The Whole Greater than the Sum of Its Parts: An Investigation into the Existence of European Identity, Its Unity and Its Divisions

Abstract

The article offers an alternative stance to established research emphasising the absence of a European public sphere and the presence of Euroscepticism both in the media and public opinion at large. Whereas these are recognised and proven phenomena, the article argues that a perpetual, albeit evolving, cosmopolitan European identity is being reproduced as part of the natural process of globalisation. Europeanness finds some of its fresh strength in phenomena such as work migration. Although migration for work is by no means a new occurrence, Eastern European work diasporas participate in the construction of a renewed idea of Europe through new networks of communication supported by new media technologies which, although not mainstream, appear to gather strength and will become indispensable to the way new spaces of European identity are articulated.