Communicating Europe to the youth: Challenges in enhancing political participation on the European level through citizenship education in the Netherlands

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Communicating Europe to the youth:

Challenges in enhancing political participation on

the European level through citizenship education

in the Netherlands

MA Thesis in European Studies Graduate School for Humanities University of Amsterdam Louise Vierstraete 10666753

Main Supervisor Dr. C. Vos Second Supervisor Dr. M. Brolsma July 1, 2019

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Introduction

Not long after the turn of the century, the European Union started with their constitutional project. After the establishment of the European Monetary Union, the completion of the Single Market, a European constitution just might have been the next step in European integration. However, two national referenda in 2005 in France and the Netherlands revealed that the citizens did not approve of the establishment of such a constitution so the project did not proceed. A couple of years later the consensual outcome of negotiations between the EU and the Member States was the Lisbon Treaty, which entered into force on 1 December 2009. Apart from some profound changes in the legal

framework and institutional set-up of the EU, the Lisbon Treaty also underlined the democratic values of the Union by including the notions of participatory and representative democracy by establishing the European Citizens’ Initiative. This was arguably one of the very first legal steps for an ‘ever-closing union among the peoples of Europe’ as was stated already in the 1957 Treaty of Rome (European Economic Community 1957).

But the European project being one of more and further integration certainly is not that self-evident anymore. Even though it has been over three years after the British people voted for a Brexit and yet the actual Brexit still did not take place, it is very unlikely they will not eventually leave the European Union. The Brexit referendum inspired politicians in other Member States to question their EU membership, with French politician Marine Le Pen rooting for a Frexit and the Dutch politician Geert Wilders for a Nexit (De Morgen 2016). Although these countries are, at least for the moment, not at all close to such an exit from the European Union, it does illustrate that disintegration is not out of the question and could jeopardize the future of the Union. Alongside rigorous calls for leaving the Union, there are also actors involved that call for a re-structuring of the institutional and political framework. Critique on the European Union per se is not a new phenomenon, but it does seem the critique in recent years is increasing both horizontally, throughout different Member States, as well as vertically, from the ‘elitist’ politicians and experts to the ‘normal’ European citizens. In these

discussions, the sore point that often comes forward is an alleged lack of representation and

democracy of the European Union which results in a lack of legitimacy for the entire framework as it functions today.

The debate on European democracy and the so-called democratic deficit of the European Union is complicated and delicate. Roughly, the two sides of this debate can be presented as optimistic on the one hand and pessimistic on the other. Generally speaking, it is agreed that there is a democratic deficit (Müller, Reckling, and Weiss 2014; Reinfeldt 2014; Sorace 2018), the degree of this deficit and especially the solutions to this deficit however, are still being discussed. The results of the 2019 European elections triggered the debate on the notion of democracy in Europe once again. The voter turnout of roughly 51 per cent is the highest turnout percentage in almost 25 years. This gave reason

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4 for the European Commission to immediately put out a statement on Twitter that this high turnout is proof of the European democracy being “alive and well” (@EU_Commission, May 27, 2019), in a speech by spokesperson of the Commission Margaritis Schinas. It is not a surprise that the European Union does its utmost to take advantage of this news, but this seems a rather overstated claim. Admittedly, an increase in the number of people voting for the European election certainly is contributing to a certain extent to the notion of democracy. However, a turnout of just slightly above 50 per cent of the electorate does not mean the right to vote, one of the key conditions for democracy, has been fully utilised. These sort of statements are attempts of the EU to dispose of the democratic deficit allegations. European citizens were able to vote directly for members of the European

Parliament for the first time in 1979. This institutional change was an effort to increase democracy in the EC, but in 1979, European citizens did not make that much an effort either to make use of their new ability to exert influence with a voter turnout of almost 62 per cent (European Parliament 2014, 8). With every election hereafter, voter turnout has nothing but declined, with a lowest turnout of just over 42 per cent in 2014. Now that there has finally been an increase in voter turnout after forty years is hopeful, but certainly not a victory yet.

Voter turnout is obviously not the only indicator in the functioning of democracy, but it does show a certain level of political participation, or the lack hereof for that matter. What is striking is the fact that in almost every election in Europe but also the United States, the percentage of young people voting is significantly lower than the older generations (The Washington Post 2018). Of all people, it is the youngest electoral generation that should care most about political development and decision-making that influences their future. The youth themselves should be more aware of political participation, but in the European political context the European Union and the governments of the Member States also have a part to play. In campaigns for national elections and the European elections, the youth is in fact being targeted more and more. Through the use of social media for example and the creation of voting aid applications for smartphones, organisation attempt to reach this target audience more effectively. But one could argue there is one step ahead of this campaigning, which is way more effective in getting people, especially the youth, to vote. People need to have a structural understanding and feeling that they are part of a society in which they can be democratically active and participative. Becoming an active citizen requires knowledge about the notion of citizenship in the first place. Education, and specifically education on citizenship, enhances this process.

