European Udine Declaration : A Poststructuralist Reading

Poststructuralist approach can offer a useful tool for refiguration of some basic concepts employed in European legal discourse. However, this approach is mostly used in gender studies, and its potential is mostly neglected in European studies. In this article, the Udine Declaration will be analyzed from the poststructuralist perspective. It will be shown that this Declaration does not represent a move toward greater freedom and broader notion of identity, because it employs essentialist concepts.


Introduction
EU policy is still based on the distinction between global and local.European Parliament does not consider issues such as: good healthcare, quality of education, childcare, safe communities, etc.These problems are left to local policies."for the European project to continue to progress, it will be vital to explain how the construction of Europe will both help citizens have greater control by their everyday lives through more empowered local institutions, while also helping to solve the great security, climate, and war and peace related challenges of an increasingly independent world."(Note 1) Establishment of the Udine Declaration (Note 2) which considers the development of regional and European identities is a step towards the resurgence of the local and diminishing the gap between the global and the local.The Assembly of European Region's Udine Declaration attempts to remake the concepts of the "self" and "other".By AER's Udine Declaration the crucial role of regions and regional identities in establishing a common European identity is emphasized.On the other hand, the significant role of regions in strengthening regional, national and European identity is emphasized.
The expanding borders of EU and dynamic process of globalization require challenging the old concepts of citizen and alien.The new social developments require redefined concepts of pluralism and identity.Establishment of the Udine Declaration (Note 3) by AER (Assembly of European Regions ) (Note 4) which considers the development of regional and European identities is a step towards the resurgence of the local and diminishing the gap between the global and the local, between the rich and the poor EU's regions and between EU and its citizens.(Note 5) The Udine Declaration attempts to remake the concepts of the "self" and "other".This Declaration represents a significant contribution to the EU's cohesion policy.(Note 6)The former president of the AER, Riccardo Illy emphasized its contribution to the Constitutional Treaty and the Treaty of Lisbon.(Note 7) The crucial role of regions and regional identities in establishing a common European identity is emphasized by Udine Declaration.On the other hand, the significant role of regions in strengthening regional, national and European identity is emphasized.In the following lines it will be explored whether the Udine Declaration still employs the essentialist notion of identity based on the logic of homogeneity.This approach was criticized by poststructuralist philosophers.Although the Udine Declaration is not a philosophical text, this philosophical analysis of the conception of identity it establishes, explores whether the Udine Declaration represents a move towards greater freedom.
Poststructuralist and postmodern (Note 8) perspectives are not very often employed in European identity and European studies as a whole.In the following lines, the idea of identity represented in the Udine Declaration will be examined from the poststructuralist point of view.It will be argued that the Udine Declaration still employs the essentialist notion of identity based on the logic of homogeneity which is criticized by poststructuralist approach.
The implications of this study can be applied to the research of the concept of European identity, which is first established by the Declaration of European Identity.(Note 9) In the Declaration of European Identity the common heritage and common values of European peoples are emphasized.On the other hand, in the preamble of the Treaty of Establishing a Constitution of Europe (Note 10) religious, cultural and humanist inheritance of Europe and universal values are emphasized.The idea of European Union based on common values is also emphasized in the preamble of the Charter of Fundamental Rights EU.Subsequently, the Udine Declaration represents a regional identity which is established on the common values and common understanding of what it means to be European.In the following lines it will be argued that both European as well as regional identity should not be perceived as homogeneous categories based on common values, because this implies essentialization and does not represent a move towards greater freedom.

Poststructuralist notion of identity
Poststructuralists, in short, reject the main concepts of the Western metaphysics such as: subject, identity, truth, reality and so forth.They argue that these concepts should not be perceived as fixed, but that they are in need for reinterpretation and deconstruction.Poststructuralist authors reject essentialist notion of identity and argue that identity is dynamic, hybrid and changeable category.They argue that universalist aspirations (Note 11) are oppressive and they emphasize multiple perspectives which are discursively produced.Thus, poststructuralist approach promotes disintegration, particularity and difference.Some critics of poststructuralist idea note that poststructuralist theory is universalist and essentialist itself: "But this sort of Nietzschean pluralism or perspectivism is fundamentally inconsistent because, in fact, the right to difference can only be held by universal principles."(Note 12) Indeed, it can be argued that poststructuralism is universalizing theory which puts the different theories under the single point of view.(Note 13) However, most of poststructuralist theoreticians reject to specify their theories under the name of "poststructuralism" or "postmodernism".(Note 14) However, despite their diverse approaches (Note 15) authors who are considered as "poststructuralist", reject essentialist notion of identity.Poststructuralists reject Cartesian idea of the unitary subject.Descartes employs the "method of systematic doubt" to examine all knowledge in order to get firm and certain knowledge.He states: "I noticed that, during the time I wanted this to think that everything was false, it was necessary that I, who thought this, must be something.And noticing that this truth -I think, therefore I am -was so firm and so certain that the most extravagant suppositions of the skeptics were unable to shake it, I judges that I could accept it without scruple as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking."(Note 16) Descartes makes a distinction between the mind and body, which produces binary oppositions: self/other, objective/subjective, and so forth.(Note 17) He emphasizes the difference between the rational, conscious, unified and knowing subject, on the one hand, and an object, on the other hand.Consequently, self is perceived as a homogenous identity, which excludes everything else as a difference.Poststructuralists reject the idea of stable, unitary, conscious and self-identical subject.
