Do the people belonging to the various member states of the European Community feel like Europeans? This question is examined in rich detail in this volume. The various contributors focus on the extent to which European identities have been influenced by history, institutions, public policies, and the enlargement of membership. The contributors accept neither the optimism of Ernst Haas nor the pessimism of Karl Deutsch. They point to political achievements, economic growth, and expanding relationships, but realize that these fall short of political ambitions. There is a European identity, but it is imperfect and subject to challenges, and it has not eliminated competing national identities.

The stage is set in the lengthy Introduction by coeditors Jeffrey T. Checkel and Peter J. Katzenstein. They present the overall approach as one of historical institutionalism within “ideational-constructivist frameworks.” They criticize the excessive institutionalist focus of many European Union scholars, but they are also critical of anti-institutionalists. Their arguments are sometimes repetitious. Thus, they frequently insist that EU institutional construction has been “top-down” and refer repeatedly (pp. 2, 4, 8, 17) to the volume's multidisciplinary perspective and multilevel approach.

The editors leave no doubt that EU institutions and patterns of relations associated with them have fostered transborder relations and European attitudes; at the same time, they point to problems of overinstitutionalization and a remote, impersonal Eurocracy. These have spurred nationalist reactions, as manifested by the votes against the ratification of the European constitution.

The editors, as well as several other authors included in this collection, refer to religion as an element of European identity. They call attention to the Christian-Democratic foundations of the EU and to the contribution of Poland to the Catholic dimension of European identity. But they ignore the progressive de-Christianization of old EU members like France and the antireligious culture of new ones, including several formerly communist countries, which have chilled the Christian ingredient of European identity. There are references to the Muslim presence, but there is no serious inquiry into the question whether of it fosters or hinders the development of European identity. The editors refer to anti-Americanism in the Introduction as well as the concluding chapter. This reference might well have been expanded to a fuller treatment of the role of the United States as a model or countermodel. The book as a whole would also have benefited from a treatment of related questions, including the following: How has the revival of ethnoregional identities influenced European identity? Where does language come into play? What about race?

Dario Castiglione's chapter on “Political Identity in a Community of Strangers” compares the emerging European identity with the various national identities within Europe, arguing that the former is the result of a compressed developmental process and tends to be cosmopolitan (pp. 37–48). Moreover, European identity is “functional” and based on rational calculation, whereas a typical European national identity is “emotive.” This chapter includes references to the views of Cicero, Hegel, Tönnies, and Weber on political community and citizenship. Much of Castiglione's attention is devoted to the writings of Jürgen Habermas concerning national and European identity. Habermas's belief that the latter represents “a switch in emotional fixation from the state to the constitution” (p. 42) is an extrapolation from the Germans' presumed replacement of state patriotism by a “constitutional patriotism” to supranational European attitudes. Habermas's view is in part a normative one—that a European identity and European citizenship should be based on civic rather than ascriptive criteria. While criticizing the applicability of Habermas's postnationalist approach to Europe, Castiglione nevertheless argues that there is a European “allegiance” based not on political but practical realities, evolving solidarities, and common values.

Castiglione refers to the successful entry of the East-Central European states into the EU. He discusses the distinction between the “New” and the “Old” Europe—and, more specifically, the Euro-skepticism of the former (p. 37). Their joining the EU was a consequence of recovering their national sovereignties after years of enduring Soviet supervision; but they see that sovereignty as threatened by a too “integrated” European institutional setting. The relationship of the EU to democracy is ambiguous as well (p. 47): while multilevel governance within the EU undermines a sense of unity, it also promotes democratic participation and fosters common deliberative—and presumably transnational—approaches to decision making.

In “Experimental Identities (after Maastricht),” Douglas Holmes writes about “[c]ountless experiments with identity across Europe, almost all in some way related to European integration” (p. 52). What does that mean, and is it true? Are the conflicts between Catholic and secular national identity, between Muslim and traditional British values, or between national and provincial orientations clearly related to integration? For many Germans after 1945, European identity rivaled Catholic identity as an escape from German identity. For many French people, especially on the Right, the emphasis on their “Judeo-Christian” identity is not related to European identity, but it is a way of excluding Muslims from the French nation.

