Britain and Germany Imagining the Future of Europe: National Identity, Mass Media and the Public Sphere

Recounting the gripping tale of Europe's quest for a constitution surveying events from Joschka Fischer's ground-breaking Quo-Vadis speech at Berlin's Humboldt University in 2000, to the failed referendums in France and the Netherlands fiver years later, this book addresses a aspect in EU Studies: the importance of public communication for bridging the legitimacy dilemmas of European integration.

Through analysis of newspaper coverage on the debate over the future of Europe in Great Britain and Germany between 2000 and 2005, this book explores how national identities interact with, and are reproduced in, the discursive construction of the future of the EU. The results of the three case studies suggest that the debate surrounding the future of Europe touche the core of a European construction, which exposes contradictory connotations and expectations while also highlighting that totally different ontological assumptions exist in Germany and the UK. The implications for the 'European Public Sphere' are severe as while communication across borders does not require consensus, it presupposes a common understanding of the issues at stake.

Contents:

+ List of Tables and Figures

+ Preface

+ PART I: INTRODUCTION
++ 1. The EU, the Nation State and the News Media
++ 2. Scope of the Book
++ 3. Plan of the Book

+ PART II: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
++ 4. The Social Construction of Europe – a New Focus for Theory and Research
++ 5. Democracy and Legitimacy at the EU level
++ 6. Democracy and Communication
++ 7. The Nexus of Communication, Legitimacy and Identity

+ PART III: THE EUROPEAN PUBLIC SPHERE
++ 8. The European Public Sphere, Brussels and the Media
++ 9. A European Public Sphere or a European Sphere of Publics?

+ PART IV: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
++ 10. Discursive Conditions for a Europeanisation of Public Spheres
++ 11. The News Media as Subject of Analysis
++ 12. The Communicative Event under Study: The Future of Europe Debate

+ PART V: IDENTITIES IN PERSPECTIVE: TWO DIFFERENT HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIPS TO EUROPE
++ 13. Introduction
++ 14. Britain
++ 15. Germany
++ 16. Concluding Remarks

+ PART VI: THE DISCURSIVE REPRESENTATION OF THE FUTURE OF EUROPE PROCESS
++ 17. Joschka Fischer's Humboldt Speech (2000)
++ 18. The Presentation of the Convention Results (2003)
++ 19. The Reactions to the Rejection of the Constitutional Treaty (2005)

+ PART VII: CONCLUSION
++ 20. Britain and Germany Imagining the Future of Europe
++ 21. Implications for the 'European Sphere of Publics'

+ Bibliography

+ I. Primary Sources
++ Official Documents
++ Official Speeches
++ Additional Media Sources

+ II. Secondary Literature
++ Index