European Studies Summer School 2005

Group project:

Political Science: Nationalism and the European Union

Project convenor: Dr Ben Wellings

Group participants:

Iyanoosh Reporter
Linda Zeman
Kris Hayres
Mitchell Adams
Scott Stephenson
Yue (“Tony”) Tan

Project outline:

The European Union as we know it today was created in the aftermath of the two world wars that devastated the European continent between 1914 and 1945.  In the first half of the twentieth century, the notion of European unity was limited to a small, but devout, group of followers.  In the second half of the twentieth century this idea developed into the most advanced form of supra-national organisation in the world.

But to what extent was this development preceded, or even followed, by the development of a mass sense of “European identity” that transcended the nationalism that was largely blamed for the two world wars?  Will the creation of the European Union lead inevitably towards the development of a sort of “European” nationalism?  If so, will Europe’s founding myth be that of the two “civil wars” that afflicted the continent and will Europe’s “Other” turn out to be the United States of America, the country that helped create European unity and prosperity when the continent lay in ruins?