De(constructing) Europe – Euroscepticism in the History of European Integration

Joint project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

The research project embeds the ideal of cohesion in the European Union with the history of scepticism towards Europe. On the one hand, this scepticism has conditioned and been an obstacle to European unification from the outset; on the other, it has created its own forms of cohesion at a European level. While the field of research is currently dominated by political science, with a focus on the recent past, this project combines historical, sociological and politological approaches with an interdisciplinary and transnational perspective.
It was being carried out as a joint project by DHI London, DHI Rome and DHI Warsaw and the Hamburg Institute for Social Research. Cooperation partners are LMU Munich, Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, Sciences Po in Strasbourg and Queen Mary College in London. This international perspective highlights the fact that the breadth and historical depth of contemporary Euroscepticism emerges only when the focus is on the interconnectedness of regional, national and European contexts. The aim of the project is to explain Euroscepticism in its various forms as the result of transnational, mutually supporting and hindering conceptions of Europe. The three-year research project (2021–2024) received approximately 1.5 million Eur in funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

DHI Rome is involved with two sub-projects:

(De)constructing Mediterranean Europe. Italian Farmers Facing the EEC's Southern Enlargement (1970s–1980s), Project conducted by Dr. Antonio Carbone

European Counter-Movements. Eurosceptic Entanglements from the Beginnings of European Integration to the Present Day, Project conducted by Andrea Carlo Martinez M.Phil.

Further information and blog of the project

Podcast "Kritische Stimmen zur europäischen Einigung" (#11 Wissen entgrenzen – Der Podcast der Max Weber Stiftung)

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