In person icon Varieties of European solidarity: Empirical investigations on a key phenomenon for European integration

Abstract

The notion of European solidarity has often been historically linked to the process of European integration since the EU's very foundation. The relevance of this collective burden-sharing for European integration has, however, shifted throughout the decades of the European project, often influenced by the Zeitgeist of political discussion, the political agendas of actors of European integration and the expectations of reciprocity across European publics. In the wake of the series of crises the EU has faced in recent years, the importance of European solidarity for European integration has been pushed to the forefront of European politics, spurring a growing scholarly discussion on European solidarity both as a phenomenon on its own as well as well as its meaning for the bonding dimension of the EU. In recent years, scholars have examined the different manifestations of European solidarity (Ciornei & Recchi, 2017; Gerhards et al., 2019), its facets during the pandemic (Genschel et al., 2021; Ignácz & Langenkamp, 2021; Katsanidou et al., 2022; Reinl, 2022; Russo, 2023), factors fostering and undermining European solidarity ((Genschel & Hemerijck, 2018; Kleider & Stoeckel, 2019; Kuhn et al., 2018; Lengfeld et al., 2015) and its actual institutionalized realization (Bremer et al., 2021). The proposed panel aims to take stock of the latest developments and expand this research agenda by bringing together empirical papers that investigate public support for and political discourse underpinning European solidarity, also in the post-Ukraine invasion context. Furthermore, the panel seeks to highlight and bring to the forefront of scholarly discussion how the current increase in European solidarity supply mirrors national state-building processes of the past, and whether the development of strong European solidarity indicate the strengthening of transnational bonds and the consolidation of a European polity.

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