Poststructuralists argue that the subject is produced by discourse.Consequently, identity is shifting, fragmented and multiple.It cannot be considered as rational and it is always in the process of reconstruction.(Note 18) This approach emphasizes that meaning is not fixed, it is deferred and represents an interplay between two opposites.Thus concepts such as "identity", "difference", "equality", "nature", etc. are always open to different interpretations.
According to Lacan, subject is always dependent on language."Lacan believes that discourse within which the subject finds its identity is always the discourse of the Other -of a symbolic order which transcends the subject.(…) One Lacanian tenet is that subjectivity is entirely relational; it only comes into play through the principle of difference, by the opposition of the 'other' or the 'you' to the 'I'.In other words, subjectivity is not an essence but a set of relationships.It can only be induced by the activation of a signifying system which exists before the individual and which determines his or her identity.Discourse, then, is the agency whereby the subject is produced and the existing order sustained."(Note 19) Poststructuralists like Foucault (Note 20) and Derrida attempt to deconstruct the idea of humanity.They argue that human nature and reality are constructed.Poststructuralist approach neither represents objectivism nor relativism, by emphasizing that both positions "deny the partial and located position of the knowing subject."(Note 21) Poststructuralist authors argue that this partial and located concept of subject should be foundation of the new conception of objectivity.
According to Derrida the history of Western metaphysics and thought can be perceived as the history of metaphors and metonymies.He rejects fonocentrism and the priority of speech and voice over the written word in the history of Western discourse.(Note 22) According to Derrida, on this dominance of the speech, the logocentrism as the foundation of the Western metaphysics is built.In his Of Grammatology, Derrida argues that logocentrism is the part of his project of deconstruction.Logocentrism perceives Western discourse as based on logos (reason, law).It gives priority to identity over difference, universality over the particularity, necessity over contingency, nature over culture, etc.The first term is perceived as dominant and universal, because it is perceived as it has its origin in the reason which is the same for all human beings.The other is perceived as contingent and particular and mostly excluded from Western discourse.The purpose of Derrida's critique is not to change power relations in these binary oppositions, because this will make another kind of metaphysics.The purpose of Derrida's critique is deconstruction of Western metaphysics and discourse.Derrida's deconstruction exposes assumptions that underlie these binary oppositions and create discrimination and inequality in a metatheoretical level.
The aim of Derrida's deconstruction is not to reject these binary oppositions, but to reconstruct them and interpret them in a different way.Derrida argues that two terms of the binary oppositions present in Western discourse (signifier/signified, objective/subjective, male/female, etc.) cannot be opposed, because every term of these binary oppositions contains in itself the phantom of the other.He introduces the concept of "difference", which overcomes the fixed identity of "difference" and it represents a constant interplay of meanings.
The purpose of Derrida's deconstruction is transformation of the hierarchic structures which create metaphysical character of philosophy.Deconstruction rejects the discourse based on the power of reason.
Derrida's idea of deconstruction was often misinterpreted.Deconstruction is often seen as a method which "consists of deliberately inverting traditional oppositions and marking the play of hitherto invisible concepts that reside unnamed in the gap between opposing terms.In the move from hermeneutics and semiotics to deconstruction there is a shift of focus from identities to differences, unities to fragmentations, ontology to philosophy of language, epistemology to rhetoric, presence to absence.According to one recent commentator deconstruction celebrates dissemination over truth, explosion and fragmentation over unity and coherence, undecidable spaces over prudent closures, playfulness and hysteria over care and rationality."(Note 23) However, this point of view is flawed.Derrida emphasizes that his deconstruction is not a method.It also cannot be perceived as a critique, because a critique presuppose a choice.However, Derrida does not aim at reversing the power relations in binary oppositions.