The aim of this thesis therefore is to analyse the competences and efforts that are being made at different levels in educating the Dutch youth specifically, on Europe and the European Union. The different levels here are firstly the European institutional level of the European Union, secondly the national level of the Dutch government and independent institutions operating in the Netherlands, and lastly the local or executive level of education, which are the schools. By analysing each of these levels closely, we can conclude whether these levels are working in a comprehensive way or opposing each other. Also, the implications and challenges in teaching on the European Union at secondary

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5 schools in the Netherlands will be examined, which leads to the question which actor needs to take more, or if all, responsibility in this matter. The European Union by all means has no direct competence in policymaking concerning education in the Member States. It does however provide educational programmes that schools across Europe can use voluntarily and with other programmes led or funded by the institutions it does relate to the educational systems of the Member States. On the national, regional and even local level, organisations also commit to informing and educating people on the European Union. It seems therefore that efforts are being made to a large extent, but it

somehow does not take root yet. The overarching question in this research therefore arises which actor should take the lead and responsibility to attain a comprehensive and complete set of tools for the European, and in this case, Dutch youth to engage in the European Union. The premise of this research by no means is that the youth should be informed and educated more on the European Union in order for them to be more in favour of EU policy-making or the set-up of the institutional framework as a whole. Rather, information and education in this sense is meant as a tool to provide more awareness and civic participation, which enables citizens to have an opinion on the European Union, either a positive or a negative one. The research question of this thesis is to what extent the actors involved in enhancing citizenship education are on the same page in achieving an increasing political participation of the Dutch youth at the European level. The actors involved vary from the EU institutional level all the way to the local executing level at schools, being the teachers. Asking this question, automatically brings up more questions about the development of citizenship education which will be answered as well. For instance, it is important to examine

In order answer the main question, an in-depth qualitative analysis was conducted. After the theoretical embedding based on academic literature in the first chapter, the subsequent two chapters are the result of an analysis of the European framework, national framework and the school framework concerning citizenship education. Based on an analysis of policy documents and websites of all actors involved at these levels, an overview of current developments and objectives in this field is

constructed. Especially the website analysis is important for this research since the educational material on the EU, and information about the EU in general, is available and accessible for teachers and students online. Furthermore, one-on-one interviews were conducted with the Deputy Head of Representation in the Netherlands, as well as with representatives from the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) and the Europe Direct Information Centre The Hague (EDIC). This has been done to get a more substantial insight in current developments in these departments, especially in the field of education on the EU. Also, three teachers who teach Civic Studies at three different secondary schools in the Netherlands were interviewed to support the document and website analysis in the last part of the second chapter, by giving input about their own experiences and considerations when it comes to the component ‘Europe’ in their lessons. All

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6 The aim of this thesis is not to assess the content of the covered educational material on the EU in this research as such, but it does use examples of existing material to be able to compare the different actors involved. Awareness of the importance of citizenship education in relation to enhancing

political participation on the EU level has come into play quite recently at all the examined levels. It is therefore interesting to find out whether the efforts that are being made at each level at the moment are aligned with each other, or, if there is question of conflicting interests. In case the analysis shows there are conflicting interests or ineffective approaches at these levels, there is still time to redirect and rearrange developments now, considering the early stage in which the developments take place.

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Chapter I – Theoretical framework

In this first chapter, the theoretical framework for the analytical subsequent chapters will be laid down. Firstly, the notion of democracy in the EU will be addressed with emphasis on the democratic deficit debate and deliberative democracy as a partial solution to this deficit. Then, constructivism will be examined both as a European integration theory for community-building as well as a theory of knowledge and education in the form of social constructivism and social constructionism. Finally, theories on the relationship between education and political activity will be discussed in relation to education about the EU.

1.1 Democracy

A great deal of theories on democracy are available and suitable for discussing the European Union. Since it is widely agreed upon that the European Union has a complex relation to democracy, this section will start right away with the debate on the democratic deficit of the EU. Thereafter, the normative theory of deliberative democracy and its implications for the democratic deficit will be discussed.

1.1.1 Democratic deficit of the EU

What is striking about the low voter turnouts at the European elections throughout the years is that citizens apparently do not feel the need to vote on a European level. The problem of the democratic deficit addressed here is therefore not necessarily a quantitative one, since the European citizens are actually able to directly vote on the members of the European Parliament. This thesis shall not address the discussion whether this ability to vote is essentially enough to reduce the democratic deficit of the European Union in itself. Rather, this thesis is concerned with the qualitative aspect of the democratic deficit of the European Union. For some reason, European citizens do not feel connected to such an extent that they feel an urge to make use of their democratic rights.

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Figure I – Percentage of electorate who voted for the European elections in 2014 by age groups (European Parliament 2014, 9).

The salient point of Figure I above is that the youngest generation of the European electorate used their ability to vote the least, in comparison to other age groups. Only 28 per cent of the electorate between the age of 18 and 24 voted during the European elections in 2014, which brings down the overall voter turnout percentage significantly. There are various reasons in deciding not to vote ranging from the feeling that your vote will not make any difference, to not completely understanding where you are voting for, to not being interested in politics and so on. As Figure II below shows, the main reason for citizens aged between 18 and 24 years old to not vote in the European elections in 2014 was that they are not interested in politics as such. This figure cannot tell therefore to what extent these people would also stay home during national or local elections, because they tell they do not feel engaged with politics in general, not European politics in particular. The two other main reasons for not voting are the lack of trust or dissatisfaction with politics and the feeling that there is no point in voting as it will not change anything. One could argue all three of these reasons are the result of insufficient attention towards active citizenship as citizens indicate they do not belong to the political active citizens.

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Figure II – Main reasons not to vote in the European elections of 2014 by age groups (European Parliament 2014, 61).

