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In Search of the Popular Subject: Identity Formation, Constitution-making and the Democratic Consolidation of the EU

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2010

Hans-Jörg Trenz
Hans-Jörg Trenz
Affiliation:
University of Oslo, Arena, PO Box 1143, Blindern, N-0317, Oslo, Norway. E-mail: http://www.arena.uio.no
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Abstract

This article addresses the critical issue of how constitutional designing of the EU is related to the expression of collective identities. A European collective identity is perceived in terms of the discursive representation of the underlying demos of a European democracy. Against the common view that holds the self-identified political community as prior and independent of constitutional designing, it is claimed that democracy rather operates through the identification of popular subjectness. The demos is signified and recognised as distinct and internally coherent through democratic practice. In the empirical part, it is tested out to what extent public debates on EU-constitution-making were linked to the identification of the popular subject of democracy. By drawing on a comparative media survey of constitutional debates from 2002–2007, the article distinguishes different markers of collective identities (national, European or multiple) that were used for representing and signifying democratic subjects in the EU.

Type
Norway and Europe
Information
European Review , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , February 2010 , pp. 93 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © Academia Europaea 2010

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References

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