ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the European experience, in particular the ways in which more than forty years of European integration have affected people’s sense of belonging. People can feel a sense of belonging to Europe, their nation-state, their gender, and so on. It is wrong to conceptualize European identity in zero-sum terms, as if an increase in European identity necessarily would decrease one’s loyalty to national or other communities. Europe and the nation are both “imagined communities”, and people can feel as part of both communities without having to choose some primary identification. A most important corollary of such a conceptualization concerns the content and substance of what it means to identify with Europe. The chapter concludes with the implications of our findings for the policy debates about the future of the European Union.
