personality a positive dimension and thus an autonomy, which is more than simply a rebellious cry in the wilderness. Quoting Buchan … “character provides the inner strength, resourcefulness and purpose by which continued dependence upon external sources can be replaced with the search for, but perhaps never the complete achievement of self-reliance and self-determination”.¹¹ This basic position of course implies the falsehood of any form of psychological determinism. A modified Sartrean view would hold e.g. that only some character traits are rooted in projects, while others are not.

Obviously, a number of objections can be made to these and more traditional individualist claims. Modern anthropologists such as Clifford Geertz have insisted upon the importance of the cultural sphere understood as the mechanisms operating in the area between inherent human capacity and actual human accomplishments. Geertz’s first major objection to the universalist claim, which refers to the timeless nature of many artistic works, is that men unmodified by the customs of particular places do not in fact exist. His second objection takes the form of a counter-claim with the proposition that culture is best seen as a set of control mechanisms for the governing of behaviour.¹² These mechanisms are argued to help Man find his way in the darkness of a confusing world. Geertz’s reflections may seem convincing at first sight, but suffer from major flaws: First of all, his theory is rather compilatory; it aggregates a number of discreet analytic dimensions in a less than transparent fashion. Thus it is unclear what the relative importance is of each layer of control. Secondly, like all systemic thinking his theory tends to reify the holistic and underestimate the scope for individual choice in cultural matters. To make the search for meaning synonymous with the fear of chaos makes the whole theory rather banal and difficult to falsify. There is a certain tension and ambiguity in Geertz’s thinking, because elsewhere he warns against a purely custom-oriented understanding of culture, which he – rightly in my view – senses risks losing sight of Man altogether.¹³ Geertz is both a holistic collectivist and a holistic subjectivist claiming that the “politics of meaning” are anarchic and that “the most critical decisions in public life” are in fact made in “the unformalized realms of what Durkheim called the “collective consciousness”.¹⁴ Here surprisingly he comes out as a pure Durkheimian. There is little scope in this theory for human autonomy. Thirdly, and most importantly, Geertz’ s theory is essentially static and probably also ethnocentric in a non-European sense. For instance he does not consider the cultural implications of a globalization that makes most of Mankind less bound to – and hence less influenced by – place.

One of the most individualistic and, in my view, most promising conceptions of nationality is found in France in the guise of the 19^th century historian, Ernest Renan. His Republican views on nationality are close to the position I call integrism. The difference has to do with the excessive rationalism in Republican thinking. It assumes that citizens are rational and will be responsive to the appeal of reason; hence the expectation that nations can be constructed by a remote and enlightened elite. In Renan’s words … “let us not abandon the fundamental principle that man is a rational and moral being before he is penned up in this or that language; before he is a member of this or that race; before he adheres to this or that culture. Look at the great men of the Renaissance. They were neither French, Italian, nor German”.¹⁵ One notes the double definition of Political Man as both rational and moral and the underlying individualism of Renan’s thinking. His thinking is not devoid of spirituality, but the focus is on memory rather than cultural expression as a source of spirituality. Renan puts it this way … “A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things, which in truth are but one, constitute this soul or spiritual principle. One lies in the past, one in the present. One lies in the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories: the other in present-day consent, the desire to live together”.¹⁶ These nuances in Renan’s thinking are often overlooked in the hasty characterization of his definition of the nation as strictly “political”.

This then leaves us with four axiomatic positions as regards the nature of Political Man.

Table 2.1

Axiomatic positions in political science

Conception of Political Man/Ontology	Rational	Rational and non-rational
Structure	Marxism Neo-Darwinism	Sociological institutionalism Social constructivism
Human agency	Rational choice Liberal theory	Post-modernism Integrism

Obviously, to use the concept of Political Man implies that there are universal laws and universal phenomena in political science. I take this to be the case but only in a limited sense. Human beings display certain common features, such as the pursuit of liberty, autonomy and cultural expression, which affect political life as well. It is therefore possible to talk about a rudimentary “world politics”. But I hasten to add that local diversity creates particular logics which call for context-sensitive, scientific reasoning. For instance, as we shall see, some scholars argue that due to their particular history contemporary Central and Eastern European societies display a disproportionate amount of post-modernist discourse. In a similar vein, it can be argued that sociological institutionalism is particularly useful for understanding, for example, contemporary Chinese society. However, we cannot content ourselves with a complete fragmentation of political science. We need to add a general philosophical investigation focusing upon the universal aspects of political life to the empirical analysis of particular geographical areas.

Otherwise, our thinking degenerates into relativism and there is no longer any meeting of minds. Moreover, specific regional area-studies have to be aggregated to present a global picture of political life and importantly there is an ongoing conflict between different ideas regarding the organization of human society. I hold the view, leaning on Kant and Stuart Mill that human history is the history of human emancipation and that the most advanced societies are the societies where human beings are most autonomous. Obviously, individualism can be conceived in different terms, and this is one of the areas where this book seeks to offer new insights.

