Coming to terms with the past? Constructions of refugees in three leading German newspapers

Transcription

1 Coming to terms with the past? Constructions of refugees in three leading German newspapers Hugrún Aðalsteinsdóttir

2 Coming to terms with the past? Constructions of refugees in three leading German newspapers Hugrún Aðalsteinsdóttir Lokaverkefni til MA- gráðu í Alþjóðasamskiptum Leiðbeinandi: Dr. Maximilian Conrad Stjórnmálafræðideild Félagsvísindasvið Háskóla Íslands Júní

3 Ritgerð þessi er lokaverkefni til MA- gráðu í Alþjóðasamskiptum og er óheimilt að afrita ritgerðina á nokkurn hátt nema með leyfi rétthafa. Hugrún Aðalsteinsdóttir Reykjavík, Ísland

4 Abstract The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate how the image of refugees is constructed in German leading media. The central hypothesis of this thesis is that the history of Germany plays a major role in the politics of the current refugee crisis and the aim is to demonstrate the impact of ideational aspects based on construction of refugees. The topic is discussed in the light of one of the main theories of International Relations, Social Constructivism and Jürgen Habermas theories of the nation- state, constitutional patriotism, discourse ethics and the theory of communicative action. The main chapter of the research contains the results of the qualitative content analysis from the articles of German leading media. The findings of the analysis demonstrate that the historical aspects of the Nazi- past and the Holocaust are still influencing German foreign policy, as it is an important part of the German collective identity. The results also demonstrate that Jürgen Habermas concept of Vergangenheitsbewältigung or coming to terms with the past plays a significant role in German leading media s constructions of refugees and normative justifications regarding how to deal with the crisis do outweigh instrumental justification. 4

5 Útdráttur Tilgangur þessarar ritgerðar er að rannsaka hvernig ímynd flóttamanna er mynduð í leiðandi þýskum fjölmiðlum. Megin tilgáta ritgerðarinnar er sú að saga Þýskalands og áhrif seinni Heimstyrjaldarinnar hafi mikil áhrif í stjórnmálum nútímans, einkum og sér í lagi í tengslum við flóttamannavandann sem nú ríkir í Evrópu. Tilgangur ritgerðarinnar er að sýna fram á að þessi áhrif séu enn sýnileg í stjórnmálum nútímans og endurspeglist í hvernig ímynd flóttamanna er mynduð í leiðandi þýskum fjölmiðlum. Þetta umfjöllunarefni er rætt út frá kenningum alþjóðastjórnmála, fyrst og fremst mótunarhyggju sem og kenningum Jürgen Habermas. Aðalkafli ritgerðarinnar inniheldur niðurstöður innihaldsgreiningar sem gerð var á 206 dagblaðagreinum sem innihalda beina túlkun blaðamanns á flóttamönnum. Niðurstöður rannsóknarinnar sýna að saga nasistaflokksins og helförin sem átti sér stað í Þýskalandi hafa enn áhrif á utanríkisstefnu Þýskalands og er mikilvægur hluti af sjálfsmynd þýsku þjóðarinnar. Niðurstöðurnar staðfesta því tilgátuna sem sett er fram í byrjun ritgerðarinnar að hugtakið Vergangenheitsbewältigung eða uppgjör við fortíðina hafi mikil áhrif á hvernig ímynd flóttamanna endurspeglast í leiðandi fjölmiðlum og réttlætingar sem byggjast á forskriftum eða gildum um hvernig takast beri á við flóttamannavandann vega þyngra á metunum en tæknilegar réttlætingar. 5

6 Preface This 30 ECTS credit thesis is the final assignment in my Master s studies in International Relations at the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Iceland. It was written under the supervision of Dr. Maximilian Conrad, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Political Science. I want to thank him for all the constructive and helpful comments and the interesting discussions during the groundwork and the writing of this thesis. I also want to thank my parents for the love and support and special thanks to my father for always showing interest in my studies and projects and offering help when needed. 6

7 Table of Contents Table of Contents...7 Table of Figures Introduction Background Aim of the research Research questions Overview of chapters Theoretical background Social Constructivism Identities and interests Structure, agency and culture Social construction and European Integration Habermasian Theories The Nation- state and constitutional patriotism Discourse ethics The Theory of Communicative Action Methodology Research methods Selection of cases The Coding Frames Validity, risk analysis and ethical concerns Analysis Frame Analysis The central statements...57 Conclusions...65 References

