What is the 'West' ?

In a chapter contribution to a book on the ‘Uses of the West’, edited by Gunther Hellmann and Benjamin Herborth (forthcoming with Cambridge University Press), Stefano Guzzini relates his findings on European foreign policy identity discourses with the volume’s theme. The end of the Cold War has produced crises in many European foreign policy identities for undermining the self-understanding or role recognition of foreign policies. In such an environment, the ‘West’ could become a welcome anchor, but not only.

The chapter develops four possible ways national identity discourses can relate to such cross-national identifications, like the ‘West’. One can hypothesize four possible relations, according to (1) whether or not there is overlap between those self-representations and cross-national ones and, (2) if there is, which of the two is given prevalence. If there is no overlap, then there is the situation where foreign policy identity discourses basically ignore the cross-national – or oppose it. When there is overlap, then if the national is given prevalence, it will appropriate and co-opt cross-national identifications into its discourse. When it is not, the cross-national can become an intrinsic part in constituting the national in the identity discourse for its capacity to stabilize an otherwise imbalanced identity prone to crisis.