The view that the world is essentially rational, and that structures are the most important phenomena is found i.a. in Marxism, Neo-Darwinism and various forms of system theory. The German sociologist Niklas Luhmann’s thinking is a rather extreme example, but even parts of mainstream globalization theory falls within this broad category. Within this line of thinking, one thus finds a range of historicist theories as well as various attempts to subsume social science under theories from the natural sciences. Thus, in my view, Neo-Darwinist endeavours to explain large aspects of human action from the perspective of biological evolution, partly derive from an over-ambitious and potentially dangerous concern for methodological unity within science. The goal of the unity of science is beautiful but also Prometheus-like in its reach for simplicity. Sociological institutionalism similarly stresses holistic and structural causes but tends to conceive of Man as less rational. Here human choice disappears in a flurry of contextual adaptation. Social constructivists, while purportedly attentive to the interplay between structure and agency, and normatively optimistic regarding the human potential, have no theory of political behaviour outside the group. Meanings are assumed to be constructed in a social setting.

An interesting example of the social constructivist approach to identity issues is found in the writings of the Estonian scholar, Merje Kuus. What is particularly interesting is that Kuus is an Eastern European, and he appears to regard his challenge to what he calls “subjectivist identity theory” as more than a personal or academic challenge.¹⁷ Since his argument is uncompromising but also clear and intelligent, it deserves an extensive comment: Kuus is critical of not only traditional accounts but also many social constructivist theories. In his view they made the same error of … “implicitly addressing identity as an essential attribute of states, nations and individuals, thereby casting these entities as subjects that exist prior to their identities”. Leaning i.a. on Jens Bartelson, Kuus argues that the fundamental problem is the assumption that identity is a feature of a subject. The story by which identity is told is circular, presupposing the very subject for which it seeks to give an account. Kuus’s view is that identity is ontologically empty. Instead he proposes to study identities from the position of performativity – regarding subjects as subjects-in-process instead of autonomous subjects.¹⁸ What he criticizes is in other words the tendency to conflate identity and subjectivity.

This line of thinking constitutes a direct, radical and, in my view, highly problematic attack upon the notion that agency is derived from autonomous actors. Kuus and others may be right in arguing that identity tends to receive too much attention. Or in Kuus’s words … “the fact that people talk about identity does not mean that it should be conceptualized as something that all people have, seek or construct”. But it is a far cry from this critical stance to the stance that “there is no doer behind the deed”.¹⁹ This view amounts to arguing that motives are irrelevant, and it absolves individuals of responsibility for their actions. The interest in and search for self-identity, which is central to my own position, is simply called “ethical violence”. It comes as no surprise that the author quotes Nietzsche with applause.²⁰ While this ontology may have certain methodological benefits, it opens the door to a deep, ethical relativism. If no one will take an interest in one’s motives, why should one try to live a decent life? Perhaps we are dealing here with a mental relic of the Soviet era.

One could go on to argue that subjectivism is not necessarily agency-oriented: It may also conceive of individuals as being in the grip of powerful psychological forces that leave the will with little freedom. Thus some radical psychological theories are reminiscent of discourse analysis in that they leave the subject with scant autonomous choice.

Another example of holistic arguments in the research on European identity is Gerard Delanty’s and Chris Rumford’s “Rethinking Europe”.²¹ While Delanty and Rumford recognize that globalization does not simply produce convergence and homogeneity, they nevertheless argue in terms of structural causes. There is a curious tension in their argument, and it is a typical argument, between on the one hand, the open-ended nature of their vision, and on the other the rather closed, uniform and structural nature of the causal explanations they make use of. However, it is but a small step from their recognition of the weaknesses and fallacies of social constructivism to a new position which could, as a first step, be simply called human constructivism.

Social constructivism often argues in almost circular fashion. For instance Delanty and Rumford argue that … “one of the chief features of social constructivism is the argument that agency and structure are mediated in cultural contexts”.²² Very well, but how are these cultural contexts constructed and by whom? Delanty and Rumford essentially answer the question by rephrasing (or post-poning) the ontological question. A promising way out is suggested by the French philosopher, Castoriadis, quoted by Delanty and Rumford, when he argues that … “the main struggle in modernity is between the radical imaginary – which Castoriadis seems to conceive in individualist terms, but this is not entirely clear – based on the project of autonomy and the institutional imaginary based on rational control”.²³ Unfortunately, Castoriadis appears to remain stuck in holistic thinking, as when he accords society as such a “social imaginary” and says that a society’s identity is … “nothing but a system of interpretation” (please note the use of the word system, TP). We see how even the most voluntarist of the French cultural theorists shy away from the individualist ontology that logically corresponds to their almost anarchist position.

Now, on a more generous note, such holistic argument may well be a helpful way of explaining routine behaviour and cumulative developments, but it is likely to be less helpful in accounting for turning points in human history. And, after all, what we are really interested in is non-routine behaviour. Moreover, it can be argued that cumulative change is becoming less and less relevant in social science, as individual choice becomes more consequential and important, in part as a by-product of globalization.

Rational individualism has of course a long pedigree, in part, one suspects, because Rational Choice theory has obvious methodological advantages. Social scientists that make simple assumptions about human behaviour can come up with impressive formalistic models. But what they often do is conduct a banal discussion at a high level of abstraction. Philosophically, Rational Choice thinking stands on the shoulders of liberal theory and not least utilitarian and pragmatic ideas, dating back to the 19^th century.

