EUDENTIFY - Common institutions, diverging identities?

Supranational institution building, identity formation, and the future of European integration

Amid Brexit, rising populism and conflicts over EU solidarity in the covid-19 crisis, this project studies the dynamic relationship between EU institution building and collective identity. The EU has accrued political authority over nearly half a billion citizens, even in policy areas that are closely linked to national sovereignty. However, political identities are still primarily tied to the member states and many people do not identify as European. The central theories of European integration offer contrasting views on the EU institutions-identity-link – some expect a spillover from institutions to identity, while others expect identity to constrain EU integration, but none can fully explain it.

EUDENTIFY develops an integrated and empirically validated theory of the EU institutions-identity-link. It argues that the institutions-identity link varies across different policy areas and across time. Moreover, institutions and identities influence each other, both positively and negatively.

To empirically test this theoretical framework, it constructs a new data set covering 50 years of survey data on European identity and uses cutting-edge research methods to analyse 50 years of EU institution building and political identity change as well as its micro-foundations. The project advances knowledge on European integration, political psychology and public opinion, while providing unprecedented possibilities to study European identity over a much longer time frame and using better data than what was previously possible.

This research project is funded by a VIDI grant of the Dutch Research Council, 2022-2027.

Prof. T. (Theresa) Kuhn

Faculty of Humanities

Europese studies

T.KuhnLancee@uva.nl +31 (0)20 525 2280

EUDENTIFY - Common institutions, diverging identities?

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