Who belongs to Europe? This ancient question has perplexed separate tribes of social scientists studying political integration and xenophobia since WWII. Political scientist Ray Taras unites the tribes to explain the protean struggle of Eastern European states, whose accession into the European Union is frustrated by allegations of racism from their Western counterparts. Though previous studies have documented high levels of xenophobia in Eastern Europe, Taras discovers anti-racist laws are paradoxically more robust in “new” Europe than “old.” Taras addresses this puzzle using comparative historical analysis of E.U. institutions, survey data, and content analysis. In so doing, he discovers the apocryphal idea of Europe produced by political elites is widely rejected by ordinary people—many of who are more loyal to sports teams than nations. The backlash is particularly acute in Eastern Europe, argues Taras, where elites are chastised for attempting to meet the hypocritical standards of Western European countries that are themselves sharply divided by race or religion.
Taras’s first agenda is to document how the Cold War shaped the creation and expansion of the E.U. The post-war political integration of Western Europe, he argues, had the unintended consequence of estranging Eastern Europe, despite their mutual “Russophobia.” During this time, Western elites developed a supranational cosmopolitan discourse that was hidden by the Iron Curtain. Even worse, Eastern elites were left pursuing a moving target after the Curtain’s fall, since the unity-in-diversity discourse of Western elites belied significant variation in the implementation of cosmopolitan principles across countries. The very definition of “minority” for example, includes immigrants in certain Western countries, but not others. These discrepancies created complex allegiances between Western and Eastern European countries that may have sabotaged the European Constitution by insisting it affirm the Continent’s Christian heritage or reject Turkey’s candidacy for membership. Taras is not the first to document Western Europe’s “diverse diversities,” but his analysis of how such variation shaped the political integration of Eastern Europe is a welcome addition to the literature.
Taras’s second goal is to determine whether elite discourse is consistent with public opinion. Several case studies of Western Europe reveal an ethnic hierarchy that privileges European immigrants and punishes non-white immigrants—particularly Muslims. Surprisingly, xenophobia in Eastern Europe is scarcely analyzed, besides a brief discussion of Poland, where Muslims and Roma are heavily stigmatized. Because the regions are barely compared, the reader does not learn whether the dissociation between elites and ordinary people in the East explains the book’s central empirical puzzle. Equally surprising is that Taras does not explore the relationship between xenophobia and support for European integration in either region. This is a critical omission if publics in both regions draw strong boundaries against Muslims, since this may unite Easterners and Westerns in opposition to Turkey’s candidacy. To his credit, Taras avoids a Hungtingtonian assumption of “Islamophobia” across Europe. He even describes how the far right in France has reached out to Muslim voters they believe might ignore the party’s nativism in order to appreciate its emphasis on family values.
Most of this book’s limitations are methodological. Taras is unable to provide a comprehensive comparison of public opinion in Western and Eastern Europe because he relies upon secondary analysis of survey data that is not collected consistently across regions. Admitting the limitations of survey research, Taras presents content analysis of recent novels about European identity as an alternative. But these texts are hardly the “bottom-up” representation of identity Taras wants them to be. Can we be confident, for instance, that the Russian-French novelist Andreï Makine captures public fear of the infamous Polish plumber? Likewise, does Mircea Cartarescu’s international upbringing qualify him to explain prejudice towards national minorities in Romania?
In trying to discriminate between “top down” and “bottom up” explanations of identity, Taras also ignores the meso-level. He hints that far-right parties have capitalized on public backlash to elite discourse in both regions. But previous research suggests the rise of the far right has only strengthened the cosmopolitan commitments of centrist parties. Taras also ignores the social movements credited by previous studies for the uneven dissemination of anti-racist discourse between Western and Eastern Europe. Finally, there is no discussion of the media, which is of interest not only because of its tendency to amplify extremist voices, but more importantly the separate histories of freedom of speech in the two regions.
Overall, this book is a welcome attempt to create interdisciplinary dialogue on European integration and xenophobia. But Taras’s noble attempt to unite the tribes studying these issues may not yet convince them of their shared fate. Still, this book provides an important roadmap for future interdisciplinary experiments, and a highly accessible overview of the European Union suitable for introductory courses on supra-national governance and immigration.
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