Seeing Europe Through the Nation ― The Role of National Self-images in the Perception of European Integration in the English, German, and Dutch Press in the 1950s and 1990s

Sven Leif Ragnar de Roode analyzes Dutch, English, and German perceptions of European integration against the backdrop of dominant elements of national self-images in a comparative perspective. The study is based on a source sample of more than 1200 newspaper editorials about the founding treaties of the European Communities in the 1950s and the Treaty on European Union from 1992/3. The source analysis is framed by an analysis of dominant, publicly acknowledged national self-images in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century. The representation of European integration in Dutch, English, and German newspapers shows that both, the perception of Europe and national self-images, were essentially contested. It demonstrates how nationalised the gaze unto Europe was. The perception of Europe was tinted and judged by national self-images. The discourse on European integration was inseparably intertwined with the discourse on the nation. Europe was essentially thought 'through' the nation.