There is an identity found across Europe that differs from that of Americans and other non-Europeans, but that does not mean that the European identity of all EU member states is the same. Should one not make distinctions between larger states with years of national integration behind them, such as France, and smaller states, such as Belgium, whose national existence is of relatively recent date and whose role is closely tied to the existence of the EU?

What about socioeconomic class and education? Is elite status and high educational attainment likely to lead to greater transnational (and specifically European) identification, and why? It is hinted (p. 71) that postmaterialism has fostered the growth of European identity. Can one, therefore, speculate about the impact of the current economic crisis and challenges to the welfare state on European as opposed to national identity?

In a chapter entitled “The Public Sphere and the European Union's Political Identity,” Juan Diez Medrano writes about a change in the “self-understanding” among EU elites and the general public about the meaning and implications of EU institutional developments. He refers to a loss of legitimacy of the EU, in part due to doubts about its ability to deal with problems and challenges. Among the latter is the continuing influx of immigrants. The increasingly pluralistic society of European countries resulting from immigration necessitates a “cosmopolitan” definition of the EU, but indigenous Europeans are not entirely comfortable with it. This subject is treated more fully by Adrian Favell; in “Immigration, Migration, and Free Movement in the Making of Europe,” he deals with the way in which the influx of people from the non-Western world into Europe has affected the multiethnic mix of various European countries and complicated the question of identity formation.

In “Being European: East and West,” Holly Case refers to distinctions between Eastern and Western Europe, as well as to diversities within East-Central Europe, that make for national identitarian differences. She calls attention to differences in political development and to selective memories of EU members regarding their histories, especially their recent past (e.g., collaboration with, and resistance to, the Nazis), memories that both impede and facilitate intra-European cooperation. She also argues (p. 113) that for many inhabitants of East-Central European nations, “the ‘true’ Europe is Latin Christianity, or simply Christianity”; but that is increasingly doubtful, not only because there are competing Christianities but also because of the abovementioned secularization that continues apace. In contrast, anti-Semitism, a traditional element of Christianity, is still in place, although it now competes with Islamophobia, and its theological basis, favored by the political Right, is being eclipsed by its ideological variant, favored by the political Left. Curiously, anti-Semitism (unlike anti-Muslim attitudes) is discussed nowhere in this collection.

In “Who Are the Europeans?” Neil Fligstein argues that there is a common identity based on collaboration and daily interaction. Such identity is most highly developed among professionals, managers, and students who travel, speak a second language, and belong to organizations that network across borders. This includes interest groups and political parties, but not all of them. Extreme-right and extreme-left parties, for instance, have the least sympathy for the European idea, but for different reasons—the former because it undermines national sovereignty, and the latter because it is regarded as a capitalist plot (p. 133). Fligstein provides useful statistics dealing with variable European identities by categories, for example, citizenship, ideology, profession, age, education, and so on.

In “Identification with Europe and Politicization of the EU Since the 1980s,” Hartmut Kaelble argues that while every European nation has its particular view of Europe, there are specifically European lifestyles, values, and political orientations that differ from those of non-European nations. And while there are recent developments associated with modernization and globalization that transcend Europe, there are policies and processes, such as the direct election of the European Parliament, the Erasmus program, and the “Europeanization” of the media, that have become part of the system of European expectations and have served to reinforce EU identity.

Using a variety of methods of analysis, the contributors engage in a sort of dialogue by referring to one another's work, thereby achieving a balanced view of a nonlinear process of identity change. In summary, this book is a welcome corrective to the proliferation of Euro-romantic scholarship and its unrealistic expectations of a United States of Europe, and it contributes significantly to the understanding of the complex relationship between traditional national and European orientations.