Europe historically has been made, unmade, and remade through the movements of peoples. Despite the image today of Europeans as a rather sedentary and socially immobile population – particularly when compared to the highly mobile spatial and social patterns of North Americans – contemporary Europe has essentially emerged out of a crucible of local, regional, and international population movements over the centuries.

In this chapter, I consider the crucial impact of migration in Europe on European identity, by building a bridge between historical analyses of the phenomenon and emerging patterns that are shaping Europe as a distinctive new regional space of migration and mobility. My contribution points to how migration is making and remaking Europe, less at the level of identity in people's heads – in fact, if anything, most migrations are contributing to the growth of anti-European sentiment – but more in a territorial and (especially) structural economic sense. This is less easy to see if a purely cultural view is taken of the question of Europe. After sketching the role of population movements in the making and unmaking of Europe historically, I explore in depth the three kinds of migration/mobility that are most salient to the continent today and its structural transformation: first, the ongoing, traditional “ethnic” immigration of non-Europeans into European nation-states; second, the small but symbolically important emergence of new intra-European “elite” migrations, engaged by European citizens enjoying the fruits of their EU free movement rights; and third, the politically ambiguous flows of East–West migrants – which fall somewhere between the other two forms – that have been connected to the EU enlargement processes formalized in 2004 and 2007.

Since the early 1990s, two factors have had a significant impact on the pace and character of European integration. The first factor is the end of the permissive consensus that had prevailed until then. The main symptoms of this change have been a steady decline, to historically low levels, in the level of popular EU support; and episodes such as the rejection of the European Constitution by a majority of French and Dutch voters. The second factor is division among European leaders concerning future institutional developments in a twenty-seven-member Union.

The two factors converged in the 2005 constitutional crisis, not because cleavages among the elites mimic those among the population, but rather because popular discontent helped to undo the fragile consensus that had been achieved by European Union elites around the constitutional project. At stake is disagreement between political elites and a significant segment of the population on the values that should sustain the European project (see Hooghe 2003) and also among the different national elites on the limits of supranationalism. In the context of the politicization of the European Union in the 1990s, triggered by the increasingly political character of the EU and signaled among other things by the repeated organization of referenda on new EU treaties, the permissive consensus prevailing until then has broken down (see Katzenstein and Checkel in this volume) and deep disagreement among elites has surfaced.

Since the 1980s, the European Union (EU) has undergone a process of profound politicization and a deliberate, though less striking process of de-politicization. These developments have left their mark on the identification of Europeans with Europe and the EU. This identification has some specific qualities: it is predominantly liberal; it attempts to encompass Europe's substantial internal diversities; it is based on common social and cultural rather than political experiences; and it is disappointingly weak in the view of some, surprisingly substantial in the view of others. These qualities, I argue, have much to do with the distinctive politicization the EU has experienced since the early 1980s. I start with a short outline of the history of the politicization and de-politicization of European affairs since the 1980s. In the second section I analyze changes in the identification with Europe under five separate headings. The final section develops my answer to the question of how politicization and identification with Europe have become deeply intertwined.

Politicization and de-politicization since the 1980s

Since the 1980s, the EU has experienced a period of politicization, as profound decisions affecting the character and future course of the EU became matters of public debate. Previously, there had existed a diffuse and largely uncontroversial general support for complicated expert decisions, for example on the creation of a common market, a common agricultural policy, and various European funds. After the mid-1980s, debates on Europe became more contentious, with increasingly clear contrasts between supporters and opponents of the European project.

The ship of European identity has entered uncharted waters. Its sails are flapping in a stiff breeze. Beyond the harbor, whitecaps are signaling stormy weather ahead. The crew is fully assembled, but some members are grumbling – loudly. While food and drink are plentiful, maps and binoculars are missing. Officers are vying for rank and position as no captain is in sight. Sensing a lack of direction and brooding bad weather, some passengers are resting in the fading sun on easy chairs thinking of past accomplishments; others are huddling in an openly defiant mood close to the lifeboats, anticipating bad times ahead. With the journey's destination unknown, the trip ahead seems excruciatingly difficult to some, positively dangerous to others. Anxiety and uncertainty, not hope and self-confidence, define the moment.

Many European elites, deeply committed to the European Union (EU) as a political project, might reject the vignette we sketch above. They see the EU as institutional machinery for the solution of problems that in the past had shattered peace, destroyed prosperity, and otherwise proven to be intractable for national governments. For them, it is a project rooted in the European Enlightenment, and an emphatic way of saying “never again” to the disastrous wars of the twentieth century. While the Union has not yet succeeded in crafting a common European sense of “who we are,” time is on its side.

When John Haslam, social sciences editor at Cambridge University Press, and Andreas Føllesdal, consulting editor for this series, first approached us to write a book on European identity, our response was along the lines of “been there, done that, why bother to do it again?” Yet, as we thought about the possibility, we began to warm to the idea. We relished the prospect of collaboration. Furthermore, existing scholarship seemed compartmentalized and missed one central feature of identity in the new Europe. European Union (EU) specialists, typically political scientists and often funded by the EU Commission, focussed overwhelmingly on the Union and the effects its institutions had in crafting senses of allegiance from the “top down,” as it were. At the same time and from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, students of immigration, nationalism, and religion explored how feelings of community in Europe arose from the “bottom up,” outside of or around EU institutions. Moreover, almost everyone was taken by surprise at how the return of Eastern Europe was profoundly and irrevocably changing European identity politics.

This book makes a start at addressing these omissions and oversights. We do not favor either top-down or bottom-up storylines. Instead, we explore the intersections and interactions between the two, and do so through the lens of multiple disciplinary perspectives. This approach allows us to capture the reality of identity in today's quasi-constitutionalized, enlarged, and deeply politicized Europe, where senses of “who we are” are fracturing and multiplying at one and the same time.

