The European Union after Maastricht: Politics of integration and their impact on national attitudes and a civic European identity

This dissertation aims to examine the complex interrelationship between European integrative measures and their impact on nationalist attitudes and civic European identity formation. The main thesis suggested here is that integration policies, especially the main ones (being) implemented over the last decade have resulted in changed national and transnational identities of the EU citizens, which have increased in some member states and decreased in few others. The transnational identification with the EU is based on a combination of a cultural European identity with the civic identity evolving in the Union, but is being constrained by national cultures and the political media discourses in the member states. Through a triangulated mix of quantitative and qualitative research methods with data from the UK, Ireland and Germany, an analysis of those data will provide support for this thesis, which will contribute a framework for the analysis of integration politics in general and for the development of a civic European identity in particular.