The Cultural Integration Model and European Transformation The Case of Romania Samson, Ramona Document Version Final published version Publication date: 2006 License CC BY-NC-ND Citation for published version (APA): Samson, R. (2006). The Cultural Integration Model and European Transformation: The Case of Romania. Copenhagen Business School [Phd]. PhD series No. 2006-18 Link to publication in CBS Research Portal General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us ([email protected]) providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 26. Sep. 2021 The Cultural Integration Model and European Transformation The Case of Romania Ramona Samson PhD thesis Centre for the Study of Europe Department of International Culture and Communication Studies Copenhagen Business School “ ‘we are all postcommunist now’, not in the sense of ideological demobilization of what Habermas, as early as 1985, called ‘the exhaustion of utopian energies’, but in the sense that Europe, as well as the EU, are radically transformed by what has happened ”. William Outhwaite and Larry Ray, Social Theory and Postcommunism (2005) i ii Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 1 1.1. MAIN OBJECTIVES OF THE THESIS .......................................................................................3 1.2. BASIC FRAMEWORK AND CORE ASSUMPTIONS ...................................................................4 1.3. THEORETICAL SOURCES OF THE CULTURAL INTEGRATION MODEL ....................................5 1.4. DESCRIPTION OF THE CULTURAL INTEGRATION MODEL .....................................................8 1.5. THE ELEMENTS OF THE CULTURAL INTEGRATION MODEL .................................................9 1.6. DELIMITATION FROM THE EXISTING APPROACHES TO EUROPEAN INTEGRATION .............11 1.7. PLACING THE STUDY IN THE LANDSCAPE OF EXISTING EMPIRICAL RESEARCH ................14 1.8. THE STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS .......................................................................................18 2. THEORETICAL LEVEL: INTEGRATION THROUGH CULTURE..................... 19 2.1. THE EUROPEAN INTEGRATION PROCESS AND CULTURE ...................................................21 2.1.1. The Meaning of Integration: Some Theoretical Approaches..................................22 2.1.2. Critique of the Traditional Approach to Integration ..............................................25 2.1.3. The Meaning of Culture..........................................................................................29 2.2. CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES IN THEORIES AND DISCURSIVE APPROACHES TO EUROPEAN INTEGRATION ...................................................................................................................37 2.2.1. ‘State of the Art’ – Culture in the Study of European Integration..........................37 2.2.2. Discursive Approach to European Integration.......................................................40 2.2.3. Social Change Approaches.....................................................................................44 2.2.4. Nationalist Approach to European Integration ......................................................48 2.2.5. Constructing Theories.............................................................................................50 2.3. THE CONCEPTUALIZATION OF EUROPEANIZATION ...........................................................57 2.3.1. Dimensions of Europeanization..............................................................................59 2.3.2. The Approach to Europeanization in This Thesis...................................................66 2.4. CULTURAL INTEGRATION .................................................................................................68 2.4.1. The Conceptual Analysis.........................................................................................68 2.4.2. The Cultural Integration Model..............................................................................70 2.4.3. Towards a Social Constructivist Perspective on Cultural Integration...................72 2.5. CONCLUSION : TOWARDS A THEORY OF CULTURAL INTEGRATION ? .................................77 i 3. THE CULTURAL INTEGRATION MODEL ............................................................. 79 3.1. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE STUDY OF EASTERN EUROPEAN SOCIETIES ............80 3.1.1. The Notion of ‘State’ under Transformation ..........................................................81 3.1.2. Society as Reconstructed Social Space...................................................................83 3.1.3. Societal Identity as Ideological Construction.........................................................86 3.1.4. The Concept of Recognition....................................................................................90 3.1.5. Beyond Postcommunism ........................................................................................93 3.1.6. Social Agents and the Reconstruction of Society....................................................96 3.1.7. How Are the Concepts of State, Society, Societal Identity, Recognition, Postcommunism, and Social Agents Interrelated? ...............................................100 3.2. APPROACHING THE CULTURAL INTEGRATION MODEL : THEORETICAL SOURCES ............101 3.2.1. Gerard Delanty and Chris Rumford: Europeanization and the Transformation(s) of Europe...............................................................................................................102 3.2.2. F. Peter Wagner: the Thesis of ‘Double Synchronicity’.......................................106 3.2.3. Jürgen Habermas: the Postnational Europe ........................................................107 3.2.4. Summing-up the Theoretical Conceptions of Cultural Integration ......................110 3.3. CULTURAL INTEGRATION IN EASTERN EUROPE ..............................................................112 3.3.1. Components of the Cultural Integration Model....................................................116 3.3.2. A Social Constructivist Approach to Cultural Integration in Eastern Europe.....119 3.4. UNPACKING THE CULTURAL INTEGRATION MODEL : TOWARDS POSTWESTERNIZATION AND POSTNATIONALISM .................................................................................................120 3.4.1. Postwestern Integration........................................................................................123 3.4.2. Postnational Integration .......................................................................................126 3.5. CONSEQUENCES OF CULTURAL INTEGRATION ON SOCIETAL IDENTITIES ........................129 3.5.1. Postwestern Identity..............................................................................................131 3.5.2. Postnational Identity.............................................................................................135 3.6. CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE CULTURAL INTEGRATION MODEL ...............................137 4. CASE-STUDY: ROMANIA AND CULTURAL INTEGRATION .......................... 141 4.1. SECOND THOUGHTS ON TRANSFORMATION ....................................................................145 4.2. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF ROMANIA ’S TRANSFORMATION : PRECOMMUNIST SOCIETY 150 4.2.1. The Construction of the Modern Romanian Nation-state.....................................150 4.2.2. The Early Process of Integration into Europe......................................................153 4.2.3. The Emergence of Nationalism.............................................................................156 4.2.4. Civil Society in Precommunist Romania...............................................................163 4.2.5. Concluding Remarks.............................................................................................164 ii 4.3. ROMANIAN SOCIETY UNDER COMMUNISM .....................................................................165 4.3.1. The Emergence of Romanian Communism...........................................................165 4.3.2. The Nature of Romanian Communism..................................................................168 4.3.3. The Communist Version of Romanian Nationalism..............................................172 4.3.4. Civil Society in Communist Romania ...................................................................179 4.3.5. Concluding Remarks.............................................................................................185 4.4. ROMANIAN SOCIETY AFTER COMMUNISM ......................................................................186 4.4.1. The Reconstruction of Politics after Communism ................................................187 4.4.2. Nationalism after Communism: towards Postnationalism? .................................200 4.5. RETHINKING ROMANIAN SOCIETY : TRANSFORMATION THROUGH CULTURAL INTEGRATION .................................................................................................................211 4.6. A POSTWESTERN ROMANIA IN THE MAKING ..................................................................215