5 - Symbols and Myths of European Union Transnational Solidarity

Summary

The chapter explores the symbols and myths of EU transnational solidarity through a threefold analysis of transnational solidarity within, across, and beyond the EU. Based on post-Cold War study of the EU in global politics over the past three decades, it compares and contrasts transnational solidarity from communitarian and cosmopolitan perspectives before advocating a cosmopolitical understanding of EU transnational solidarity in a global context. The chapter examines transnational solidarity within the EU by looking at symbols and myths of communitarian, cosmopolitan and cosmopolitical solidarities. It then looks across the borders of the EU to consider the symbols and myths of communitarian, cosmopolitan, and cosmopolitical solidarities within the European neighbourhood. It then goes beyond the EU to analyse the symbols and myths of communitarian, cosmopolitan and cosmopolitical solidarities with distantly situated others through EU external actions. It concludes by arguing the need to clearly identify, in line with Carol Gould, transnational EU solidarities as overlapping networks of relations that share and support actions to eliminate oppression or reduce suffering. It further argues that cosmopolitical solidarities that network and share global ethics with local politics are more likely to take actions in concert that are caring and empathic towards distantly situated others.