The consequences of these results are twofold. First, it shows the age group 18-24 is a group of citizens in which there is much to gain when it comes to participation in the European elections. At the same time, it is this specific age group which is often being referred to as the ‘future generation’. Exactly these people still have a lifetime in front of them and therefore should particularly feel the urge to be engaged in political processes. So, what is going wrong here? What is the reason young people in Europe are not interested in politics, or at least not in voting for the European elections?

The early years of European integration were founded upon economic grounds and European citizens were not involved in the process as much as it did not affect their personal lives. The

supranational elites and bodies of the Community were given some sort of unspoken permission since the integration brought forth economic growth. Over the years however, the institutions politicized their policies and citizens started to express their opinions more and more. This inevitably leads to questions of democracy, since the situation shifted from one in which citizens were accepting decisions from the supranational system to one in which citizens became part of this system (Quintas 2015, 67). As the European Coal and Steel Community was created to a large extent as a supranational organisation, it led to discussions about the functioning of this system since many argued the structure did not provide for a representative form of democracy. The European Union is not a nation-state and that its sui generis character prevents us to compare democracy in a nation-state to democracy in the European Union. Regarding the notion of representative democracy for instance, there is a significant difference between the national and the European level. A citizen of a nation-state will criticize a politician for not carrying out representative policies and in turn will choose another politician. In the EU however, citizens feel not represented by the EU as a whole and criticize the system for it (Quintas 2015, 67).

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10 The connection between democratic deficit in the European Union and a lack of democratic legitimacy of its institutions has often been made in analysing democratic deficit, since these seem to be

intrinsically linked. Following this line of thinking, means the solution to such a democratic deficit would be to increase the legitimacy of the EU. Generally, one achieves legitimacy by reaching certain goals and in EU terms this could involve policies leading to economic or social growth after crises for example. However, we should be careful not to overestimate the desirability for certain governance by mistakenly consider it as legitimate governance (De Jongh and Theuns 2017, 1296). In other words, the legitimacy of the EU depends on more than mere beneficial policy results. One of these other conditions can be found in the absence of a European public sphere. In the institutional framework, European citizens are only able to directly elect the European Parliament, which can be seen as a purely reactive body in EU policy-making. The supranational European Commission yet lacks a democratic system in which they can be held accountable and in turn be rewarded or punished by the European citizens directly (Müller 2016, 83). Apart from this ‘technical’ aspect of democratic deficit in the EU, Müller argues a European public sphere is needed as it will shape a certain European political will and political discussions on a European level. Inspired by Jürgen Habermas, he therefore proposes European media and pan-European political parties for the European Parliament (Müller 2016, 84), instead of political groups, composed by national political parties which in turn leads to compromises of the latter in order to be able to group together. A supranational public sphere in Müller’s opinion is not one in which national public spheres completely disappear. Rather, Member States should try to address political issues and debates at the same time as other Member States and at the same time allow supranational EU officials to take part in these debates too, instead of an isolated national debate on wider European political issues (Müller 2016, 85).

The question whether a European identity exists or is needed won’t be addressed as such in this thesis. Still, it is important to keep it in mind in discussing the ‘chicken and egg’ debate concerning the European public sphere. Traditionally, it was thought that a public sphere with a common feeling of identity was required before a legitimized political debate could take place. In contemporary Europe however, with fragmented public spheres existing already on the national level, it works the other way around. It seems political debates, for example in response to crises like the refugee crisis, actually affect the emergence of a public sphere on a European level. The politicization of certain matters on a European level, which were only political on a national level before, causes citizens to think about these matters on a European scale. It makes people feel that they now have a political choice in these matters on this new level which in turn legitimizes these political processes and creates a European public sphere in which these choices are visible (Müller 2016, 86).

Consequently, when citizens tend to engage more with European politics, the EU institutions should to some extent also reflect this engagement in their policies. This is where according to many Eurosceptics it goes wrong as the EU is no representative democracy. If the political choices of European citizens are not directly being taken into consideration by the EU, it causes a widening gap

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11 between the EU and its citizens (Quintas 2015, 64). Following that line of argumentation, it would make no sense for European citizens to engage in European politics as long as they feel that no EU institution will actually listen to them. This exactly highlights the essential complexity of the EU’s democratic deficit. As much as the EU itself proclaims to be a representative democracy in the Lisbon Treaty under Article 10(1), because the European Parliament is directly chosen by the citizens, this is not what the democratic deficit is about. This formal democracy actually does not address the

legitimacy problem, since the democratic deficit debate is on the entire structure of the European integration project from the day it started, namely as an elitist project, and the institutional change of just the European Parliament does not change this (Majone 2014, 182).

The democratic deficit of the European Union is caused largely by the unwillingness of citizens that either do not want to participate actively because they are not interested in politics as such, or because they mistrust the European political system. One part of the solution for the EU democratic deficit should therefore be sought in the democratic activation of these citizens. The theory of deliberative democracy provides such a solution.