The view that human beings make deliberate choices about fundamental issues, and that therefore prediction is extremely difficult in the social sciences, have in recent decades been combined with the often implicit assumption that Political Man is essentially non-rational. We observe this line of thinking in post-modernism.

Another trend is the growing emphasis upon non-materialist values as being important to affluent and globalized citizens. It is visible in new sociological theorizing about post-materialist values. The influential sociologist Ronald Inglehart detects a tendency for citizens – especially young citizens – in affluent post-modern societies to turn their back on materialist values. However, it would seem that political theory has not drawn the full, logical consequences of these developments in specific areas of scholarly debate, and that the position between the extremes of Rational Choice, on the one hand, and system theory or theories of language and politics on the other, has not been accorded sufficient attention.

Obviously an individualist culturalism, which is what I am advocating, has epistemological consequences. This position pushes the scholar towards understanding, as opposed to explanation; towards phenomenological approaches, grounded theory and a rediscovery of hermeneutical methods. This does not imply a rejection of all quantitative methods, but simply a call for a layered approach, which addresses the question of meaning.

My next point is that so far there has been a tendency to assume – rashly I think – that post-materialist ideas are ephemeral. Now this is far from self-evident. The surge in post-materialist values may reflect changes at a deeper level. If it is true that many citizens are increasingly concerned about post-materialist values including historical issues, and that there is currently a strong tendency for young generations in some globalized societies to opt for post-materialist values, does this not imply a need to reconsider our basic assumptions concerning Political Man? Does it not lend support to the view that a narrow liberalism or a rational choice approach is inadequate as a vehicle for understanding contemporary societies?

There is of course no global convergence around a given set of values, witness the distance between the neo-capitalist and materialist Russia and China and the neo-fundamentalist and neo-Marxist Latin America. All of them subject to globalization. Nor is normative convergence a trend within affluent Europe, witness the distance between neo-fundamentalist Poland and neo-liberal Estonia, or between Dutch liberalism and anti-immigration attitudes and neighbouring German pluri-culturalism and value-conservatism. The cultural consequences of economic globalization seem to be complex and indeterminate, although as we shall see, globalization does tend to build up a certain pressure for change in mass culture.

We are used to conceiving of nations as compact units, the prevalent research questions being whether such nations have been created from the top down or from the bottom up. But perhaps we also ought to ask questions about the nature of national loyalties. Is it perhaps possible to talk about a “personalized” nationality in the sense that, increasingly, citizens – while often loyal to a territory and homeland – define individually the precise nature and depth of that loyalty. In other words, that at least in the globalized Western world – exposed to almost constant media attention – identities become more and more individualized and mixed. Michael Herzfeld rightly points out that … “many theorists of nationalism have fallen prey to a semiotic delusion in which the appearance of a common code has been allowed to suggest the existence of a corresponding commonality of intent”.²⁴

When Benedict Anderson famously talks about “imagined communities”, whose imagination are we discussing? It is somewhat implausible that modern or post-modern citizens should simply be passive absorbers of an elite’s constructed truth regarding their origin and destiny. What Anderson appears to be offering is an essentially context-specific argument overly influenced by his research on third world states influenced by “official nationalism”.

The position that Political Man is both rational and non-rational, and that non-rational political behaviour may have both positive and negative effects and, finally, that at the end of the day human choices are what forms and shapes societies, I shall call integrism. Integrism is related to integrity, the view that every human being is – and should be – a unique and authentic person. It is a position that recognizes the cultural dimension of Political Man as against culture-blind liberalism and Republicanism.²⁵ The polar contrasts to integrism are, on the one hand, utilitarian de-personalization, a position with dangerous affinities to social Darwinism. On the other hand, structural de-personalization, known from the excesses of French Neo-Marxist structuralism under the reign of Althusser and Poulantzas, but also from anthropology and sociology. Integrism has certain affinities with French Republicanism in that it celebrates Man’s ability to free himself from custom. However, as we have seen, Republicanism has a too narrow conception of human nature, neglecting the non-rational needs of individuals. Integrism perceives Man as capable of achieving personal autonomy and of developing a unified identity rooted in duration.

The unhelpful legacy of French structuralism re-appears in Delanty’s and Rumford’s work, as when they insist on a strict separation between personal identities, collective identities and societal identities. The concept of “social identity” is particularly vague and unhelpful. Delanty and Rumford argue that … “a collective identity will not necessarily result from personal identities and can exist without a direct relation to them”.²⁶ And further … “the notions of Irish identity, a Chinese identity … are cultural categories … but are not themselves identities in the SAME SENSE AS MORE CONCRETE COLLECTIVE IDENTITES”. In other words, collective identities are concrete, but can exist without a direct relationship to personal identities.

This is vague to say the least. What we are dealing with here is a reification of collectivities, most likely an unconscious left-over from Marxist determinism. Delanty and Rumford make a distinction between personal, European identities and a European, collective identity. As they put it … “a collective identity derives not from numerous, personal identities, but from A DISTINCTIVE, SOCIAL GROUP OR INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK THAT ARTICULATES A COLLECTIVE IDENTITY … For such an identity to exist there must be a means of expressing an explicit collective self-understanding”.²⁷ This would seem to imply that a European, collective identity can only develop through a vertical, top-down process, in practice most likely through the vehicle of EU institutions. This is a highly problematic and un-substantiated assertion. And significantly, the obscure use of the words “explicit” and “articulates” has an unmistakably holistic ring to it.