8 Appendix

9 Table of Figures Table 1- Type of article Table 2 Number of articles every month Table 3 Frequency of frames Table 4 Frequency of the people in need of help frame Table 5 Frequency of the demography frame Table 6 - Frequency of the security threat frame Table 7 Frequency of the terrorism frame Table 8 Frequency of the economy frame Table 9 Frequency of the expenses frame Table 10 Frequency of the challenge frame Table 11 Central statements of the articles Figure 1 - Distribution of articles between months Figure 2 Distribution of articles between days Figure 3 Expressions of the central statements Figure 4 Expressions of the miscellaneous theme

10 1. Introduction 1.1. Background The European Union has been one of the main topics within the discipline of International Relations since its foundation. It is astounding that numerous states that fought one of the bloodiest wars in the history only 70 years ago are now closely cooperating economically and politically. Germany is one of the biggest actors within the Union, owing both to its economic strength and large population and therefore holds most power within the institutions. How Germany has behaved in the recent years has expressed that they are increasing their leadership impact and influencing all decision- making in the Union. The most recent examples are the financial crisis in Greece adding the question of the future of the Euro and then the ongoing refugee crisis, where thousands of refugees are arriving in Europe every day, many of them fleeing horrible conditions in their home countries such as Syria and others are emigrating from poor countries in search for a better life in Europe. In terms of the refugee crisis, many states of the European Union have criticized the German asylum policy on welcoming every Syrian to the country, but even though that the opinions of the states differ, they have been able to work together to some extent on a European solution, particularly recently when negotiating with Turkey. On March 7, 2016 the EU leaders and Turkey agreed on a comprehensive plan to reduce irregular migration: all new irregular migrants crossing from Turkey into Greek islands will be returned to Turkey and for every Syrian returned to Turkey from Greek islands, another Syrian will be resettled from Turkey to the EU countries. Instead, EU has agreed to lift the visa requirements for Turkish citizens by the end of June Since March, there has been a significant reduction in arrivals in the EU and an increase in returns to Turkey. Germany and Sweden have been the countries within the European Union that have taken in most refugees since the beginning of the crisis. Germany has received the highest number refugees or according the Germany s EASY system for counting and distributing people there were 1,1 Million refugees in According to the newest report from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (g. Bundesamt für Migration and Flüchtlinge), issued in February 2016, the 1 EU and Turkey agree European response to refugee crisis, European Commission, accessed on April 24, ,1 Millionen Flüchtlinge kamen 2015 nach Deutschland, Die Welt, accessed on April 1, 2016, Millionen- Fluechtlinge- kamen nach- Deutschland.html 10

11 number of formal asylum applications were in the year and already in the first two months of Those figures have however diminished since the agreement with Turkey. Germany seems to be taking more responsibility than many other states in the European Union in this crisis, but the reasons for Germany s behaviour do however remain unclear. Much has been written about German national identity and how they tend to think about themselves as a nation since the end of the Second World War. The historians debate in the mid- 1980s dealt with questions connected to how to think of the past in the present, where the conservative historians argued for a sort of normalization of the German Nazi part but leftist and liberal intellectuals with Habermas included, argued that the past is past and must be treated as such, that is, it forms part of who we are as a nation. 4 Besides the Third Reich and the Holocaust part of their history, Germany has also a long and complicated history of population movement. Following Germany s defeat in World War II, millions of ethnic Germans were expelled from areas of Poland, former Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Russia and forced to resettle in West and East Germany. The booming economy of post- war West Germany required more workers and huge numbers of guest workers arrived from Mediterranean countries such as Italy, Spain and most significantly Turkey. In total, 20,3% of Germany s population now have a migration background. 5 Some critics of the German welcoming policy have claimed that the main reasons for the behaviour of Germany in the refugee crisis is that they need labour force to fuel their economy. Others have claimed that they have some kind of guilty feeling (g. Schuldgefühl) because of the Third Reich and the Holocaust and are therein lies the Germans moral reason for taking so much responsibility within the international community Aim of the research The aim of this research is to examine Germany s position in International Politics and to place a special emphasis on the refugee crisis. In order to examine their behaviour, a Qualitative Content Analysis was performed on three leading newspapers in Germany with a focus on how refugees 3 Aktuelle Zahlen zu Asyl, BAMF, accessed on April 2, 2016, anlage- teil- 4- aktuelle- zahlen- zu- asyl.pdf? blob=publicationfile 4 Lasse Thomassen, Habermas: A Guide for the Perplexed (London and New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010), Migrant crisis: What next for Germany s asylum seekers?, BBC, accessed on January 25, 2016, europe

