The Europeanisation of Everyday Life: Cross-Border Practices and Transnational Identifications among EU and Third-Country Citizens - Final Report

Abstract

This report presents the findings of a three-year research project titled The Europeanisation of Everyday Life: Cross-Border Practices and Transnational Identities among EU and Third-Country Citizens (EUCROSS) funded by the European Commission as part of the 7th Framework Programme. Between 2011 and 2014, the project has carried out an extensive collection of sociological data in six EU member states: Denmark, Germany, Italy, Romania, Spain, and the UK. These data have two main sources. First, a large-scale, systematic and independent CATI survey (the EUCROSS survey) of 8500 interviews to nationals of these six countries and immigrants from Romania and Turkey. Second, a set of follow-up in-depth face-to-face interviews with 160 respondents (the EUMEAN survey). These datasets advance existing studies on sociological Europeanisation by going beyond conventional data, such as Eurobarometer, and by taking its findings deep into a detailed breakdown of the changing everyday life and social practices of Europeans. Moreover, the project extends the realm of research on the internationalisation of European societies that has mostly been charted in social theoretical speculation rather than empirically established findings. At a very general level, we address the theme of the sociological foundations of European integration. We tackle an argument that resonates strongly in the public discourse but is also echoed in much social science on the subject: namely, that European integration is ‘an elite process’ (Haller 2008). This argument has two strands. The first one, less problematic, holds that the EU (and its former institutional incarnations from the 1950s onwards) has been designed and advanced by a very small slice of the European population. By itself this should not be surprising: all new political regimes tend to be elite creations (Higley and Burton 2006). However, the second strand is much more contentious, even dangerous, and affects the chances of future European unity. It maintains that ‘Europe’ has become part of the life of the upper classes and a privileged segment of those classes who most directly benefit from European integration, while the rest of the populace is increasingly alienated from it. ‘Elites and citizens live in different worlds’, insists Haller (2008) – and only elites have a Europe-wide horizon. With some nuances, Fligstein reaches a similar conclusion in his book Euroclash (2008) – the EU population is split between a minority of Europeanized citizens and a majority of non-Europeanized ones, with national middle classes wavering in between. The EUCROSS project sets out to test this argument: that is, discover more about the degree of ‘horizontal Europeanisation’ (Mau and Verwiebe 2010) of EU citizens, as well as an indicative sample of third country nationals, the Turkish. The project assumes that cross-border practices of all kinds, both physical and virtual, are the crucial aspect of the Europe in the making. Their spread or not across social categories – classes, cohorts, gender and nationalities – defines the degree of ‘social exclusivity’, so to speak, of sociological Europeanness. If low, the elite argument holds; if not, it doesn’t. As committed empirical scholars, members of the EUCROSS team (from six different research institutions across Europe), endeavour to test to what extent such a cleavage divides Europeans in their everyday life. The project focuses on practices (i.e., behaviour) but does not downplay the relevance of subjective dimensions of Europeanisation – a European ‘identification’ or, in a broader meaning preferred by EUCROSS researchers, ‘sense of belonging’ (Savage et al. 2005), as well as values, whether national or cosmopolitan. Indeed, broadly speaking, we expect that cross-border practices do indeed diffuse a sense of transnational belonging, in line with the ‘transactional thesis’ put forward initially by Karl Deutsch (Deutsch et al. 1957). But, again, this is submitted to empirical testing. Moreover, European belonging is unpacked into three different facets: a sense of cultural-territorial belonging to ‘Europe’, support and participation to the political project embodied by the EU, and solidarity with fellow Europeans.