Interestingly, elsewhere Delanty and Rumford try to move away from holism, recognizing that … “national identities are becoming more like societal identities, that is, broadly defined cultural categories.”²⁸ Yet, this begs the question of how these “broad, cultural categories” are constructed and by whom?

Integrism is also inspired by personalism, emphasizing personal choice and responsibility, while describing Man as a being with social needs and obligations.²⁹ However, unlike communitarians, who emphasize the needs of the Community as community, personalism praises the social being without giving up an essentially individualist ontology. The social – rather than being conceived as an external phenomenon – is here found in the extended understanding of the Self. In his influential work Sources of the Self, Charles Taylor shows how we all remain deeply indebted to notions and concepts dating back to Romanticism. I find this an important, analytical point, but do not share his view that romantic individualism is necessarily politically harmful. His critique of disengaged reason, pure instrumentalism and proceduralism is surely also persuasive, although strongly influenced by the North American context, in which he writes (Taylor is a Canadian). Unlike other critics of instrumentalism and utilitarianism, however, Taylor’s main concern is not the erosion of the political, but rather the loss of meaning. His argument seems to overleap itself somewhat, when he not only criticizes atomism but also the anthropocentric tendency in contemporary society. We surely do not have to embrace animals to rediscover meaning in life. Taylor thus ends up in a problematic, semi-religious plea for the reassertion of strong community.³⁰

The position I advocate is inspired by the Russian personalist Berdyaev, who writes i.a. that … “thinking and knowledge are always emotional, and the emotional is the deciding element”.³¹ Elsewhere he rightly points out that … “there is a tendency in Reason to turn everything into an object from which existentiality disappears”.³² And equally important … “the dispassionate intellectual is a figment of the imagination and a pretence …” Berdyaev talks about “cognitive passion” and argues, rightly in my view, that … “even purely scientific discoveries presuppose passion, inspiration and power of imagination”.³³ One does not have to follow Berdyaev all the way to his passionate politics in order to be inspired by his critique of traditional rationalism and utilitarianism.

Truth is not the same as fact, as he also points out. The underlying philosophical premise of integrism is expressed very well by Berdyaev, when he writes that … “the fundamental contradiction in human existence is that man is a finite being possessed of potential infinity and an ambition to strive towards infinity”.³⁴ One can also say that Political Man has a transcendental dimension, which expresses itself in a clamour for political spiritualism. Integrism is thus in part inspired by a nowadays largely overlooked, French-Russian understanding of individualism, which differs from the utilitarian understanding found in much of the Anglo-Saxon literature.

It may be objected that a broad rational ontology with its recognition of cultural politics is incompatible with an agency-oriented ontology. After all, once emotions enter the scene, we tend to assume that reason abdicates, and that it no longer makes sense to talk about human choice. Where the fusion between a strong belief in science and a strong belief in the individual can be seen as in parts of American society, which in many respects has become a “therapeutic society”, the individual tends to be treated as an object. Instinct is not the best place to erect cultural politics. I think a closer look will reveal that voluntarism is indeed compatible with a broad conception of rationality, but this implies a farewell to bio-politics. Shifting the emphasis from instinct to emotion, choice and character is a first useful step in the direction of handing back cultural freedom to human beings.

More than that, to make a sharp distinction between reason and emotion reveals a dualistic way of thinking that does not sit well with recent, scientific debates about emotional intelligence. I think it is possible to talk about such a thing as “affective, political choices” in the sense of political choices motivated by a mixture of reason and emotion. Affective, political choice is likely to be particularly important in polities, where the institutional system is new or evolving or where it is highly complex.

In some respects, integrism represents a rehabilitation of Almond and Verba’s classical work, The civic culture.³⁵ After all, the key message of The civic culture was that the political and non-political attitudes of ordinary citizens are more important than institutions.³⁶ I endorse that view. However, Almond and Verba’s work suffered from several weaknesses. Most importantly, the theory behind the empirical analysis constituted a mixture of holistic and individualistic elements. While the authors rightly drew attention to the “subjective orientations” of citizens as well as to the importance of cognitive, evaluative and affective factors, they also stressed the effects of socialization and posited a reciprocal relationship between political structures and political culture³⁷. Thus while their methodology was individualistic, and technically advanced, Almond and Verba’s ontology was unclear and partly holistic. It is difficult to see, how the different variables in their theoretical framework are to be aggregated. What is the relative importance of e.g. socialization? The useful and promising notion that can be extracted from Almond and Verba is the notion that the cultural characteristics of a population are not homogeneous but in actual fact quite heterogeneous. This can be seen as the first step in the direction of an integrist conception of political culture.

Almond and Verba of course stressed the continuity and stability of some of the Western democracies, notably Britain and the USA, but failed to explore in any great depth the causes of the superior performance of these democracies. These two cases do indicate that some attention has to be paid to the socializing mechanisms and values in society. Yet, in the case of the UK, the very same socializing mechanisms and values that made Britain a staunch defender of democracy during the Second World War, had made it capable of perpetrating atrocities in India and other parts of the third world, albeit on a lesser scale than other European empires. In the case of the USA, involvement in the Second World War was a controversial decision, and the humanity of the American war effort in that war should not lead us to forget the American invasion in Central America earlier in the century under another Roosevelt. Thus once again one is led to emphasize differences; the importance of situational context, and the importance of choice.