12 were constructed in those newspapers. Three big newspapers were chosen: die Welt, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Since the refugees topic is extremely broad, the research was limited to the period from the beginning of August 2015 until the end of January In that time- period the political environment in Germany changed rapidly due to the refugee crisis and therefore changed the public dialogue. The current refugee crisis is not only taking its toll on Germany but also on the European Union and its cooperation. The states of the EU differ considerably in the opinion of their public and politicians on how to tackle this crisis. Some states are setting up temporary border controls, which may become the new norm even though it goes against the fundamental belief of the EU of free movement of people. Many states in the European Union disagree with Germany on how to distribute the refugees between the states and whether a stronger commitment from Turkey in preventing asylum seekers from entering Europe is complicating the union s relation with Turkey or strengthening it. Some of those issues are already weakening Germany s leadership within the European Union. Besides those political issues of the European Union, Germany is also facing some major challenges within Germany. One of them is how to integrate the refugees into the labour market. Many of them are not eligible for work and the major part also needs some extensive training before they can enter the workforce. Yet another group of the refugees are women and children and therefore the state is facing increasing number of children who need basic education or a place in a kindergarten. Those challenges and how the newspapers present them will be discussed further later in this thesis Research questions The central hypothesis put forth in this thesis is that Germany s behaviour in the refugee crisis is in some way influenced by its history and their collective identity, which can to some extent be explained with the Social Constructivism theory of International Relations. This is not to say that there aren t any other aspects that influence their decisions, but in this research it is assumed that the cultural aspects and how Germans tend to think about the past plays a major role in German politics of the refugee crisis. However, the refugee crisis has in a way also triggered a crisis within the European Union. The states of the European Union do not agree on how to handle the crisis and many of them are against Angela Merkel s asylum policy on welcoming every Syrian to Germany. The problem seems to be that the actors are focusing on their national interests and those national interests differ. These theoretical aspects will be further illustrated later in this thesis. 12

13 The main research question of my research is How do the German leading media construct images of refugees in the context of the current crisis? In this context, I would like to accentuate that I will constructivistically explore how big role the cultural aspects and the history of Germany play in the politics of the current refugee crisis and my empirical question is relevant because of this background. In other words: the aim of the research is to demonstrate the impact of ideational aspects based on construction of refugees in the German leading media Overview of chapters In order to answer this question, a qualitative content analysis will be made on articles from German newspapers. Firstly, the theoretical background of my research will be illustrated. In order to examine how German identity and the history of Germany influence their decisions, theories of International Relations will be used, most particularly social constructivism. How social constructivism influences and affects the European Integration will be discussed as well. Then Jürgen Habermas theories of communicative action, discourse ethics and his ideas about the Nation- state and constitutional patriotism will be introduced in context to the research. In the third chapter the methodology of the research will be explained and a hypothesis developed about what is expected to be found in the analysis. The main chapter of this thesis is the content analysis of the newspaper articles and discussions of the findings, in context of the hypothesis. Finally, the results will be summarized in the conclusion. 13

14 2. Theoretical background To answer the study s research question, constructivism will be used to explain the theoretical background of my research and to explain how identities and interests of a state influence their behaviour in international relations. The first part of this chapter will highlight some of the key aspects of constructivist theory and its relation to my research. The second part will briefly demonstrate how social constructivism influences the European integration and the work of the European Union. Finally Jürgen Habermas theories of the nation- state, constitutional patriotism, discourse ethics and the theory of communicative action will be introduced and connected to my research. To understand contemporary German foreign policy it is important to look at post- war Germany history. The leading idea of German politics after the Second World War was: never again that is, never again a Holocaust, never again a German Europe, never again dictatorship, never again atomic war and so on. The German trauma is rooted in the depression in the 1930s and its social and political consequences. 6 The first economic crisis led to the Nazi regime gaining power and its terror, the Holocaust and Second World War arose. Since the end of the war, West Germany has been known for its economic miracle and their passion to unite Europe to one supranational union. After the end of the Cold War, East and West Germany were unified again, and German unification was another success story. As Ulrich Beck describes it in his book, German Europe: The European Union has twenty- seven member states, governments and parliaments; it has its own Parliament, a Commission, a Court, a High Representative for Foreign Affairs, a Commission President, a Council President, etc., etc. But thanks to its economic might, Germany has been catapulted by the financial crisis and the crisis of the euro into the position of the undisputed great power in Europe as a whole. After the Second World War and the Holocaust, Germany lay in ruins both morally and physically. Now, after barely seventy years, it has advanced from the status of eager pupil to that of schoolmaster of Europe. 7 But even though Germany is the leading state in the European Union and a world power economically, it is still very passive in acknowledging its regional or international leadership. The consequences of history are still showing in their decision making and how they present 6 Ulrich Beck, Europe at risk: a cosmopolitan perspective, Zygmunt Bauman et.al. Democracy on the Precipice. Council of Europe Democracy Debates (Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, 2012), Ulrich Beck, German Europe, (United Kingdom: Polity Press, 2013), 3. 14