In this chapter I argue that the construction of European political identity does not necessarily rest on a definite conception of what it is to be European. This is so for two reasons – one related to the transformation of the very conception of political identification with one's own community in modern societies, and the other to the mixed nature of the European Union as a multilevel polity comprising both intergovernmental and supranational levels of governance. Any normative discourse about political identity in Europe must accommodate these two realities.

Political identity is both a social and a historical construct. As a social construct, it reflects the institutional nature of the political community As a historical construct, its emergence and consolidation is bound up with historical contingencies and with the way in which competing narratives and ideologies shape the self-perceptions of the members of the community. As suggested in the introductory essay to this volume, Europe's identities exist in the plural; and so it is for the more specific sense of political identities.

But there is an important functional element to political identity, insofar as this plays an important role in sustaining citizens' allegiance and loyalty to their political community. In this respect, the different kinds of motivations and cultural and psychological constructions that make different people identify with a political community may be irrelevant, as long as political identity helps to bring the members of a community together.

Europe's identities, this book argues, exist in the plural. There is no one European identity, just as there is no one Europe. These identities can be conceived as both social process and political project. Understood as process, identities flow through multiple networks and create new patterns of identification. Viewed as project, the construction of identities is the task of elites and entrepreneurs, operating in Brussels or various national settings.

Process and project involve publics and elites; they are shaped by and shape states; they are open-ended and have no preordained outcomes; and they serve both worthy and nefarious political objectives. Bureaucrats crafting a Europe centered on Brussels, xenophobic nationalists, cosmopolitan Europeanists, anti-globalization Euro-skeptics, and a European public that for decades has been permissive of the evolution of a European polity – they are all politically involved in the construction of an evolving European identity.

Following the 2004 and 2007 enlargements, a politically cohesive Western Europe centered on the European Union (EU) is receding, while a politically looser and more encompassing Europe is rising. Europe is no longer what it was during the Cold War, an integral part of an anti-communist alliance. In the wake of 9/11, for many in Western Europe, Europe now represents an alternative to American unilateralism and militarism. For Central and Eastern European states seeking to build their own democratic and capitalist futures, Europe has become both a place of return and an inescapable destination.

Introduction

Although Switzerland is at the heart of Europe, the country resembles a tiny island on the political map of Europe, surrounded by the twenty-seven member states of the European Union. In chapter 2 we argued that recent domestic and international developments have altered Switzerland's renowned political-island status. However, its outsider position in EU politics, due to its formal non-membership, prevents the country from full political integration. As we shall see in this chapter, solutions have nonetheless been found that allow Switzerland to deal with the challenges imposed by European integration.

We commence this chapter by providing a historical overview of the relations between the European Union and Switzerland. Structured in four stages, this overview is followed by a discussion of the prospects for eventual EU accession. We will conclude this chapter by arguing that Switzerland's current and probable future relationship with the EU can best be characterized as a ‘customized quasi-membership’.

Historical overview

The historical outline of Switzerland's relationship with the European Community (EC), and later with the EU, can be structured in four, consecutive stages: initial multilateral failures, stagnation, further multilateral failure and enhanced unilateral and bilateral integration.

Stage one: initial multilateral failures (1955–72)

The developments leading to the Treaties of Rome, which created the European Economic Community (EEC; now known simply as the European Community or EC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) in 1957, demanded a Swiss reaction in order to avoid the country's isolation.

Introduction

Swiss interest associations have traditionally been very important actors in Swiss politics. Their powerful position contrasts with the weakness of Swiss political parties. Interest associations have been more coherently structured and more resourceful than parties and they have traditionally played a key role in the legislative process in the pre-parliamentary arena as well as in policy implementation. Switzerland has therefore often been considered as a paradigmatic case of democratic corporatism. Thus, Peter Katzenstein (1985), who analysed how the small Western European countries met the challenge of their integration into global markets, counted Switzerland among the typical cases of ‘democratic corporatism’. Three elements characterized this kind of regime: a centralized and concentrated system of interest associations; a voluntary and informal coordination of the various interests in continuous political negotiations between their associations, political parties and the various branches of public administration; and an ideology favouring social partnership. Based on the configuration of power in the system of interest intermediation, Katzenstein distinguished between two versions of ‘democratic corporatism’ – a liberal and a social version. In the social version, typically represented by Sweden, a strong labour movement was capable of matching the power of the business community. In the liberal version, for which Switzerland represented the typical case, power was asymmetrically distributed between a dominant business community and a rather weak labour movement.

Introduction

Switzerland has a longstanding global reputation as an economic success story, but also as a special case (OECD 2006: 20). The reasons for this success are not obvious, but they are usually attributed to a combination of factors including openness to international trade and investment, a flexible labour market (see chapter 7), a sound monetary policy, a highly developed financial sector, a strong record of innovation, a high level of human capital development, and a unique system of government which we have described in the previous chapters. However, since the 1990s, economic liberalization on a worldwide scale has put the traditional Swiss model of adjustment under pressure. Unleashed by a series of changes in the American economy, Western Europe in general and Switzerland in particular have been put under increasing pressure. Liberalization means the introduction or reinforcement of market competition which goes hand in hand with an often dramatic erosion of different forms of traditional privileges. According to Schwartz (2001), ‘liberalization’ means, above all, the erosion of politically guaranteed property rights and the income streams associated with them. Liberalization therefore especially concerns individuals and firms in the sectors that have been protected against competition by state intervention since the 1920s. While liberalization implies the introduction of greater market competition, it does not necessarily imply deregulation, i.e. the reduction or elimination of regulation; in fact, in most cases, liberalization goes together with re-regulation, i.e. the reformulation of old rules or the introduction of new ones.