Economic, Political and Social Identity in the European Union
Professor John Wilton
Lecture 3
Social Constructivism and an E.U. identity

Lecture 3
Two perspectives about the way in which identity is produced are:
•ESSENTIALIST
•
•CONSTRUCTIVIST

Lecture 3
  1. ESSENTIALISM
- an approach that looks for the   ‘essence’ or ‘true core’ of objects, values, identities and
cultures

Lecture 3
2. CONSTRUCTIVISM
- identities not ‘fixed’ or static, but instead should be understood as a process of ‘becoming’
within which they are continually mediated and influenced by other factors, built up – for example,
socially – or constructed

Lecture 3
-citizen identity is ‘constructed’ every day by the social determinants of our actions – the social
rules and normal behaviour that we follow every day
•
-Constructivism is based upon the concept of
• IDEATIONAL SOCIALISATION

Lecture 3
Constructivists hold the view that the ‘building blocks’ of reality are IDEATIONAL, as well as
material
 - in other words, ideas, as much as experience and actuality, shape reality (the ideas, beliefs,
norms and values of elites, as much as the actuality and experiences of individual citizens, shape
and form the reality of everyday life)

Lecture 3
Constructivists argue that:
- ideas (ideology) shape institutions
- those (structural) institutions, based on those ideas, in turn promote rules, values, beliefs,
norms and practices which produce a ‘collective’ identity that citizens identify with
- so, ‘ideas’ about identity matter – they have structural characteristics through State and
societal institutions – and those ‘ideas’ interact with the individual citizen’s social and
cultural experiences = Ideational Socialisation

Lecture 3
E.U social and cultural policies
PLUS
economic growth and stability
(material interests)
    should produce
‘E.U.citizen interest’/benefits
  +
 E.U. cultural and social images and institutions
= socially constructed E.U. identity