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Nationalism and Bounded Integration:

What it Would Take to Construct a European Demos

Harvard University, USA

This article uncovers some crucial key assumptions of polity-formation underpinning the debate about the European Union's democratic legitimacy. It uses theories of nationalism to understand why a demos is unlikely to develop easily at the European level. Based on a two-by-two categorization of the logic and scope of identity-formation, I conclude that the most promising approach to European demos-formation conceives of identities as both constructed and `sticky'. Labeling this theoretical position `bounded integration', I suggest that it provides a more realistic foundation for developing democracy-enhancing reform proposals than does post-nationalist theorizing, especially due to the former's explicit attention to identity-conferring mechanisms such as education, language and media.

Key Words: constructivism • democracy • European integration • identity-formation • nationalism

European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 7, No. 2, 139-174 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/1354066101007002001


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