15 themselves. As an example, Germans do still not use the German word Führer. Even the younger generation who did not experience the wars do not use this word. Germans rather use the English word, leader. This is an illustration of the never again in their everyday language. 8 When researching the never again war concept of Germany, it is important to bear in mind that it is not only about the suffering which might be seen as inflicted by others but also about the guilt surrounding the Germans horrific actions in the past. 9 This collective memory of the Nazi past played a big role in the self- understanding of the Bonn Republic (the period between the creation of West Germany on 23 May 1949 to the German reunification on 3 October 1990). The history of the Bonn Republic was characterised by its struggle to engender accountability for the Holocaust and the Second World War in the national consciousness. In the late 1980s there was an intellectual and political controversy in West Germany about the Nazi past, named Historikerstreit. Some national- conservative critics wanted to leave Hitler and his decisions in the history behind to allow positive expressions of German national identity to emerge. The left- liberal intellectuals, with Habermas included, insisted however that the responsibility for Auschwitz and the horrible consequences of the Second World War were to be committed to the constitution and to justify its key values. 10 The term normalisation was used in many ways in the time of the Bonn Republic. In very general terms, it has been described as the Germans obsession with wanting to be perceived as just like everybody else. 11 The underlying motives for this debate about Germany s normalisation were often found in the desire to bury this particular part of the past of Germany between 1933 and 1945 and move on. 12 In the beginning of 1990s Germany s foreign policy was still guided by strong multilateralism but with the end of the Cold War, Germany had become less important for the United States. Although Europe became more integrated throughout the 1990s, this was not translated into military strength. The Balkan wars in the 1990s expressed clearly that Europe was unprepared to solve such crises without American help and American military. 13 The 1991 Gulf War raised the question of war for the newly unified Federal Republic of Germany. To use military force was a problematic notion for Germany, given that the last war was still remembered as such a horrible disaster. The same 8 Beck, Europe at risk, Maja Zehfuss, Wounds of Germany: The Politics of War in Germany (United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2007), Ruth Wittlinger, German National Identity in the Twenty- First Century (United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

16 articulations of Second World War memories continued in later debates about issues whether the Bundeswehr (e. armed forces) should participate in operations abroad. 14 Europe has also been challenged in various ways through the years. The financial crisis led to a rift in the EU between north and south. This rift has been deepened further with the refugee crisis and its costs. The refugees are fleeing from persecutions, civil wars and chaos in their home countries and arrive in the border countries of the European Union: in Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal, countries that are already economically weak. Current EU rules specify that the country that the refugees arrive in should be the country in which they apply for asylum. As this countries are economically weaker than those in North and do not manage this amount of refugees, consequently that leads to more xenophobia and aggressive behaviour towards refugees. The main challenge for the European Union is therefore not only in economic terms, it is also about how much solidarity can be and should be achieved in Europe. 15 German foreign policy is not only conducted by the interests of Germany, but also by its identity. The social constructivism theory of international relations is relevant to understand these concepts and the connection to German foreign policy Social Constructivism There are many forms of constructivism and social constructivism is one of them. Alexander Wendt approaches constructivism from a social theory perspective and his approach revolves around the problematic of identity and our ideas about ourselves and our environment. 16 Wendt s constructivist argument is that the way international politics is conducted is made, not given, because identities and interests are constructed and supported by intersubjective practice. The notions of self and the environment shape all interactions and thereby the social reality is created. 17 His argument is related to the claim that conceptions of security under the conditions of anarchy in international relations do not have to be self- interested. Behaviour is influenced by those intersubjective structures rather than material structures and it is based on collective meanings. Identity is the key to Wendt s approach but I will discuss identities and interests of actors further later in this chapter. According to Wendt actors acquire identities, in other words their 14 Zehfuss, Wounds of memory, Beck, German Europe, Maja Zehfuß, Constructivism in International Relations: Wendt, Onuf and Kratochwil in Constructing International Relations: the next generation, ed. Karin M. Fierke and Knud Erik Jörgensen (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2001), Maja Zehfuss, Constructivism in international relations: the politics of reality (United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2004),