1.1.2 Deliberative democracy

The post-WWII political order in West-Europe came in the shape of liberal democracy. Even though it remained the norm over the years, it certainly has been contested by various critics from the entire political spectrum. Motivations for being anti-liberal vary but a common belief is that the liberal political order in West-Europe was made up of old elitist politicians which did not represent the public (Zielonka 2018). One theory that has been put forward to resolve the structural democratic deficit of the European Union is that of deliberative democracy. Deliberative democracy in the European Union could hence be the answer to the lack of legitimization for the institutional structure and today’s political developments in Europe. However, the theory of deliberative democracy knows many variants and even though the focus on deliberation gained popularity from the 1990s onwards, there is no single comprehensive definition of what deliberation in a democracy should look like exactly (Korkea-aho 2015, 14). Yet, all these views generally share the belief that a deliberative democracy should strive for politics in which citizens are the driving force behind addressing issues and the resolution of them, instead of self-interested politicians in complex power structures which are not capable of representation of the citizens (Korkea-aho 2015, 47). Some anti-liberal political movements have resulted in populism and more autocratic political systems such as in Hungary under the

leadership of Victor Orbán in recent years, undermining democratic values (The Guardian 2018; The New York Times 2018). Deliberation therefore could provide the alternative route for the movements against the liberal political order in Europe after 1945, as “deliberative democracy puts meaningful communication at the heart of democracy, not as a naïve hope, but in full recognition of the real capacities and limitations of citizens, politicians, and political processes” (Bächtiger et al. 2018, 2). In a democratic state, deliberation is as important as the voting procedure for decision-making.

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12 Deliberation is key for citizens as it will help them to understand political issues better in general and also to shape their own political preferences and interests (Bächtiger et al. 2018, 2-3). In other words, deliberation ensures citizens to be more involved in politics and will contribute to the other key aspect of a democracy, the right to vote. Therefore, deliberation must be part of a public sphere as this is essential for the legitimacy of the democratic institutions (Benhabib 1996, 68).

In the EU, which clearly is not a full-fledged democratic state, deliberation certainly has played, and still plays, a role in decision-making. The sui generis system of the EU is a system based on consensus-seeking in which the formal power of the institutions such as the European Commission remain relatively weak due to the complex voting structures and procedures (Eriksen and Fossum 2018, 1). In the EU, as Eriksen and Fossum (2018) argue, “deliberation thus had epistemic and transformative value but was not necessarily moral in justificatory terms”. Deliberation in the EU decision-making processes as described above are concerned with actors on the EU institutional level as well as on the Member State level, while the objectives of deliberative democracy theory are mainly concerned with citizens. Comitology, for instance, does force actors from the Member States into deliberation as they have to find solutions collectively (Eriksen and Fossum 2018, 4), but the citizens are left out of these procedures. In the European context, the transnationalist school of deliberative democracy theory is of importance. This school of thought argues political deliberation can ensure legitimization as it forces the different actors into a common position, even when these actors did not share the same consensus before (Eriksen and Fossum 2018, 5). It builds on the assumption that no common European identity or public sphere is necessary prior to political integration. Deliberation in European politics can actually provide the foundation for such an identity or public sphere to grow. This does not mean however, that transnational deliberation alone is enough to ensure democracy. Transnational actors like civil society organisations, public forums and networks in which deliberation in the European context take place cannot provide legitimization for the EU as a whole. Some

institutional requirements such as voting directly for the members of the European Parliament remain crucial for a legitimized democracy too (Eriksen and Fossum 2018, 6). The trust in the institutional aspect of deliberation is highly important too since for many citizens, a parliament represents justification as it does in their own democratic Member States. Having trust in the parliamentary principle therefore to a large extent justifies the democratic system of the EU (Eriksen and Fossum 2018, 8-9). The deliberation of EU democracy has not been completed yet, which is understandable in the light of the European integration process of the EU. As the integration process was driven by elitist politicians and experts from the start, transnational deliberation needed to catch up and is always one step behind. It is this process of catching up, which can be seen as the democratization process of the EU (Eriksen and Fossum 2018, 7).

This first paragraph on democracy in the European Union demonstrated the democratic deficit of the EU is a qualitative one, in the sense that especially young European citizens are not political participative on the European level. A solution to activate these citizens can be found in the theory of

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13 deliberative democracy as deliberative citizens are politically active. The question now arises, under which circumstances deliberative democracy can flourish.

1.2 Constructivism

From the previous section on the democratic deficit of the European Union and the theory of

deliberative democracy we can derive that transnational deliberation and civic participation in the EU political processes are key in resolving the democratic deficit. Deliberation leads to political

engagement and awareness and constructivism tacks on to these ideals. In the following sections constructivism will first be analysed as a theory in European integration. Hereafter, the specific strand of social constructivism with regard to deliberation and the relationship between education and political participation will be discussed.

1.2.1 Constructivism in European integration

European integration knows many integration theories. There are roughly three overarching theories to distinguish: liberal intergovernmentalism, neo-functionalism and social constructivism. For this research, the notion of legitimacy, community-building and participation are very important and out of these three theories, constructivism is the only one that attributes attention to these aspects of

European integration. The core assumption of constructivism is that the European integration process is a process which works towards the building of a community (Leuffen, Rittberger, and

Schimmelfennig 2013, 90). The more rationalized theories such as liberal-intergovernmentalism gained popularity in the years of European integration in which much of EU policy was still depoliticized and highly economic. Over the years however, the EU definitely has evolved into a political entity and crises such as the economic and refugee crisis caused more and more political decision-making. It is needed to bring back the focus on social ideas and discourses in European integration and constructivism can provide this focus. It is not an entirely new perspective in European integration theory, since federalism and transactionalism were popular in the decades leading up to the first steps of European integration (Leuffen, Rittberger, and Schimmelfennig 2013, 84).

Constructivism certainly is not equal to federalism but the need for a sense of a European community is shared in both these theories. Constructivism as such however is not so much concerned with the institutional outcome of European integration, but rather with the social and institutional process itself.