A further source of inspiration for the integrist position is found in intercultural thinking within educational studies: Interculturalism advocates … “giving or restoring a place to the subject, to interactions, to context … the intercultural approach thus represents an alternative to human sciences which are still overly riddled by analogies to nature”.³⁸ This implies giving up much of the traditional sociological and anthropological thinking on culture. One is forced in the direction of hermeneutics. As Abdallah-Pretceille points out … “our time is no longer one for nomenclatures or monads, but on the contrary for multicoloured patterns, mixing, crossing over and contraventions, because every individual has the potential to express himself/herself and act not only depending on their codes of membership, BUT ALSO ON FREELY CHOSEN CODES OF REFERENCE”.³⁹ With this emphasis upon individual choice, one is already departing from the social constructivist position.

Integrism has a certain superficial affinity with post-modernism, yet the differences are crucial.⁴⁰ Post-modernism is a confluence of three related streams of thought: Post-modern Art; post-structuralist philosophy; and post-industrialist social theory. It represents a break with the enlightenment project of rational, progressive change and instead is associated with relativity, anti-realism, reflexivity and de-centring of the subject.⁴¹ From the 1970s, post-modernism became associated with deconstruction, concerned with the instability of all discourse, with the slippage of all meaning and with the fading of all grand narratives.⁴² In this line of thought, science is often presented as a “language game”.

Integrism, while also pluralistic, departs from different assumptions. First of all, I depart from the assumption that the human Self is coherent, not fragmented. Secondly, I assume that the Self forms an extended Self by discovering the deeper identity of duration. Thirdly, integrism is not relativistic, since I subscribe to the view that there are certain universals, and that human beings have natural rights. And finally, integrism is based upon an ontological realism. There is a reality separate from the scholar. Science is not simply a play of words. But clearly the integrist position requires the analyst to also use the methodology of understanding. Integrism does not share post-modernism’s deep scepticism regarding positivist methods, indeed about the very possibility of knowledge. Pauline Rosenau shows little mercy, when pointing out that if post-modernists are to be intellectually consistent they have to admit that their claim to having produced a superior theory is also rather shaky. Of course, the more benign commentator may insert that post-modernism is simply the culmination of – and some would say, parody upon – the scepticism that constitutes one of the key features of Europeanness.

Some post-modernists like Baudrillard have argued that the USA is the quintessential post-modernist nation; that “there is only simulation” in the USA.⁴³ While this is an interesting observation – and one should perhaps add that if this is the case it is in part due to the French export of postmodernism to the USA – on Euro-American differences, it is certainly only a half truth. As always with post-modernists, the evidence is impressionistic, and Baudrillard is silent on the power of religion in the USA and does not appear to have come across examples of the personal Christianity that is one of the hallmarks of the modern USA.

Yet, the key weakness in post-modernism is that the experience and existence of the acting subject is obscured by post-modernist emphasis on the textual interplay of meaning.⁴⁴

While post-modernists typically define identity in terms of texts and language, integrism defines personal identity in terms of duration, life-projects, character and chosen value-structure. Thus the Self is assumed to be coherent and potentially autonomous. Integrism conceives human beings as historical beings, who construct an extended Self on the basis of personal memory. This permits us to conceive of historical continuity and unified identities in the absence of regulating structures. Finally, Integrism regards Man as a cultural being with certain innate, non-rational needs. It follows that integrism is not incompatible with the expectation that citizens will uphold certain cultural traditions.

The integrist approach is also at variance with cultural theory in political science in its influential, institutionalist vintage, although integrism shares with cultural theory the view that … “the boundary line between the political and the non-political is not self-evident” and that political science ought to try to incorporate a theory of cultural action in its theoretical universe.⁴⁵

To talk about cultural action takes us away from the unhelpful notion that “solidarities” are institutional.⁴⁶ Obviously, the institutional conception of solidarity is convenient for power-holders, but this does not make it a reliable guide as to how society functions. The integrist view has other implications. From this perspective the concept of political culture needs to be re-defined in terms of a bundle of individual orientations towards politics. As we have seen, it may be useful to introduce the term individual life-projects. At the aggregate level these life-projects amount to converging ways of life. This kind of thinking makes political culture less predictable but also deprives it of the vagueness and inertia characterizing the more structural and institutionalist theories of political culture. From an integrist point of view it becomes easier to understand for example, why Central and Eastern Europeans could suddenly within a span of 10 years shed the legacy of decades, not to say centuries of tyranny and authoritarianism.

Integrism prefers the concepts of “duration”, “life-projects” and “ways of life” to the more structural concept of political culture. This is because once we talk about ways of life, we as citizens rediscover our freedom of action. We rediscover the fact that what we normally see as the Community or the Culture with capital Cs, are in actual fact just a unique aggregation or totality of individual ways of life, an aggregation of personal identities. To understand how seemingly uniform ways of life may nevertheless sometimes appear we need to examine the role of exemplary ways of life and the role of cultural leadership and cultural entrepreneurship. Thus Margaret Thatcher’s famous quip that “there is no such thing as Community – there are only individuals” here acquires a new and hopefully more adequate and less selfish meaning.