17 understandings and expectations about self, through those collective meanings. 18 Identities are significant as they provide a basis for interest and interest in turn develop the process of defining situations. 19 He also claims that the daily life of international politics is an on- going process of states taking identities in relation to Others, casting them into corresponding counter- identities, and playing out the result. 20 In the debate between Realists and Liberals, Wendt locates his approach in between and his aim is to build a bridge between the liberal and the constructivist traditions. This is how Wendt defines his constructivism: Constructivism is a structural theory of the international system that makes the following core claims: (1) states are the principal units of analysis for international political theory; (2) the key structures in the state system are intersubjective, rather than material; and (3) state identities and interests are in important part constructed by these social structures, rather than given exogenously to the system by human nature or domestic politics. 21 Constructivists have emphasized the social dimension of international relations and have demonstrated the importance of norms, rules, and language in this context. Besides that, constructivists also claim that the actors make choices when they are interacting with others and as a result, bring historically, culturally, and politically distinct realities into being. 22 This social structure leaves more space for the individual or the state to influence their environment, as Alexander Wendt describes in his article Anarchy is what states make of it. 23 Relationships between states evolve over time, for example are many of the states in the European Union former enemies who have learned to cooperate. 24 Constructivism is based on a social ontology that insists that human agents do not exist independently from their social environment and they have collective system of meanings, the culture in a broad sense. The actors find themselves in a social environment which constitutes who 18 Zehfuss, Constructivism in international relations, Ibid., Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1999), Ibid., K. M. Fierke, Constructivism, in International Relations Theories, ed. Tim Dunne et al. (United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2013), Alexander Wendt, Anarchy is what states make of it: The Social Construction of Power Politics in International Organization 46 (1992): Ibid.,

18 they are and their identities as social beings. The actors do at the same time create, reproduce and change their culture through the daily activities. Therefore, social constructivism occupies an uneasy ontological middle ground between individualism and structuralism by claiming that there are properties of structures and of agents that cannot be collapsed into each other Identities and interests Wendt argues that identity of a state is rooted in the state s self- understandings. The meaning of those understandings often depend on how other states or actors think about that particular actor and therefore two kinds of ideas matter to one s identity; those held by the Self and those held by the Other. Identities are made by both internal and external structures. 26 Wendt discusses four kinds of identities: (1) personal or corporate, (2) type, (3) role and (4) collective identity. It is personal identity in case of people but corporate in case of institutions or states. The corporate identity has consciousness and memory of Self as a separate locus of thought and activity. The state is a group Self capable of group- level cognition. 27 When the Federal Republic of Germany had decided to never again take part in a war, it was part of the FRG s articulated identity. At this point, it is worth mentioning that German foreign policy in the late 1950s prioritized diplomacy and soft forms of power. 28 After the Second World War, Germany had limited role on the international political stage. The FRG outsourced its foreign and defence policies to the United States and NATO. Germany avoided leadership, as it would be perceived as an attempt at domination. 29 At the time of the Gulf War, the Chancellor of the FRG, Helmut Kohl, spoke of solidarity with the Americans, the British and the French who were the main actors in defending law and liberty in the Gulf War and carried the financial burden for the FRG but Germany however refused to participate in a military operations in the Gulf as such behaviour would have interfered with their conception of Self. 30 Type identity applies to persons who share some characteristics such as attitudes, skills, values, knowledge, language, opinions, experience, historical commonalities and so on. 31 Role identities depend on the culture of that particular state and exist only in relation 25 Thomas Risse, Social Constructivism and European Integration, in European Integration Theory, ed. Antje Wiener and Thomas Diez (Oxford University Press, 2004), Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, Ibid., David P. Conradt and Eric Langenbacher, The German Polity, 10th ed. (United States: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2013), Ibid., Maja Zehfuss, Constructivism and Identity: A Dangerous Liaison, in European Journal of International Relations 7 (2001), Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics,