Whereas theories such as neofunctionalism and liberal-intergovernmentalism see efficiency of the system as a prerequisite of legitimization, by implementing economic policies that have a positive effect of the daily life of a European citizens for instance. Social constructivism, on the other hand, finds legitimacy in the existence of the community itself (Leuffen, Rittberger, and Schimmelfennig 2013, 88). The strength of a political community should be found in a transnational sphere and does not necessarily has to perform within the borders of a nation-state, according to social and political

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14 scientist Karl Deutsch who wrote most of his academic work in the first half of the twentieth century (Drulák and Druláková 2014, 335). Deutsch emphasized the importance of both vertical and horizontal integration, where other integration theories like neofunctionalism or liberal-intergovernmentalism are concerned only with the vertical aspects of integration. The EU’s political structure is based on vertical multi-level governance, in which governance takes place on the highest institutional level but also the local level is involved. However, as Drulák and Druláková (2014) show, Deutsch warned that the horizontal aspect of integration has been underestimated in terms of a European people. He does acknowledge, like the other theories, the importance of vertical integration when it comes to the institutional and elitist structure of European integration, but states the horizontal integration is just as important. Having horizontal integration, including social transnational ‘trade’ among European citizens rather than just economic trade, would have contributed to a single European people with shared cultural values (Drulák and Druláková 2014, 340-341). As regards to the lack of democratic participation in European politics, Deutsch attributed this to the institutional design when the ECSC started off. The institutions were installed with a very specific function, the economic distribution of coal and steel throughout the Member States, led by elitist and experts. Functionally specific

institutions are, according to Deutsch, designed for a system of permissive consensus, in which the citizens do not really care as long as everything goes well. The solution therefore would be to transform the functionally specific institutions into functionally diffuse ones (Drulák and Druláková 2014, 341-342).

In the complex political situation in contemporary Europe, in which further European

integration is not taken for granted anymore since disintegration is happening with Brexit, integration theories are not self-evident in their thoughts either. According to Börzel and Risse (2018) merging some constructivist ideas with other integration theories could provide clarity. In neo-functionalism, one of the key assumptions is that political integration will cause political actors to shift their loyalties toward a new political centre (Haas 1958, 16). This ‘automatic’ shift in loyalty could be enhanced by notions of community-building and collective identity formation, derived from constructivist theories (Risse 2005, 292). Especially insights from social constructivism in relation to deliberation, which will be analysed in-depth in the next section, provide for such as a focus on identity politics and the

creation of a transnational public sphere in Europe. Social constructivism can tackle the democratic deficit of the EU by abandoning the presupposition that the democratic deficit is an integral part of the European Union’s framework, considering the way integration started off. Social constructivism believes in community-building and therefore a democratic community can still be constructed in Europe.

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1.2.2 Social constructivism and deliberation

As argued in the previous section, insights from social constructivism can explain to a large extent why political actors currently withdraw their loyalty from the European institutions, such as the United Kingdom with their choice for a Brexit. These processes are the outcome of weak socialisation of the Member States, which causes them to have a low level of affinity for each other. The assumption that notions of identity and community would be shaped rationally after integration automatically, which has been made by neo-functionalists, is being rejected by social constructivism. Attention for social constructivism in Europe only began to rise in the 1990s and confirmed that shifting political loyalty towards the EU and its institutions and hence the creation of a European identity does not necessarily takes place at the cost of one’s national identity (Risse 2005, 304). In a more general sense, the key assumption of social constructivism is that the production and construction of many things are a result of social actions, which means those actions that are carried out by the interaction between people (Detel 2015, 228). For the European political context this thus implies that the construction of a European common identity is the result of social actions between people, rather than economic or political actions by institutions.

But social constructivism is certainly not only a theory that is applicable to European integration. Social constructivism can be applied at both the institutional as the interpersonal level as the theory provides insights in the construction of social ideas also in the day to day life of people. Within sociology and anthropology social constructivism is also being used in the individual context of knowledge-building and how we obtain knowledge, which is particularly interesting for this research. Social constructivists perceive knowledge as something which has been obtained and transformed into sense-making, rather than knowledge that exists on its own outside the person in possession of the knowledge (Oldfather, West, and White 1999, 9). Two of the earliest well-known writers on social constructivism were the Russian and Swiss psychologists Lev Vygotsky and Jean Piaget, even though both of these academics actually never used the term constructivism literally in their work. Both of them wrote on the importance of deliberation, but their theory differed in their approach towards the individual and the social. Jean Piaget argued that children are naturally individual and over time become socially part of the society as they make use of their deliberative features (Griffin 2011, 17). Lev Vygotsky argues this process is exactly the other way around. In his theory, it is the society that socially and culturally shapes the individual deliberative citizen. This difference is crucial in this research particularly because, if you follow Vygotsky’s reasoning as Griffin does in his article. It means the society is collectively responsible in the creation of deliberative citizens, while in Piaget’s theory the individual is responsible for its own deliberative competences. “[..] communities must play a larger role by identifying cultural tools that can act as the driving force in the individuation of internally competent deliberative citizens. This shift places the onus on deliberative democrats to seek to create competent deliberative citizens rather than following the assumption that children will naturally develop these higher capacities.” (Griffin 2011, 23)

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16 Following Vygotskian line of thought therefore involves placing a certain amount of responsibility for the deliberative community in ensuring their citizens can uphold the deliberative character of society. Deliberation needs to be actively supported and does not come naturally. Yet, it is important to keep in mind that some societies do not know a strong deliberative culture which makes it harder for them to promote deliberation in the first place (Griffin 2011, 18). In the case of the European Union, the deliberative culture among young citizens is certainly not strong as has been shown in the previous paragraph. Creating deliberative citizens can therefore be quite difficult, but it needs to be done. As Vygotsky’s line of reasoning shows, the society itself has a responsibility in the creation of

deliberative citizens. For this reason, the European Union cannot sit back and wait for the deliberative citizens to emerge out of thin air. Active policy should be implemented on the promotion of

deliberation.