To emphasize Man’s immaterial needs and unique potential is not tantamount to assuming an ever-present selflessness. Rather the idea is that the Self discovers or internalizes the capacity for social action. It is interesting that even Adam Smith, famous for his theory about the cold logic of market forces, recognized that altruism broadly conceived was a fundamental feature of Mankind. More specifically, he posited that man has a capacity for showing sympathy. How this was to be reconciled with his notion of economic man and the role of market forces remains unclear. In Germany there is even a scientific literature on the so called “Adam Smith problem” – which refers to the question to what extent Adam Smith contradicted himself in both claiming that Man is social and asocial. Significantly, Adam Smith’s discussion with himself demonstrates, how exceedingly difficult it is to uphold the purely utilitarian conception of Political Man.

Let us for a moment return to Ronald Inglehart’s observations regarding the interrelationship between post-materialist values and support for the EU and regarding the prevalence of post-materialist values within the young generations. His theory constitutes a typical example of holistic, sociological research. It generalizes on the basis of holistic concepts such as education and generational values. Inglehart’s theory has been shown to contain serious short-comings: Janssen’s test showed that … “apart from the role that skills appear to play in the formation of attitudes, the theory … appeared of little use in describing and explaining changes in public support for European integration”.⁴⁷ And even the result regarding the role of skills can be questioned: First, it may be a spurious relationship, since the most skilled EU citizens may also be the ones who profit most from EU-actions. As Janssen points out one of the fundamental problems with Inglehart’s theory is his rather static image of the EU as fitting primarily post-materialist needs. EU integration in practice has been shown to be very materialistic and guided by low economic goals.⁴⁸ Secondly, an impressionistic case approach indicates problems with this hypothesis. Thus in one of the most EU-sceptical societies – Denmark – EU-opponents are not generally low-skill citizens.

Several key aspects of this sociological theory would appear to have been falsified. Take the proposition that the UK’s EU-scepticism is caused by an exceptional position regarding value climate and/or cognitive mobilization (skills). While the proposition holds, when one compares the UK with France and Germany in 1988, although an updated analysis might reveal a somewhat different picture, a comparison between the UK and Italy shows the severe limitations of the theory. The case of Italy in 1988 … “shows that a relatively materialist country, and also the least cognitively mobilized country, has the most supportive, public opinion”.⁴⁹ The more fundamental problem with Inglehart’s influential theory is that it argues at a high level of abstraction using vague, holistic explanations that do not take into account historical factors and the special role of personal elite identities within a highly centralized policy-making structure like the EU. The historical factor would seem to be particularly important; thus the sociological approach has little to offer in trying to come to terms with the new diversity of an EU of 27 members. As regards citizen attitudes, they appear to be much more unstable than assumed by sociologists.

It is symptomatic that analyses of globalization tend to stress its ambiguities to the point of becoming indeterminate. Michael Zürn argues that it can produce both fragmentation and integration.⁵⁰ If that is so, how useful is this rather vague concept anyway? Indeed, globalization has not done away with religious feeling, or with other forms of non-rational politics. To be true, religious feeling is much stronger in regions where poverty is rampant than in regions like Europe, where affluence is wide-spread. Yet, in America decades of affluence has not led to a decisive weakening of religious feeling – in fact the reverse seems to be the case. In some other parts of the world the weakening of nations has perhaps caused citizens to seek fulfilment of their need to belong in new religious groupings.

It must be stressed that globalization does not necessarily lead to cultural homogenization. Globalization has various dimensions, and a disaggregation of the concept is helpful. As consumers, citizens may overall become more alike, but at the level of high culture and ethnic groups this is not necessarily the case. At this level, citizens are likely to become more different or at least remain different. This is because technological globalization also offers new opportunities for implementing life projects or maintaining links between diasporas and the mother nation. Instead of gradual assimilation we are likely to see the emergence of parallel, ethnic communities on the fringe of national communities. Ralf Dahrendorf has talked about the emergence of a “new tribalism” in the world. This is a promising concept to the extent that it points to the growing cultural fragmentation and the decrease in the size of the typical cultural unit. Yet, Dahrendorf’s use of the concept of tribalism is unfortunate, since its ontology is fundamentally holistic despite the fact that what Dahrendorf wants to emphasize is precisely the loss of predictability and order.

What are the implications for the study of European identity? Putting it briefly, I regard European identity at one and the same time as

• personal

• composite and

• additive

Personal in the sense that agency is regarded as more important than holistic structure, which implies that essentially identity – like culture – is not so much a matter of customs as a matter of (existential) choice. Now, existential choices can be made in many ways and contexts and can be difficult to identify. Discursive institutions compete for the attention of identity-seeking individuals, but essentially have no identities themselves. Thus even the seemingly rock-solid phenomenon of nationality is, I would argue, increasingly personalized. This understanding implies that research should focus upon the ideas and activities of citizens and “exemplary individuals”. In the EU-context research is being facilitated by the fact that a large amount of the common decisions are made by elites. Thus personal elite identities are an important field of study from this perspective.