19 to Others. Collective identity takes the relationship between Self and Other to identification. The identification process can be complicated and always involves extending the boundaries of the Self to include the Other and the process goes beyond role and type identities and tries to merge the Other and the Self into one single identity. 32 Each state or actor has many identities and most of them are activated selectively depending on the situations in which states or actors find themselves. 33 Identities and interests work mutually, identities refer to who or what actors are and interests refer to what actors want. Actor or states cannot know what it wants until it knows who it is and identities are often constructed in light of interests. 34 Without interests identities have no motivational force and without identities interests have no direction, 35 as Wendt describes it. He also distinguishes between two kinds of interests: objective and subjective. The objective interests are wants or needs which must be fulfilled if an identity is to be reproduced, that is, the need exists even if the government of the state is not aware of them and if they do not meet the identities they support they will not survive. The subjective interests on the other hand refer to the motivation for the behaviour of actors or states. 36 The behaviour of states is motivated by interests rooted in corporate, type, role and collective identities. Identities are the basis for interests and therefore more fundamental. 37 Those interests vary historically and culturally which influences the decision- making of states and their behaviour in the international system. The decision- making of Germany since the end of the Second World War has been greatly influenced by its historical aspects and its history can also to some extent be used to explain the state behaviour of Germany. Wendt identifies four national interests: physical survival, autonomy, economic well- being and collective self- esteem. 38 For my research the latter two are particularly interesting. Since the end of the Second World War, Germany has been focusing on their economy and in the 1950s they even needed foreign workers to keep up with the economic growth in Germany. It is probably in every state s interest to maintain the growth of its economy, but since the strength and stability of post- war Germany s economy this strongly influences their collective identity. The second one, collective self- esteem refers to a group s need to 32 Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

20 feel good about itself, to gain respect or status. One of the basic human needs of individuals is self- esteem and individuals often seek it in group membership. 39 This could eventually explain to some extent the emphasis that Germany places on the importance of working together in the European Union and to find mutual solutions to problems that the European Union is facing, most recently the refugee crisis. In contrast to this, Ulrich Beck claims in his book, German Europe, that the European Integration was supposed to bring out a European Germany, based on its economic strength, but has in a way rather developed into a German Europe. While other countries sink deeper into debt, the German economy continues to thrive. A new national pride has become evident, based on the people s knowledge of their achievements. This new attitude is called German universalism in Beck s book. This German universalism has extended into European politics, with the result that it is boldly asserted that what is good for the German economy is also right for the European economy as a whole. 40 Beck also claims that Germans feel that they are in a position of responsibility, not just in terms of the Euro and in finance, but also in other terms like ecology, nuclear energy etc. This new sense of identity can be explained by the fact that it liberates Germans from some of the burden of the never again syndrome. Beck adds the fact that the idea of shared Europe itself dates back to the period after the Second World War, after the great military and moral disaster. 41 Since then, the Germans have learned their lesson and have become a new model for democracy, for nuclear dropouts, for strong economy and as savers for other European Union countries Structure, agency and culture Wendt argues that the structure of any social system contains three elements: material conditions, interests and ideas. They are all equally necessary to explain social outcomes and without each other, the other ones do not exist. 43 Knowledge is also an important factor in this structure and it can be private knowledge or shared. In the case of a state s private knowledge, it often derives from domestic or ideological considerations. It can make the whole difference of how states frame international situations and define their national interests. 44 However, socially shared knowledge or culture is knowledge that is both common and connected between individuals. Shared knowledge can be conflictual or cooperative and this culture can take many forms, like norms, 39 Ibid., Beck, German Europe, Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,,

21 rules, institutions, ideologies, organizations, threat- systems etc. 45 Since the beginning of theorizing about constructivism, this shared knowledge in form of discourse, norms and ideology has been the corner stone of their work. 46 Group beliefs are often part of collective memory, in the structure of any social system and often include historical phenomena which are kept alive through the generations by an on- going process of socialization and ritual enactment. 47 Such memories influence the continuity and identity of a group through time. This relates to the national identity of Germany where generations who did not even experience the World Wars were raised with the belief that what happened in the Third Reich was never again allowed to repeat itself and therefore Germany should not participate in military actions and rather concentrate on peace and cooperation in Europe. Once collective memories have been created it may be hard to stir their long- term effects, even though most of the individuals have forgotten the reasoning behind them or may not even have experienced them at all. 48 To explain social behaviour, Wendt argues that both social structures and agents have to be taken into account. 49 He denies the individualist hypothesis that all identities are personal identities, all personal interests and all behaviours meaningful because of personal beliefs. 50 Individualists want to limit the construction of agents to causal effects but holists want to include constitutive ones. Wendt argues that individualists ignore collective knowledge and that interactions cannot be reduced to beliefs of independently existing agents; the desires and beliefs of states are constituted out in the world since desires and beliefs towards other objects are dependent on collective understandings of what those other objects are. 51 The social structure is highly dependent on agency and the social process is both constitutive and causal. The distribution of knowledge in a social system only exists because of the actors desires and beliefs and norms are shared beliefs which are often manifested in the behaviour, depending on how strong the norms are. In the causal sense, social structures depend on agents as it tells us what structures are made of and how they can have certain effects. The history 45 Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Alexander Wendt, The Agent- Structure Problem in International Relations Theory, in International Organization 41 (1987), Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, Ibid.,

