Post-Nationalism in Practice: European Citizens' Initiative

The discussion on the practical and heuristic value of cosmopolitanism and post-nationalism has informed and shaped the debate on the future of the European Union from the Maastricht Treaty onwards. The recent literature on belonging, allegiance and political identity suggests that cosmopolitanism is too thin of a concept to account for the gradual emergence of a common European public space visible primarily in the convergence of the EU's civil society movements. In this context, the notion of “constitutional patriotism” is analyzed due to its centrality in the cosmopolitanism/post-nationalism debate. Before proceeding to the central part of the paper, the author argues that social constructivism portrays a more realistic and substantive picture of the nature of the sense of European belonging.  The paper concludes with an examination of the European Citizens’ Initiative and attempts to assess to what extent this institutional novelty of direct democracy in the EU has provided empirical leverage for post-nationalist belonging. Through the comparative and case study analysis of the most paradigmatic initiatives submitted thus far, this investigation aims to provide the reader with a possible dynamics of post-national identification in the EU.