Composite in the sense that, like European legitimacy, European identity must be seen as composed of different layers or sources, each of which to varying extents potentially contribute to a sense of common identity. The importance of each source depends upon its degree of fit with the innate needs of human beings. The basic view underlying this proposition is not altogether new: Psychologists increasingly emphasize the multidimensionality of social identity. Thus Cameron referring to other similar approaches proposes a three-factor model of social identity centering on centrality, in-group affect, and in-group ties.⁵¹ What is important in this context is the introduction of the notion of a composite identity – not so much the precise variables emphasized by Cameron. However, given my individualistic assumptions psychological research on individual identification must be accorded a role in the study of national or regional identity, although the emphasis must be upon existentialist, meaning-oriented psychology. It is interesting to note that Cameron also finds evidence in support of the conclusion that “group membership can mean different things to the same person”.⁵² And he observes that individual differences on various dimensions of social identity can be quite stable over time. All this implies that identity is reminiscent of a chord on a piano – composed of different sounds of attachment. Over time the relative weight of different sources of identity may change.

What I am advocating is in a sense an extension of a general conception of complexity. Thus Adrienne Héritier has characterized democratic legitimation in the EU as “composite”.⁵³ Although he draws attention to some mutually contradictory elements in the structure of legitimation, the interesting point is that it is argued that legitimation may rely on several, different sources, and – I shall come back to this point – that in large part these elements are additive.

This understanding can be assumed to be applicable to the realm of European identity as well, since our underlying assumption is individualistic: Culture and democracy are not only linked but fundamentally overlapping. Just as we as citizens choose which politicians to support, so to a large extent we choose our own political – and to a significant extent, also our own cultural – identity. The important proposition I wish to make about Europe is that the variety of sources of common identity has ensured that a kind of supranational democracy has been able to survive in the absence of a foundation of common ethnicity.

Additive therefore in the sense that at least in the European post-war context, common identity has not generally been seen as an either/or question, but more pragmatically as a multiple phenomenon, perhaps a reflection of a European learning process. This does not mean that there are no factors disrupting or slowing down the endeavours in the direction of a common European identity. It just means that it is possible for various sources of common identity to function in an additive way.

This theoretical position involves certain methodological problems: It is difficult to test the “composite identity proposition” empirically. We have no polls explicitly comparing the relative importance of different sources of European identity. Nor do we have polls asking European citizens, if different sources of European identity are additive as opposed to competing. In this situation one has to make do with a theoretical argument, and try to back this up with reasoning by analogy. In any case, my individualist and pluralist conception of European identity implies that instead of talking about a European identity, it might be more helpful to use the softer concept European identity area, thus indicating the rejection of a strong and reified notion of identity.

The integrist position is not without its drawbacks: It implies i.a. a certain loss of predictive capacity. The emphasis is more upon situational logic, processes and personal experiences than upon structures and macro-patterns. It involves applying a kind of epistemic pragmatics, which is necessary in order to grasp contemporary complexity. In epistemological terms, it implies the need to use hermeneutical and perhaps also grounded theory and anthropological methods. However, from this it does not follow that one has to abandon positivism. A modern reflective positivism is compatible with a broad understanding of human motivation and agency. Some sociologists have tried to adapt to the challenges referred to in the foregoing, but simply talking in terms of i.a. a “comprehensive sociology” is not an adequate response to the challenges, we are confronted with⁵⁴.

An immediate objection to my basic line of argument is that it fails to account for the great similarity in individual responses in a number of identity-related fields. For instance, how do we account for phenomena such as large-scale demonstrations or the continuing existence of very dogmatic, political parties? First of all, the fact that many people react the same way does not necessarily mean that they have not made a choice. It may simply mean that they have been facing a special choice situation, involving emotional simplification. Regarding identity-issues, it is likewise easy to lose sight of the choices behind identical identifications. Secondly, I therefore suggest we talk about ideal-type situations that may serve as identity-activators. Such activators do not cause reason to stop functioning, but just confront citizens with a special kind of affective choice situation that simplifies choices. But even very emotional appeals do not necessarily elicit the same response from citizens. We would expect citizens to react in broadly similar ways in a crisis situation. And yet, to take the case of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, European sympathy with Americans following the attack on the twin towers was very short-lived, soon to be followed by ideological clashes and clashes of interest. To take an example from another world, the fact that some commercials have no noticeable effect on individuals and the fact that some human beings do not even want to look at commercials shows how, in many everyday choice situations, human beings react very differently.

I thus end this chapter with the proposition that holism generally has to be downgraded or abandoned in Political Science and particularly in studies of identity. Political Man ought to be conceived in broad terms as a being that combines rational and non-rational behaviour, and as a being that has a durable inner Self and makes existential choices about cultural identity. My integrist ontology points towards a theory of liberal culturalism in that it accords key importance to cultural factors but within the framework of a “liberal” approach broadly defined. The term liberal should however not be misunderstood: Far from conceiving human beings in narrow utilitarian terms I suggest a new approach combining “thick” individuality with “thin” community. Culture is choice – but, it must be added, choice is also culture.

1 Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000.

2 See Jerrold Seigel, op.cit. p. 171ff.

3 See the discussion in Bruce A. Buchan, “Situated consciousness or consciousness of situation? Autonomy and antagonism in Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness”. History of European Ideas, Vol. 22, no. 3. 1996.