Derrida's deconstruction was perceived by poststructuralist feminists as a method of reconstruction and reinterpretation of the patriarchal power relations.Scott argues, "Precisely because it addresses questions of epistemology, relativizes the status of all knowledge, links knowledge and power, and theorizes these in terms of the operations of difference, I think poststructuralism (or at least some of the approaches generally associated with Michael Foucault and Jacques Derrida) can offer feminism a powerful analytic perspective."(Note 24) Poststructuralist feminist authors argue that oppression of women can be perceived in symbolic terms which binary oppositions reflect.Irigaray, Lacan and Kristeva emphasize that binary opposition man/woman reflects the fact that women are excluded from the symbolic order and reflected as "man's other".Irigaray argues that the neutral subject of Western discourse refers only to masculine.
Scott argues that binary oppositions that exist in the Western law and discourse are not ahistorical, universal, or fixed, but constructed.In this way the power relations inside the binary oppositions are reversed, and culture has priority over nature, particular over universal, constructed over fixed, etc.Scott and many other feminists argue that politics represents a gendered concept, where gender is socially constructed.However, the problem with this definition is that gender is as determined and fixed as it was under the biology-is-destiny formulation.In such a case, not biology but culture, becomes destiny.(Note 25) As McKinnon argues, the meaning of the term "construction" is controversial.Construction can imply another kind of determinism -a social determinism which can be opposed to biological determinism.This is also the main obstacle of any analytical method based on the social and cultural constructivism, which aims at replacing essentialism.It is contradictory and points to the essentialism of another kind.This was well perceived by Wieringa who argues that constructivism creates new metaphysics of binary oppositions who are no less oppressive than the Western metaphysical binary oppositions that were described by Derrida."However, a 'strong' constructivism which rejects any mention of the body (...) as essentialist falls prey to reinforcing the binary opposition between the body and the social which constructivism set out to criticize in the first place."(Note26) She argues that binary oppositions between body and mind, between nature and culture and essentialism and constructivism need to be deconstructed.On the other hand she implicitly employs binary opposition between women and men, which reflects new power relations, when she, implicitly, excludes men from the "gender project".(Note 27) However, Derrida was neither a proponent of essentialism nor constructivism, he argues that meaning is always dispersed.It represents a free interplay of signs, and he rejects all kinds of dualisms based on the homogeneity and firm identity.That means that identity is neither essentialist nor contingent.
Poststructuralist notion of identity embraces multiple conception of culture which is an infinite source of identities and meanings.It reflects new forms of global migration and new hybridity of cultures.This idea of culture redefines the notion of membership and redefines the concept of "other".

The Udine declaration: toward the poststructuralist notion of identity?
AER's Udine Declaration asks the European institutions and national governments : grant regions the financial means and responsibility to create their own policies from which regional identities are developed to consider the principle of subsidiarity and regional identities as foundation of strong regions; to recognize interdependence between regional, national and European identity and to support regions in the process of development of European identity; "to restrict the ability of the European Commission to use State Aid policy to limit regions' delivery of cultural, media and education policies."(Note 28) The process of globalization and Europeanization make a strong impact not only on regional but also individual identities.Additional problem is represented by regions which are based on several traditions and heritages.Thus regional identity can be studied from various perspectives: historical, anthropological, interdisciplinary, and so forth.
It is stated by the Udine Declaration (Note 29) that: "national identity is always an important factor, but at the same time, a sense of European identity is also gradually emerging.These developments have resulted in the emergence of multiple identities, as European and regional identities interact with national ones to create more complex layers of identity.It is clear that identity is not a static concept, but rather a constantly shifting phenomenon."(Note 30) The term "constantly shifting phenomenon" is often employed in poststructuralist theory.It points to poststructuralist idea of identity which rejects essentialism and logic of sameness.As it is already argued, "Poststructuralists charge that identity politics rests on a mistaken view of the subject that assumes a metaphysics of substance -that is, that a cohesive, self-identical subject is ontologically (…) prior to any form of social injustice."(Note 31) So the question whether Europe is moving toward poststructuralist notion of identity can be asked.The further lines from the Udine Declaration seem to give a positive answer: "The challenge for Europe and its regions today is to develop this advantage by nurturing strong identities, on a regional and European level, whilst at the same time respecting existing national identities, and adapting flexibly to shifting identities.".(Note 32) According to poststructuralists identity is not given ontologically, it is constructed as "a precarious and temporary effect of difference."(Note 33) These relations of difference are dynamic category, which is constantly being changed and reinterpreted.This notion of difference is fluid and it breaks all kind of stable hierarchical dichotomies between male and female, rationality and irrationality, nature and culture and so forth.This point of view influenced poststructuralist understanding of subject as rational, homogenous and autonomous category.
