The Discursive Construction of European Identities - A Multi-Level Approach to Discourse and Identity in the Transforming European Union

This book looks at the discursive construction of European identities in a variety of institutional and non-institutional contexts and through a variety of social and political actors. Its multilevel and interdisciplinary approach – rooted in the Discourse-Historical tradition of Critical Discourse Analysis – allows for a comparison of identity constructions at different levels of Europe’s social and political organisation and in different modes of communication. The book analyses discourses as diverse as those of the EU politicians, of Europe’s national media as well as of migrants living in Europe. It offers a set of integrated models and analytical procedures which bring to the fore the inherent dynamism and complexity of both ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ European identity constructions.