Political And Cultural Identity In The Process Of European Integration

This thesis deals with the European political culture identity and European integration, mainly analyzing the concept of Identity and European political cultural identity, and its function, and discusses how it comes into being; how European political culture identity affects the European constitution .It focuses on following four questions: What is Identity and European political culture identity; Why is European political culture identity necessary; And how does it come into being; And How European political culture identity sees like?First, the paper investigates the concept of European political identity through the interpretation of collective identity. Having reviewed the historical evolution of European political identity, it addresses the three aspects of European political identity-European cultural identity, EU citizenship and European diplomacy and defense identity in terms of European official discourse. Second, it argues that the objective of developing European political identity is to cultivate the sense of belonging and the sense of identity of both European elite and people. The appearance of European political identity constitutes the important process of European integration as well as the useful instrument that pushes it forward. The establishment of European political identity is conducive to enhancing the legitimacy of European governance and to the solution of nationalism in European Union. The author deems that the establishment of European political identity will be a consciously constructive process. But this process is not an arbitrary one, bound to be limited by both historical facts and conditions. Upon how to construct European identity, the author asserts that the cultivation of sense of positive identity is the basic principle. Third, the paper discusses the relations between European political identity and national identity. Presently, how to remove the conflict between European identity and its national counterpart has become one of the most significant problems in the construction of European political identity. Since national identity is still a positive identity to its members, therefore European political identity should be constructed in the way that would guarantee mutual development. Consequently, pluralism becomes an essential principle. Through analyzing relevant information about public opinion, it reveals that European political identity plus national identity model has been accepted by increasingly more and more people, which suggest that the co-existence and reciprocal development of the two identities have become a fact. Nevertheless, member states of European Union still have different views to the relation between European political identity and national identity, because each state has unique history and culture, which will leads to different experience and understanding. Finally, the paper discusses the ways that constitute the European political identity.The European political identity must in accordance with to the history and focus on the future of the European and the interests of all nations.