4 Edgar Morin, Penser L’Europe. Paris: Gallimard, 1987.

5 See Jonathan Webber, “Sartre’s Theory of character”. European Journal of Philosophy. Vol. 14/1. 2006. As is well known Sartre was later in life to embrace radical left-wing views. However, his early writings are perfectly compatible with more moderate, political views.

6 Sartre’s understanding of life-projects does not quite correspond to our ordinary notion of the word, but clarifying Sartre’s concept of projects would require a long discussion that cannot be – and need not be – undertaken here.

7 Ibid. p. 102.

8 Seigel. Op.cit. p.518.

9 Ibid. p. 531.

10 Ibid. p.523.

11 Buchan, op.cit. p. 207.

12 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books, 1973, p. 35 and 45.

13 Ibid. p. 37.

14 Ibid. p. 316.

15 Ernest Renan, “What is a nation?”. In: Geoff Eley and Ronald Suny (eds.), Becoming Nation: A Reader. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

16 Ibid.

17 Merje Kuus, “Ubiquitous identities and elusive subjects: puzzles from Central Europe”. Transactions of the Institute of British Geography, 2007.

18 Occasionally Kuus’s argument borders on the obscure, as when he writes that “approached as a performative practice, the consistency of what is described as a ‘core’ of identity is not the source but the effect of identity discourses”, ibid. p. 93. This begs the question of how the outlook of individuals can be moulded into consistency by discourses?

19 Ibid. p. 97.

20 Kuus quotes Nietzsche as saying famously that “the deed is everything”.

21 Gerard Delanty & Rumford., Rethinking Europe. Social Theory and the Implications of Europeanization. London: Routledge, 2005.

22 Ibid. p. 15.

23 Ibid, p. 17.

24 Michael Herzfeld, “The European Self: Re-thinking an attitude”. In: Anthony Pagden (ed.), The idea of Europe. From Antiquity to the European Union. Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 140.

25 Cécile Laborde, op.cit. points out that both Anglo-American liberalism and French Republicanism have in recent years been challenged by a quite powerful “culturalist turn” in political theory and that both lines of thinking are currently on the defensive. Culturalism has so far failed, however, to develop a new, coherent view of Political Man based on individualist assumptions.

26 Delanty & Rumford, op.cit. p. 52.

27 Op.cit. p. 54.

28 Ibid.

29 See Emmanuel Mounier, Ecrits sur le Personalisme. Paris: Editions de Seuil, 2000.; and Emmanuel Mounier, Comunismo, Anarquismo, personalismo. Madrid: Movimiento cultural Cristiano, 1999; and Emmanuel Mounier, Personalismen. Köbenhavn, 1952.

30 See in particular Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self. The making of modern identity. Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 506ff.

31 Nicolas Berdyaev, The Beginning and the End. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1952, p.14.

32 Ibid. p. 59.

33 Ibid. p. 69.

34 Ibid. p. 76.

35 Gabriel Almond & Sydney Verba, The civic culture. Princeton University Press, 1963.

36 Roberto Garcia Jurado, “Critica de la teoria de la cultura politica”. Politica y cultura, otono 2006, no. 26.

37 Ibid. p. 142.

38 Martine Abdallah-Pretceille, “Interculturalism as a paradigm for thinking about diversity”. Intercultural education. Vol. 17, no. 5. December 2006, p. 479.

39 Ibid. p. 478.

40 See the excellent survey in Katherine Fierlbeck’s review of Pauline Marie Rosenay, Post-modernism and the Social Sciences: Insights, Inroads and intrusions. History and Theory; Vol. 33, no. 1. February 1994.

41 James T.W. Marks, “Theory, Pragmatism and Truth: Post-Modernism in the context of Action”. Canadian Journal of Sociology; Vol. 17, no. 2. Spring 1992.

42 See Malcolm Bradbury, “What was Post-Modernism? The Arts in and after the Cold War”. International Affairs London; Vol. 71, no. 4. Special Anniversary Issue, October 1995.

43 Robert J. Brym, “The end of sociology? A note on Post-modernism”. Canadian Journal of Sociology. Vol. 15, no. 3. Summer 1990.

44 A view shared by Marks, ibid.

45 M. Thompson, G. Grendstad & P. Selle, Cultural Theory as Political Science. London: Routledge, 1999 p. 1

46 Ibid.

47 Joseph I.H. Janssen, “Postmaterialism, Cognitive Mobilization and Public Support for European Integration”. British Journal of Political Science; Vol. 21/4. October 1991, p. 458.

48 See i.a. the works by Alan Milward and Andrew Moravcsik.

49 Janssen, op.cit. p. 465.

50 Michael Zürn, “The Challenge of Globalization and Individualization: A view from Europe”. In: Hans-Henrik Holm & Georg Sorensen (eds.), Whose World Order? Boulder: Westview, 1992.

51 James E. Cameron, “A three-factor Model of Social Identity”. Self and Identity, Vol. 3, 2004.

52 Bid.

53 Adrienne Héritier, “Composite democracy in Europe: the role of transparency and access to information”. Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 10/5. October 2003.

54 E.g. in M. Maffesoli, “La connaissance ordinaire”. Precis de Sociologie comprehensive. Paris: Librairie des Méridiens. 1985.