22 is the clearest example of structural change, which is caused by actions that undermine existing structures and generate new ones. 52 There are no structures without agents and no agents without structure. Besides, the social processes are always structured and the social structures are always in process. 53 If the actors have shared understandings, they have shared beliefs about who they are and how they should behave, which motivate them to act in ways that reproduce those understanding. 54 The fundamental idea of the European Union is that the states work together, especially in crises and try to find mutual solutions. How the states of the European Union behave is therefore based on their shared beliefs about how they should behave. When culture meets basic human needs for sociation and security, the states start to work together to reduce transaction costs and to help each other to get anything done. When those shared expectations are violated, actors often realize how important they are in constituting who they are and what they do. 55 Culture is constantly changing, as it reproduces itself. How actors in the European Union think of themselves today could easily have changed in a couple of years. Shared beliefs are also constantly changing and can therefore sometimes be source of conflict. Currently, the states of the European Union differ highly in their opinion on how to handle the refugee crisis which leads to many questions about the future of the European cooperation, the Schengen- Agreement and the open borders of Europe Social construction and European Integration Institutions, including the European Union, are built upon institutional designs and structures but they are also influenced by social identities and fundamental interests of actors. 56 Neofunctionalism can be used to illustrate the actor- centred approach to European integration, where the utility- maximizing actors cooperate to solve some collective action problems. Then the functional logic takes over (spillover) leading to further integration. Neofunctionalists also talk about how the identities from the national levels shift to the supranational level. If this European integration is transforming collective identities, it must be explained with constructivist ideas, and not just with those of the rational choice approach. There are some aspects to neofunctionalism that resonate well with a constructivist focus on the constitutive rather than the purely regulative impact of norms. 57 Thomas Risse has been researching the social constructivism in liaison with the European 52 Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Risse, European Integration Theory, Ibid.,

23 integration and according to him constructivism is a truism that social reality does not fall from heaven, but that human agents construct and reproduce it through their daily practices. 58 Social constructivism draws on the conclusion that the identity of states, the primary actors in international politics, is constructed by the society. Their foreign policy behaviour is often determined mostly by domestic politics, the analogue to individual personality rather than by the international system. 59 Actors, such as national governments, firms or interest groups influence the social institutions in which they act, and that includes the European Union as institution. These constitutive norms of institutions can change or be violated but those collective norms and understandings define the basic rules of the game in which they find themselves in their interactions. 60 Consequently, the interests and identities define how the actors see themselves. Germany or France as an examples see themselves as European states, whose statehood is defined by their EU membership. The states have to follow rules and obligations of the EU, which are binding. Hence, the member states and their actors have to know the rules of appropriate behaviour in the Union and the norms of the EU become normal. 61 Thomas Risse sums up three ways in which social constructivism helps to understand the European Union. It is worth quoting at length: First, accepting the mutual constitutiveness of agency and structure allows for a deeper understanding of Europeanization including its impact on statehood in Europe. Second and related, emphasizing the constitutive effects of European law, rules and policies enables us to study how European integration shapes social identities and interests of actors. Third, focusing on communicative practices permits us to examine more closely how Europe and the EU are constructed discursively, how actors try to come to grips with the meaning of European integration and how they develop a European public sphere. 62 It is sometimes assumed that national cultures play bigger role in how people think about themselves than the collective European identity. The issue of European national identity can be separated from the issue of support for the EU. In Neil Fligstein s book, Euroclash, is claimed that 58 Risse, European Integration Theory, Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, Risse, European Integration Theory, Ibid., Ibid.,

24 only a small percentage of citizens (12,7%) firmly identify with Europe, but the general political support for the EU is however relatively high with majorities supporting their country s membership in almost all the EU countries. 63 For the people who have mainly a national identity, the support for the EU is based on the view of the EU as an intergovernmental organization by which their governments can cooperate with others in increasing trade, travel, and educational and employment opportunities. 64 Fligstein argues that there are two sorts of obvious opponents to a European collective identity. First, the political elites who run the nation- state are potentially threatened by having their sovereignty removed to a larger political entity like the European Union. The other important thing is how the ordinary citizens look at the role of the European Union in their lives and how the politicians in those democratic societies follow the voters preferences, as those preferences determine to a large degree the willingness of political elites to build more state capacity at the European level. 65 Risse however argues that identities can be cross- cutting, that is, members of one identity group can also be members of another identity group. 66 Therefore, one could have a self- understanding of himself as a German and also identify himself as a European. Risse also points out that different groups might have different ways to identify with Europe. In this context, he particularly mentions that for German political elites, Europe and the European integration meant overcoming one s own nationalist and militarist past. 67 Jürgen Habermas has developed a set of arguments about why there should be a European constitution, a civil society or public space where there is ongoing political discourse about solving European problems, and a welfare state to guarantee that the European model of state and citizen is upheld. 68 Those arguments will be explained in more detail later in this chapter. Here should be mentioned, that the European Union has only existed since the 1950s and its transformation into a more political organization is just beginning. National identities have evolved over centuries and have also changed dramatically over time. Therefore, how one thinks about a European identity now can easily change through time. 69 When looking at the politics within the Union since it became political union and not just an economic one, it is often clear how the leaders 63 Neil Fligstein, Euroclash: The EU, European Identity and the Future of Europe (United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2008), Ibid., Ibid., Risse, European Integration Theory, Ibid., Fligstein, Euroclash, Ibid.,