1.2.3 Citizenship education

The most obvious place to tackle the issues that social constructivism has observed concerning the democratic deficit of the EU seems to be the classroom. Generally speaking children spend most of their time, at least until they are sixteen years old, within the educational system of their country. In this period of their lives they are gathering knowledge and competences that will, or at least should, enhance their further life. Concerning political participation of citizens, it is agreed upon that formal education is the biggest influence to the level of involvement in politics and the approaches towards politics (Nie, Junn, and Stehlik-Barry 1996, 2). Furthermore, the higher the level of education attained is, the more one is engaged in politics and politically active, which makes the role of education very significant for this research (Bovens and Wille 2010, 394). Being politically, democratically or civically participative in this matter goes beyond using your right to vote in elections. Participation in this sense includes any kind of engagement with the society as a whole or societal issues. Membership in civil society organizations, grassroots movements, political parties or joining a massive protest to raise attention for climate change are just examples of what participation can entail.

Since participation is so diversified in its meaning, it is more difficult to grasp in a school subject than for instance mathematics or geography. Participatory competences are not bound by one particular research focus in that sense. Nevertheless, it is widely agreed upon that education should include these competences and therefore in most educational systems in Europe, citizenship education is part of the curriculum. In the Dutch education system there are three types of secondary education; pre-vocational, higher general, and pre-university secondary education. In the curriculum of all three levels, VMBO, HAVO and VWO, a subject on citizenship is included. This research will focus especially on citizenship education in VWO, as the interviewed teachers work on this level. In the second half, the last three years, of the pre-university education, all students are obligatory following the subject called Maatschappijleer, hereinafter referred to as Civic Studies, for one year. At some schools, students also have the ability to enrol for an elective called Maatschappijwetenschappen,

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17 hereinafter referred to as Social Sciences, which takes place from the fourth till the sixth school year. Social Sciences can be seen as a profound extension of the obligatory subject Civic Studies. In the highest level of secondary education, VWO, the subject Civic Studies is either taught in the fourth or fifth year of the student’s school career, so either in 4VWO or 5VWO. This means that most of the students at that time are around the age of 16 or 17 years old, not too long before they reach the electoral age of 18. This research will only involve the subject Civic Studies, since this is the subject every student is required to take and therefore applies to all the students at the pre-university schools.

In order to evaluate the composition and substance of this subject later on in this research, it is necessary to determine the definition of ‘competences’. The premise is that competences are

constructed and learned and are therefore no natural quality of people. It is rather something that can be obtained by individual experience but also through educational processes, such as in school

(Weisseno and Landwehr 2015, 414-415). Then there is the difference between conceptual knowledge and subject-specific knowledge. The latter form of knowledge is obtained by teaching several concepts as part of a wider framework. In that way, these concepts do not end up as being isolated forms of knowledge, but the student can see the relation between the concepts (Weisseno and Landwehr 2015, 416). This form of knowledge is needed to obtain conceptual knowledge, in which students learn about the different contexts in which these concepts can take shape, in order for them to apply the concepts to different situations, even if they were not taught specifically in that context (Weisseno and Landwehr 2015, 416).

In this case of citizenship education, such as Civic Studies in the Netherlands, it means students do not necessarily have to be taught in detail on local, regional, national and European political structures as long as they obtain subject-specific knowledge which contributes to their conceptual knowledge and in turn enables them to apply this knowledge on every level. Yet, on a side note, this does not imply that all students will be politically interested and engaged simultaneously. If students already have a high interest in politics, they will also achieve higher political knowledge than one who is not interested (Weisseno and Landwehr 2015, 419). What could go wrong in education, but especially in citizenship education, is the undervaluation of subject-specific and conceptual

knowledge. The educational systems in Europe and across the world are mostly structured by exams to test the students’ knowledge on a specific topic. However, as Weisseno and Landwehr argue:

“[…] memorizing certain facts is not enough. The students have to gain a deeper understanding of the political process and its functioning. Thus, learning is an active and constructive process, demanding active engagement with the subject content in order to build up a well-organized and stable structure of knowledge.” (Weisseno and Landwehr 2015, 417)

This section started off stating the relationship between higher levels of education and political participation as it has a direct effect on the democratic deficit of the EU. In a research executed by Bovens and Wille (2010), this relationship was explored further in the case of the Netherlands. They observed an underestimation in the academic debate on political participation on the influence of

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18 education. The gap between higher educated people and lower educated people in political

participation has an impact also on the political representation of the lower educated, since the

political institutions are made up for the most part of higher educated people. As a consequence, lower educated people will feel less represented but furthermore they will have less trust in these institutions as they feel excluded from the participation (Bovens and Wille 2010, 412-413). The result of the 2005 referendum on the European Constitution for instance, saw a division not between pro-Europeans or Eurosceptics per se, but that of higher educated and lower educated citizens (Bovens and Wille 2010, 414-415). The point of discussing this is certainly not to state that if people would attain higher education, they would be more in favour of the European Union. Rather, it shows that less educated people tend to be very sceptical towards representation, which means the solution lies there.

