Download full text
(248.4Kb)
Citation Suggestion
Please use the following Persistent Identifier (PID) to cite this document:
https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-27132
Exports for your reference manager
1989, the 'others' of Europe and some implications for a political Europe
1989, die "Anderen" Europas und einige Implikationen für ein politisches Europa
[working paper]
Abstract An enlarged EU might be structurally integrated, but the ways in which pre-1989 EU members used to imagine their counterparts during the Cold War period have profoundly influenced the ways in which 'east' Europe has been and still is thought nowadays (hence the remaining ideational divergences with... view more
An enlarged EU might be structurally integrated, but the ways in which pre-1989 EU members used to imagine their counterparts during the Cold War period have profoundly influenced the ways in which 'east' Europe has been and still is thought nowadays (hence the remaining ideational divergences within a political Europe). The paper argues that European construction and pos-1989 enlargement of the EU towards East imply a form of subtle and untold domination of the Western part of the continent subtlety and at times unconsciously by institutions of the EU or by academic discourses on Central and Eastern Europe. Such domination, as an unintended consequence, is best explored on the ideational level and through the central role that 1989 has taken in this process. Discussing slope-metaphors and allochronisms in the field of a European common memory, this paper shows how artificial distances are created between Eastern and Western Europe. By combining allochronism and heteronomy, we have coined the new term of 'heterochrony' to express the situation in which a given group does not have the capacity of choosing its own laws and the cognitive means to think of itself and where such situation is due to reasons of different time location (in that case in a backward situation) than other autonomous groups. Such heterochrony might lead to a halt of transnational cooperation in Europe and have negative impacts on the self-perception of Europe.... view less
Keywords
EU; transformation; Europe; Eastern Europe; political change; political power; political culture; reunification; eastwards expansion; European Policy; European integration; national identity
Classification
European Politics
Method
descriptive study
Free Keywords
European identity; European memory; symbolic other; othering process; 1989; path-dependency; neo-institutionalism; allochronism; heterochrony; Western Europe; Central and Eastern Europe; history; self-understanding of Europe
Document language
English
Publication Year
2008
City
Berlin
Page/Pages
16 p.
Series
Working Paper Series of the Research Network 1989, 14
Status
Published Version; reviewed
Licence
Creative Commons - Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works