Discursive Constructions of Identity in European Politics

This book examines the discursive construction of ethnic, national and regional identities and analyses how specific industry discourses condition and constrain knowledge and action with regard to various socio-political issues in Europe.

In the study of European politics and society ever-greater importance is attached to the role of ideational factors such as identity and discourse. The editor brings together specialists from critical discourse analysis and critical approaches to communications, history, literature, cultural studies, media, sociology, politics and International Relations to discuss the discursive construction of ethnic, national and regional identities and analyse how specific identity discourses condition and constrain knowledge and action with regard to various socio-political issues in Europe.

RICHARD C. M. MOLE is Lecturer in the Politics of Central Europe at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, UK. Prior to taking up this lectureship, he was a Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow at UCL. He is author of the forthcoming The Baltic States. From the Soviet Union to the European Union.

List of Diagrams * Acknowledgements * Notes on Contributors * Discursive Identities/Identity Discourses and Political Power–R.C.M.Mole * PART 1: DISCOURSE AND IDENTITY * A Discourse Theory of Ethnic Identity–D.Ellis * The Discursive Construction of European Identities–R.Wodak * The Tale-End of History: Literary Form, Historiography and the Danish (Post)-National Imagination–C.C.Thomson * ‘Doing Europe’: The Discursive Construction of European Identities–R.Wodak * Shifting Discourses: Banal Nationalism and Cultural Intimacy in Greek Television News and Everyday Life–M.Madianou * PART 2: DISCOURSE, IDENTITY AND POLITICS * The Power of Metaphor: Consent, Dissent and Revolution–E.Ringmar * Post-Liberal Anxieties and Discourses of Peoplehood in Europe: Nationalism, * Xenophobia and Racism–G.Delanty & P.Millward * Talking Security? The Discourse of European Identity in the Baltic States–R.C.M.Mole * It’s About Time – is Europe Old or New?–J.Ifversen * Narratives of Security: Strategy and Identity in the European Context–F.Ciuta * Conclusion: Revisiting Discourse, Identity and ‘Europe’–R.C.M.Mole & F.Ciuta * References * Index