Erasmus+ and European Identity

Abstract

The formation of a supranational identity in its nature is a widely discussed, interdisciplinary topic in current academia. With rising populism and nationalism all around the world, but especially in Europe, the fostering of a communal European identity might be one puzzle piece in ensuring that the globalized, multi-cultural world we live in today may stay the same. Written in the context of a graduation requirement, this masters thesis asks the question of how the Erasmus+ higher education student mobility programme attempts to foster a European identity in its’ participants according to the theory of change. Rather than taking a result-oriented approach to this topic, which has been widely discussed amongst researchers with different conclusions, this thesis takes a process-oriented approach with the help of backwards mapping according to theory of change, in order to identify interventions in Erasmus+’ institutional topdown approach to fostering the supranational identity. The thesis starts with a brief introduction into the topic, situating it in the current political climate and giving an overview of what Erasmus+ is, how it is structured, and what they do. This is followed by the posing of the research question, that serves as a guideline for the rest of the thesis. The literature overview thereafter situates the topic in current literature and attempts to build an interdisciplinary and well-informed framework for how supranational identities are built. A key problem inherent to the topic is that, in its’ interdisciplinary nature, researchers from different fields use different terminologies to describe the same or very similar phenomena. As such, the Literature Review concludes with a created framework that combines all relevant research and finalizes working names for all categories to be worked with. It is found that, for a supranational identity to truly work, it needs to be filled with meaning, content, and attachment. As such, the literature review created the two dimensions to supranational identity – status identity (as first coined by Kaina, 2012) and lived identity. The methodology further supplies these dimensions with a methodological approach to the research, wherein the theory of change is used to identify necessary outcomes and preconditions to foster status and lived identity, which, in the long-term, should contribute to enhancing a European identity. Six chosen official Erasmus+ documents are then analyzed by the means of coding segments, in order to find what interventions Erasmus+ poses to contribute to the identity formation. The analysis finds that Erasmus+ poses a plethora of actions considered as interventions, however, of various success. An intervention is considered successful if it is deemed plausible, testable, and feasible. Some interventions are considered as hard and direct actions that can be considered to plausibly contribute to the desired outcome of enhancing European identity. Other interventions that Erasmus+ poses, however, are very tacit and soft in nature. The analysis shows that these interventions do not hold up to the attribute test and are thus considered too thin to count as an intervention in this context. The discussion further finds that tacit interventions especially are victim to causal relationship problems. This shows that, in order to explicitly foster European identity, Erasmus+ ought to make many of their interventions more direct and tangible, as their current approach is riddled with indirectness, causal issues, and, as a current look into result-oriented research shows, not consequently successful.;본 논문은 유럽의 교환학생 프로그램인 Erasmus+가 유럽인의 정체성(European Identity) 함양에 어떻게 도움이 되는지를 ‘Theory of Change’의 관점을 통해 분석하고자 한다. 이 논의에 답을 제시하기 위해서는 ‘초국가적인 정체성’의 형성에 대한 현재 학계의 중론에 관한 문헌 조사가 선행되어야 한다. 문헌 조사를 통해 얻어진 정보는 추후 분석에 핵심이 되는 유럽인의 정체성(European Identity) 형성의 조작화(operationalization)를 분석하기 위해 사용이 된다. 다음에 오는 방법론은 변화 접근(change approach)에 관한 이론을 설명하는데, 이는 Erasmus+에 관한 다섯 개의 자료를 분석하는데 사용이 된다. 이 분석과 이에 관한 논의는 Erasmus+의 어떠한 개입(intervention)이 Erasmus+가 유럽인의 정체성 형성을 촉진하는지 혹은 그렇지 않은지에 대해 설명하는데, 이러한 논의에서부터 본 연구주제에 대한 답을 도출해낼 수 있다. Erasmus+는 이 프로그램 참가자들의 정체성 성립을 촉진한다는 많은 중요(key) 연구 결과가 있지만 이에 대한 심도 있는 논의가 더 진행되어야 할 것으로 보인다.