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International functionalism as proposed by David Mitrany envisions non-territorial functional agencies to supplant the states system. Mitrany makes no provision for democracy in functional agencies. Instead, he assumes that the policies of international technocrats would be 'technically self-determined' and uncontested – a stance several critics deem antidemocratic and naive. A second, related criticism holds that even if functional agencies were formally democratic, democracy could not operate effectively since functional polities would be too 'thin' and fragmented to sustain democratic commitments among their members. The article qualifies the first charge and rejects the second. First, defined as an institutional decision-making principle, 'technical self-determination' is Mitrany's add-on to the underlying functionalist logic, not an inseparable part of it. That logic instead holds that institutions work best if their form and scope of authority follow their function and that function-specific agencies therefore could meet some needs better than the state. Contra Mitrany, this does not privilege technocratic over democratic decision-making and it does not imply that functional agencies would be free from political conflict. Nor, second, would functional agencies necessarily be unsuitable for democracy in practice. Several strands of democratic theory suggest that even people who do not share a 'thick' communal identity can develop a commitment to meet shared needs democratically. If one accepts this, it loosens functionalism's technocratic stigma, highlights its potential as a democratically viable alternative to both state-centric and supranational models of international order and broadens our conception of possible democratic futures.

From the early 1980s, the European Commission and Parliament made a series of attempts to use television as a tool to foster a European identity in audiences and strengthen popular support for European integration. In this paper, I first examine their efforts to help set up a pan-European multilingual television channel in order to confront the audience with non-national (and thus supposedly European and "Europeanizing") programs. Second, I trace their attempts to foster the Europeanization of the audiovisual productions sector by, in the first instance, subsidizing multinational co-productions. I show that in both areas those efforts have largely come to nothing. They stumbled over the resistance mounted by some national governments and/or were frustrated by continued audience preferences for national as opposed to foreign or non-national television programs. All this, I contend, points to the underlying difficulties of trying to promote among mass publics a cultural form that stands divorced from their respective national contexts, be it through television or other means, and it hints at the formidable obstacles that hinder the European Union's attempts to forge among Europeans a shared identity beyond the nation-state. Résumé: Dès le début des années 80, la Commission européenne et le Parlementeuropéen tentèrent à plusieurs reprises d'utiliser la télévision comme moyend'encourager une identité européenne chez les téléspectateurs et de les motiver àappuyer l'intégration européenne. Dans un premier temps, j'ai examiné leursefforts pour aider à lancer une chaîne de télévision multilingue paneuropéenne.Le but de cette chaîne était de présenter aux téléspectateurs des émissions déna-tionalisées (et ainsi censées être européennes et «européanisantes»). Dans undeuxième temps, j'ai étudié leurs tentatives pour favoriser l'européanisation dumarché audiovisuel, essentiellement en subventionnant les co-productions multi-nationales. Dans ces deux domaines, ces efforts n'ont pas abouti à grand-chose.Ils se sont heurtés à la résistance dont ont fait preuve certains gouvernementsnationaux et/ou ont échoué du fait que les téléspectateurs continuaient à préférerles émissions de télévision nationales plutôt que des émissions étrangères oudénationalisées. Tout cela, je l'affirme, indique les difficultés sous-jacentes aux-quelles on se heurte si l'on essaie de promouvoir parmi les publics de masse une forme de culture qui est séparée de leurs contextes nationaux respectifs, que cesoit au moyen de la télévision ou par d'autres méthodes. Et cela donne un aperçudes obstacles énormes confrontant l'Union européenne dans ses efforts de forgerparmi les Européens une identité collective au-delà de l'état-nation.

Diversionary conflict theorists assert that leaders can become more popular at home by pursuing conflict abroad. At first glance this claim appears counterintuitive in light of the hardship conflict often imposes on ordinary citizens. Relying on social identity theory (SIT), I deduce two hypotheses to help explain why conflict can increase popular support for leaders. First, conflict with an outgroup can make people identify more strongly with their ingroup. Second, stronger ingroup identification can lead to increased support for leaders inside the group. The second part of the article applies these two hypotheses to Russia's seizure of Crimea in early 2014. Attitude surveys show that the Crimea conflict increased national pride among Russians while support for President Vladimir Putin rose dramatically, and they suggest that the two processes were causally linked. These findings support the article's two hypotheses.

AbstractMany theorists contend that for the European Union to become a viable democratic polity its citizens must develop an overarching communal identity. I take issue with this claim, arguing that the norms, motivations and perceptions that make supranational democracy possible can also emerge through processes that do not presuppose shared communal identifications. These include the gradual externalization of domestic democratic norms and practices to the EU level, the incorporation of the resulting supranational democratic attachments back into existing national identifications and the build‐up of transnational political trust propelled by the practice of supranational democracy itself. Such an outcome is not inevitable, but it is conceivable in that it is theoretically coherent and has limited empirical analogies and precedents. The range of options for the EU's further democratic development is therefore broader and the chances of its success greater than many analysts assume.

Abstract.  This article examines why the electorate in German‐speaking Switzerland has consistently opposed joining the European Union. It first shows that the region scores highly on a range of general correlates of negative attitudes towards European integration. However, this is compounded by more idiosyncratic factors, above all by the German‐speaking Swiss' peculiar political and cultural position. On the one hand, as Swiss they belong to a state that lacks a single national culture, is defined in civic and institutional rather than cultural terms, and therefore appears more vulnerable in the face of the European Union's own civic and institutional ambitions. On the other hand, as Swiss‐Germans, they belong to a cultural and linguistic region whose cultural boundaries are relatively fragile and lack institutional backup and articulation. Caught in this identitive double bind, the Swiss‐German electorate has developed an underlying sense of vulnerability and a desire to limit exposure to the outside world.

The concept of societal security as developed by the Copenhagen school has three underlying weaknesses: a tendency to reify societies as independent social agents, a use of too vague a definition of 'identity', and a failure to demonstrate sufficiently that social security matters to individuals. This article shows that applying social identity theory to the societal security concept helps remedy these weaknesses and closes the theoretical gaps that the Copenhagen school has left open. It enables us to treat 'society' as an independent variable without reifying it as an independent agent. It also suggests a much sharper definition of identity, and a rationale for the Copenhagen school's claim that individuals have a psychological need to achieve societal security by protecting their group boundaries. Social identity theory thus supports the societal security concept in its central assumptions while giving it stronger theoretical foundations and greater analytical clout.

A review essay on books by (1) Richard Collins, Media and Identity in Contemporary Europe: Consequences of Global Governance (Bristol, UK: Intellect, 2002); (2) Paulette Kurzer, Markets and Moral Regulation: Cultural Change in the European Union (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge U Press, 2001); & (3) Chris Shore, Building Europe: The Cultural Politics of European Integration (London: Routledge, 2000). 7 References. Adapted from the source document.