The rise of the civic citizen: A comparative study of political identity in the European Union and Canada

This dissertation is about the ways that citizens perceive their place in the political world around them, through their political identities. Using a combination of comparative and quantitative methodologies, the dissertation traces the pattern of citizens' political identifications in the European Union and Canada between 1981 and 2003 and explains the mechanisms that shape these political identifications.; The results of this dissertation show that in the EU and Canada identity formation is a process that involves the participation of both individuals and political institutions yet between the two, individuals play a greater role in identity construction than do political institutions. The dissertation argues that the main agents of political identification in the EU and Canada are citizens themselves: individuals choose their own political identifications, rather than acquiring identities that are pre-determined by historical or cultural precedence. The dissertation makes the case that this phenomenon is characteristic of a rise of 'civic' identities in the EU and Canada. In the European Union, this overarching 'civic' identity is in its infancy compared to Canada, yet, both reveal a new form of political identification when compared to the historical and enduring forms of cultural identities firmly entrenched in Europe.; The rise of civic identities in both the EU and Canada is attributed to the active role that citizens play in their own identity constructions as they base their identifications on rational assessments of how well political institutions function, and whether their memberships in the community will benefit them, rather than on emotional factors rooted in religion or race. In the absence of strongly held emotional identifications, in the EU and Canada political institutions play a passive role in identity construction by making the community appear more entitative to its citizens.; These findings offer new theoretical scope to the concept of civic communities and the political identities that underpin them. The most important finding presented in this dissertation is that although civic communities and identities are manufactured by institutions and political elites (politicians and bureaucrats), they require thinking citizens, not feeling ones, to be sustained.