ABSTRACT

In the light of Brexit and ongoing doubts about the future of a united Europe, have Britain and Denmark really been outliers to the collective European project, as suggested by their political positioning towards the EU? Despite the Euroscepticism expressed in referenda and public attitudes, we question whether these two countries are inherently less Europeanised, sociologically speaking, than other member states habitually seen as closer to the European project. Using data from the EUCROSS survey about the transnational practices and identifications of ordinary European citizens in five member states, we show that Britain and Denmark have been positioned close to Germany in terms of the degree and type of European cosmopolitanism and transnationalism found in these countries, and are more transnational societies than Spain and Italy. Moreover, in other ways, Britain and Denmark have been exemplary European societies, embodying the EU's cosmopolitan ‘normative power' agenda. We suggest that the marked divide between the ‘everyday Europeanisation’ of these societies and their political hostility to the EU is a paradox that lies at the heart of the democratic crisis of the continent, a schism that may now be directly corrosive to the longer term cosmopolitanism fostered by European integration.

摘要

鉴于英国脱欧以及对统一欧洲未来的持续怀疑，英国和丹麦是否真的像欧洲联盟的政治立场那样偏离了欧洲集体计划？尽管全民投票和公众态度表示了欧洲怀疑主义，但从社会学角度来说，我们怀疑这两个国家在欧洲化程度上是否比习惯上被视为更接近欧洲计划的其他成员国低。使用EUCROSS调查中有关五个成员国的跨国惯例和普通欧洲公民身份的数据，我们显示，就在这些国家中发现的欧洲大都会主义和跨国主义的程度和类型而言，英国和丹麦与德国的位置接近，并且比西班牙和意大利更多的是跨国社会。而且，从其他方面来说，英国和丹麦是欧洲的楷模，体现了欧盟国际化的“规范性大国”议程。我们认为，这些社会的“日常欧洲化”与他们对欧盟的政治敌视之间存在明显的分歧，这是该大陆民主危机核心的悖论，这种分裂现在可能会长期侵蚀长期欧洲一体化促进了世界主义。