25 from Germany place an emphasis on working together in order to find solutions to the Union s problems and also require that their European partners do the same. Britain in contrast has not managed to bring Europe into their understandings of national identity and recently there has also been much scepticism in Britain against the Union. 70 Despite those different understandings, the vision of European identity has some mutual values, like democracy, human rights, the rule of law, and social market economy, illustrated in the Lisbon Treaty of the European Union. Thus, European institutions and European elites are aware of this and often try to construct a post- national civic identity in the Habermasian sense (which I will explain later in this chapter), and this post- national European identity seems to be relatively accepted with the mass public opinion. 71 The European identity does not differ from other constructed identities in the way that it is not given and can change over time. 72 As an example, one could mention the fundamental idea of the free movement for members of the European Union and the Schengen- Agreement which has been effective since 1985 but has now collapsed with the refugee crisis and it is not clear if the future of free movement within the European Union will be maintained. In his article, Social Construction and European Integration, Jeffrey Checkel addresses the problems with norms in European context, on the one hand through what process norms are constructed at the European level and on the other hand how such norms, once they reach the national level, interact with and socialize agents. 73 He claims that constructivists have theorized about ways for those European norms to emerge and identified two dominant diffusion ways: societal mobilization and social learning. 74 By societal mobilization he means that non- state actors and policy networks support norms and mobilize decision- makers to change state policy. By social learning he means that agents, often élite decision- makers, adopt prescriptions embodied in norms and they become internalized and constitute a set of shared intersubjective understandings that make behavioural claims. 75 Checkel studied this hypothesis on Germany and found out that emerging European norms on citizenship are diffusing and being empowered in Germany primarily via the mobilization of societal pressure; social learning at the élite level has been secondary. 76 His main argument is that the real action, both theoretically and empirically, is where 70 Risse, European Integration Theory, Ibid., Ibid., Jeffrey T. Checkel, Social Construction and European Integration, in The Social Construction of Europe, ed. Thomas Christiansen et al. (London: Sage Publications, 2001), Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

26 norms, language, discourses and material capabilities meet motivation, social learning and preferences and this is relevant both to European politics as to international politics Habermasian Theories Habermas grew up in Nazi Germany, which can explain to some degree his disappointment with German political culture following Nazism and the Holocaust. 78 Habermas argued that the Holocaust and the break with Nazism must be central to German political identity and he also argued that society must be integrated through a common political culture. 79 In this chapter his ideas about the nation state, constitutional patriotism, discourse ethics and the theory of communicative action will be examined The Nation- state and constitutional patriotism There was a great debate in Germany in the mid- 1980s about how to think of the past in the present. This debate was called historians dispute (g. Historikerstreit). Conservative historians argued for a normalization of the German Nazi past but Habermas argued that although the past is past and must be treated as such, it forms who we are collectively, i.e. as a nation. Habermas placed big emphasis on that Germany should have western traditions, which included constitutional democracy. The Nazi past was an important part of Germany s past but Germany also had to continue on a different path in the future with the principles of constitutional democracy. 80 The past should be important to the future, including history and memorials and how they became part of a critical collective self- reflection and self- transformation. This self- reflection should in Habermas view be public, e.g. with memorials and public deliberations about the past and the future. Another important point of his argument is his suggestion that nations are politically constructed and the public deliberations constitute who we are and who we want to be. 81 Habermas also believes that the relevant unit for a political collective is a demos rather than ethnos. 82 He argues that ethnicity, culture, religion or language should not define the polity, the relevant collective is the demos. The democratic self- determination is not already existing, pre- political and natural identity of people, it is in active creation of the identity of people. The most important thing in his view is that citizens subscribe to the same political and democratic values 77 Ibid., Lasse Thomassen, Habermas: A Guide for the Perplexed (London and New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010), Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,