Citizenship education on all levels of the educational system in the Netherlands should enhance citizens to become politically engaged and participatory, in order for them to become part of the political representation. At the same time therefore, the political institutions should be aware of this gap and clear space for lower educated people within their framework. It might very well be the case that the result of the European Constitution referendum would have been the same if the political representation would have been more differentiated at that time. However, as Bovens and Wille’s research shows, at that time in 2005 and in other elections, the vote was not necessarily on the topic, but rather on the system itself.

This chapter identified that young European citizens contribute for a large part to the democratic deficit of the EU as their political participation on the European level is significantly lower than in other age groups. Young citizens should be encouraged to participate more, and the creation of deliberative citizens is key in this process. To be able to create deliberative citizens, the theory of social constructivism is important. Social constructivists emphasize first of all the opportunity for Europe to become a community and secondly, the importance of citizenship education to achieve its community and participatory goals. In order to be effective, the efforts made on the European level to enhance active citizenship of the youth therefore will need to acknowledge the social constructivist premise.

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Chapter II – Analysis of the European framework

In this chapter the European framework with regard to informing and educating European citizens will be analysed. The overarching question arises to what extent the EU is aware of the need to engage youth and if so, whether they use the correct tools to achieve this. The European institutions do not have a legal mandate to get involved in the European educational systems across the Member States, but they are occupied with programmes and policies to increase civic participation. The first section will focus on the current developments in some of the European Union’s programmes that are specifically targeted at education and participation of the youth. Then, two particular units of the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) will be analysed and lastly the permanent representation of the European Commission in The Hague will be discussed in terms of their objectives and means in educational citizenship. Altogether, the developments and efforts of these actors provide an overview of what is being done, or not being done, at the European level to enhance political participation of the youth.

2.1 Actors, programmes and objectives

Education is legally a national affair, which means the European Commission is not allowed to propose any legislation that would lead to harmonization of European education systems. Nonetheless the EU is trying to engage its citizens and education is one of the effective tools in doing so. Since the start of the European integration project with the ECSC, public communication has been a priority of the institutions. The common thought was that as long as the institutions would communicate to the citizens their aims and activities, and most importantly their results, this would ensure political legitimacy and support (Horga and Landuyt 2013, 7). This form of public communication by the EU has in fact been criticized a lot over time. One of the most common heard critique is that the EU way of communication is a form of conviction or even persuasion in telling the people about the EU as if it is some kind of marketing strategy, to get all the people on the same page as the EU (Dacheux 2017, 3). In doing so, the gap between the EU and its citizens and mistrust towards its institutions is only increasing, according to Dacheux. Here, the concept of deliberation comes into play, as discussed in the previous chapter. Instead of a persuasive approach of communication, the EU needs to establish a deliberative approach (Dacheux 2017, 4). In the persuasive approach, citizens are portrayed as a target audience, who sit back and listen to what the EU has to say. In the deliberative approach by contrast, the citizens are an actual part of the communication system. This insight seems to have reached the EU to some extent now too and besides their public communication strategies, other programmes have been installed which attempt to take on the deliberative approach. In the following paragraphs, four of these attempts will be analysed through the lens of deliberation.

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2.1.1 European Education Area

At first glance, the concept of an ‘education area’ strongly suggests a form of harmonization and integration. Look for example at the terms Free Trade Area and the European Economic Area in the European integration context. In a Communication paper from the European Commission (2017) on strengthening European identity through education and culture, the Commission envisions a future European Education Area, which up to this date does not exist yet. The Commission argues that “education forms the basis for active citizenship and helps prevent populism, xenophobia and violent radicalisation.” (European Commission 2017, 3). The acknowledgement by the Union that education is key in citizenship, is proof of the Union’s awareness that the creation of deliberative citizens is of greater value than communication from a top-down perspective.

In higher education European integration made significant steps with the implementation of the Bologna Process in 1999, which allowed for intergovernmental cooperation between 48 European countries’ higher education institutions. The recognition of each other’s qualifications and diploma’s and the implementation of the ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) certainly fostered integration for students as it became easier to study abroad. The Erasmus programme for higher education students has been a success ever since the implementation and with the Erasmus+ programme, also citizens in secondary education can participate. However, the Commission acknowledges that the number of people that use these programmes is still quite low at 3.7 per cent of all the young people in Europe (European Commission 2017a, 5). The Commission argues this low percentage can be

attributed to the absence of a European Education Area and observes a demand from both European Leaders and citizens themselves for more educational mobility abilities (European Commission 2017a, 5). The Commission plays this ‘mobility card’ since fostering mobility of European citizens is the only argument it legitimately can use in terms of the competences it has. It is therefore no surprise that the Commission puts the responsibility in the hands of the Member States to promote active citizenship, by for example hosting a European day at school, which has been done in Germany (European Commission 2017a, 9).

The European Education Area should be established by 2025 and in a press release from 14 November 2017, just three days prior to the Communication on strengthening European identity through education, it was stated that part of the European Education Area would be greater

cooperation on the development of curricula (European Commission 2017b). A pamphlet handed out during the lunch break at the European Council’s meeting on the 17th_{of November 2017, even states}

that the ‘comparability of curricula’ in the Member States should be seen as a possible initiative (European Commission 2017c). Even though this is not literally a proposal for a European curriculum, it could be very much argued to be at least a first attempt towards it. In the small print alongside the pamphlet it is written that: “The political ambition would need to be aligned with the means to act and reflected in the future discussions on EU finances.” (European Commission 2017c). The European Commission actively incites the European Council to reflect and think about these possible initiatives.

