Performing Europe: Identity Formation for a "New" Europe

Abstract

In this essay, I will take up a kind of national formation, but one which is itself troubled when subject to scrutiny: the idea of a "New Europe." The quotation marks indicate the imagination of an entity that might become, replace, or perhaps parasitically inhabit the older Europe. This "Europe" is in the process of emerging--some think sufficient momentum now makes it inevitable--but it is to date an unfilled signifier, an almost-empty term capable of endless mutations and transformations, an open and elusive term of great/little significance and power. Sometimes described as a supranation, 1 and often gathering definition only in opposition to the separate nation states which comprise it, the idea of Europe has become a liminal concept, fluid and indeterminate, and most importantly, a site of possible struggle. Following the work of Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclou on radical democracy, a "New Europe" could signal a call for an inclusive, socially responsible, super-democracy. 2 [End Page 365]