The main goal of the poststructuralist critique is overcoming the logic of homogeneity, which "imposes sameness over difference".(Note 34) Indeed, the difference and the concept of multiple identity are emphasized by the Udine Declaration: "As regional, national, and European identities combine with distinct cultural, linguistic and religious identities, Europe's diversity increases.(...) this process is still ongoing and it is the richness of evolving multiple identities (Note 35) that gives Europe and its regions a unique advantage."(Note 36) On the other hand, it is argued that "a strong Europe requires a clear sense of European identity."(Note 37) This statement is contradictory to the idea of identity as dynamic and shifting phenomenon represented in the part A ("Context") of the Udine Declaration.Requiring "a clear sense" of identity implies a totalizing, unifying definition.It is also stated that: "Creating a strong European identity will help to improve the democratic legitimacy of the EU and to improve citizen participation in European life."(Note 38) Here European identity has only instrumental role, i.e. it is perceived as means to an end and it does not represent a substantive good (i.e. the good in itself).Subsequently, it is argued that: "A shared European identity can only develop through a shared set of values and references and a common understanding of what it means to be European."(Note 39) Further, "A European identity should be based upon a sense of belonging to a common space, as well as European principles and values."(Note 40) From these statements, it can be concluded that the concept of "multiple identity" described in the Udine Declaration is fixed.It embraces regional and national identities determined by the borders, as well as European identity, which is found on "European values".(Note 41) Foucault criticizes the idea of space as undialectical and fixed.He emphasizes that space and borders are constructed.Thus "belonging to a common space" can be perceived as a mental construct, which can be determined by feeling and belief.On the other hand, the concept of "European values" also implies homogenization and essentialist categories and it gives priority to sameness over difference.
These statements in the Udine Declaration also oppose the idea of identity based on "complex layers" (Note 42) However, this point of view includes binary opposition European/non-European, as well as we/they, self/other, which implies that identity is a static and fixed category.Thus, it is contradictory to the idea of identity as a changeable and dynamic category represented in the part A («Context») of this Declaration.Even the idea of diversity employed in the Udine Declaration is based on binary opposition Europe/other: "Only by cultivating and harnessing the myriad identities that exist in Europe, will we be able to preserve the diversity that distinguishes Europe and represents our true competetive knowledge."(Note 43) Diversity and "myriad identities" are perceived only as an instrumental good, which help the development of Europe: "Diversity, which arises from the preservation and integration of identities, is the best instrument for innovation and for the economic, social and cultural growth of Europe."(Note 44) According to Derrida, the difference is what constitutes European identity, which is open to the otherness and it is not self-identical.(Note 45) Consequently, it can be argued that there are two logics that are employed inside the framework of Udine Declaration.The first is the logic of heterogeneity, (Note 46) based on concepts such as: "the emergence of multiple identities", "complex layers of identity", identity as "a constantly shifting phenomenon", "increased population shifts", "diverse societies (which do not necessarily have a strong common identity)" and so forth.The second logic employed in the Udine Declaration is the logic of homogeneity (Note 47) based on concepts such as: "clear sense of European identity", "shared set of values", "common understanding", "sense of belonging to a common space", "European principles and values", and so forth.
Subsequently, the Udine Declaration does not leave room for "a multiple, constantly shifting identities", as it asserts.The notion of identity employed in the Udine Declaration is still fixed by territory, and determined values and principles, which are labeled as "European".Therefore, diversity that it attempts to develop is "thin".

Conclusion
In this article some basic concepts employed in the Udine Declaration are examined from the poststructuralist perspective.By close reading of the Udine Declaration, various binary oppositions arise, which point to essentialist nature of the notion of identity represented in this document.Poststructuralist reading of the Udine Declaration shows that it attempts to establish multiple identities, which require the logic of difference ( i.e. heterogeneity ) by still relying on the logic of sameness ( i.e. homogeneity), which is contradictory.Therefore, poststructuralist idea of the constructed identity can help the legal discourse to extend the notion of identity it employs.Poststructuralist authors reject the idea of common values from which the modern notion of identity is derived.They argue that these common values create metaphysics which is based on the binary oppositions and reject the politics of identity based on unity and universal values.Poststructuralist authors mostly emphasize heterogeneity and dissociation.However, this study does not rely on the ideas of those poststructuralist authors who make new kinds of binary oppositions in which the difference will have priority over identity, dissociation over association, heterogeneity over homogeneity.These authors create a new metaphysics which reverses established power relations.
In this article it is argued that the conception of identity ( both regional and European ) inside the framework of European legal discourse, should not be developed from the ideas of "common heritage" , "universal values", "common destiny", and so forth.The concept of identity in the European legal discourse should not represent a metaphysical, but a political category.Only in this way identity is not fixed and can be considered as multiple and unbounded.

Notes
Note 1. Dervis, K (2007), A European 'identity' is no answer to the EU's ills", Europe's World, September issue, p. 43 Note 2. AER (Assembly of European Regions) General Assembly adopted Udine Declaration ("Identity: Regions as Building Blocks for Europe") in Udine (I) on November 9, 2007.The theme of the Assembly was called "Identity -Regions are the Building Blocks of Europe".Note 3. AER (Assembly of European Regions) General Assembly adopted Udine Declaration ("Identity: Regions as Building Blocks for Europe") in Udine (I) on November 9, 2007.The theme of the Assembly was called "Identity -Regions are the Building Blocks of Europe".Note 4. The Assembly of European Regions (AER) is an independent organization which embraces more than 260 regions in from 33 countries in Europe.It brings together 14 interregional organizations as well.
Note 5.As it is argued by José Manuel Barosso, the president of the European Commission in his speech held at Assembly of European Regions in Udine on November, 9th in 2007.Note 6. "Cohesion policy was enshrined in the Treaties with the adoption of the single European Act (1986).It is built on the assumption that redistribution between richer and poorer regions in Europe is needed in order to balance out the effects of further economic integration." (The New EU Cohesion Policy (2007-2013), Available: www.euractiv.com/...eu/new-eu-cohesion-policy-2007-2013/article-131988 Note 7. On the other hand, the AER Declaration on regionalism had an impact on the development of the draft of the European Charter on Regional Democracy.Note 8. "The concept of postmodernism is ambiguous and is not yet widely understood.It has probably emerged as a specific reaction against the established forms of high modernism.For some thinkers postmodernism is a periodizing concept whose function is to correlate the emergence of new features in culture.The concept seems to be connected with the appearance, between 1950s and the 1960s, of a new social and economic order.(...) There are so many similarities between poststructuralist theories and postmodernist practices that it is difficult to make a clear distinction between them."(Sarup, M (1988) Note 10.Established by the representatives of the governments of the member states EU in Brussels on October, 29, 2004 Note 11.These aspirations are immanent to entire modernist idea, see Thomas Bridges (1994), The Culture of Citizenship: Inventing Postmodern Civic Culture, New York, The State of New York Press Note 12. Sarup, M (1988), An Introductory Guide to London,Harvester Wheatsheaf,p. 166 Note 13.This problem is emphasized by Judith Butler, who states: "Do all these theories have the same structure (a comforting notion to the critic who would dispense with them and all at once?) Is the effort to colonize and domesticate these theories under the sign of the same, to group them synthetically and masterfully under a single rubric, a simple refusal to grant the specifity of these positions, an excuse not to read, and not to read, and not to read closely?" (Butler, J (1992), Contingent foundations: feminism and the question of postmodernism", in Butler, S. & Scott, J, W, Feminists Theorize the Political, New York, Routledge, p 5) Note 14.According to a number of authors, these two approaches are interchangeable, and authors such as Derrida, Lyotard and Foucault can be considered as both poststructuralist and postmodernist.This perspective was criticized by Judith Butler who argues that Lacanian psychoanalysis in France rejects poststructuralism, that Kristeva denounces postmodernist, that Foucault's and Derrida's theories are diverse, and so forth.Note 15. "Norris is particularly clear on the differences between Derrida and Foucault.Foucault's extreme epistemological skepticism leads him to equate knowledge with power, and hence to regard all forms of enlightened progress (in psychiatry, sexual attitudes or penal reform) as signs of increasing social control.Derrida, by contrast, insists that there is no opting-out of that post-Kantian enlightenment tradition.It is only by working persistently within that tradition, but against some of its ruling ideas, that thought can muster the resistance required for an effective critique of existing institutions."(Sarup, M, (1988), An Introductory Guide to London,Harvester Wheatsheaf,p. 130) Note 16.Descartes, R, (1993), Discourse on Method and Meditation on First Philosophy,Indianapolis,Hackett,India,p. 19

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An Introductory Guide to Post-structuralism and Postmodernism, London, Harvester Wheatsheaf, p. 131) Note 9.It was established by Nine Member States of the Community in Copenhagen in 1973.