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21 The Commission is clearly targeting at gaining competence in education, under the umbrella of

student mobility and 21st_{century skills and knowledge.}

2.1.2 ET 2020 and EU Youth Strategy

The European Commission founded a platform for Member States to exchange ideas and to learn from one another when it comes to their education systems which goes under the name European Policy Cooperation. It is better known as ET2020 (Education and Training 2020) and even though it aims at improving intergovernmental cooperation, a set of seven Working Groups from the European

Commission are also part of the framework to support EU policy-making and also monitor and report the developments. Out of the seven, the ET2020 Working Group on Schools is particularly relevant for this research. Its aim is to discuss “the governance of school education systems in order to develop high quality and inclusive education across a European Education Area” (European Commission, n.d.).

Under the authority of Directorate-General Education, Youth, Sport and Culture the Working Group on Schools published a report on the developments in the period 2016-2018 and their prospects for 2020. The premise of their report is that the policy-making process should take place at any level, not only the European institutional level (European Commission 2018, 3). Regarding formal

educational citizenship, on which the Working Group can only advice other levels than the EU level, the Working Group argues the schools themselves should have a high level of autonomy in the

development of education. Here, the Working Group refers to the Netherlands being one of the leading countries in providing schools with autonomy (European Commission 2018, 28). Within the schools, the teachers who are involved in educational citizenship also play a crucial role according to the Working Group. Networks of teachers should be promoted more, in which teachers can exchange ideas and knowledge to improve their lessons. Again, the Netherlands is mentioned as being an example of a country in which such a network, funded by the national government, exists (European Commission 2018, 30). More on this network will be discussed in chapter four of this research.

After two terroristic attacks in Paris in 2015, the European Union became aware more than ever of the urgency of education (European Union Education Ministers 2015). In that same year the Paris Declaration was signed by all Member States and the European Commission. The declaration symbolised the commitment of the actors to enhance educational citizenship in order to prevent similar terroristic attacks. The Council of the European Union raised attention for the youth in their

Resolution on 18 December 2018. The ministers for education, youth, media, culture, communication and sport of the Member States, together also known as the Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council (EYCS), adopted this resolution to start the European Union Youth Strategy 2019-2027. Again, the main aim of this strategy is to improve European cooperation between the Member States, partly through fostering the development of citizenship competences and citizenship education for the youth (Council of the European Union 2018, 4). The notions of an ‘ever-closing union’ and ‘bringing

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22 the EU closer to its citizens’ reappear when the Resolution states on of the EU Youth Strategy goals is to: “Foster the sense of youth belonging to the European project and build a bridge between the EU and young people to regain trust and increase participation.” (Council of the European Union 2018, 11).

2.1.3 Educational material by the EU

Apart from the broad projects and programmes as mentioned in the previous paragraph, the EU has also established some very practical modules which can be used in the classroom, or by young citizens individually. These modules are gathered on the EU ‘Learning Corner’ website and are arranged by the module type and appropriate age group, in order for people to see which module is most

appropriate for them. Since this research is specifically focused on students in the Netherlands in 4VWO and 5VWO, only the modules for the age group ’15 and over’ were analysed. According to the website, the material can be used as a source of inspiration if you want to know more about the EU, or if you want to debate EU policies in detail (European Union, n.d.).

The most extended module is ‘EU & Me’, which consists out of 68 pages divided into four chapters on the what the EU is, how the EU works, how it is influencing the daily life of European citizens and lastly what the EU agenda is in terms of priorities and policy areas. Every chapter has about five exercises for the students with the exception of the last chapter, in which ten exercises are included. It implies this last chapter, on what the EU does, is seen as the most important. The exercises vary from testing the factual knowledge of students, with for example an exercise that asks to list all the 28 Member States, to more deliberative exercises that require to have a discussion with fellow students on European values or simulate a Citizens’ Dialogue1_{in the classroom to experience what it}

feels like to participate in a real one. If the teacher, or the student, does not want to use the full 68 pages long module, there is also a ‘EU & Me’ quiz available, in which the questions are arranged by the same topics as in the extensive module. The ‘EU & Me’ module is available in all 24 official EU languages and is in terms of content in all these languages identical. This means there are no country-specific aspects added to this module which basically makes it a one-size-fits-all module which does not take into account cultural differences in the education systems across Europe.

For the age group above 15 years old the Learning Corner provides one other module in the form of a game. It is called the ‘Time Machine’ which is aimed at testing the students’ knowledge on European history, not necessarily that of the European Union alone. In the game, the student needs to control a spaceship, which will fly through several questions with three possible answers to each question. Personally, I highly doubt this game is intended to use in the classroom, as you can only play the game individually. Furthermore, the content would be quite hard to discuss for the teacher, as the

1_{The Citizens’ Dialogue is an initiative by the European Commission to enable European citizens to debate with}

EU politicians and Commissioners about the future of the European Union. The first Dialogue took place on January 8, 2015 and since then has been undertaken 1252 times across the European Union. For more information see: https://ec.europa.eu/info/about-european-commission/get-involved/citizens-dialogues_en.

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23 questions are very different from each other and touch on historically very divergent topics. One question asks in which country Anne Frank lived during the Second World War while the next question is about which languages are used in the European Parliament (European Union, n.d.). Both the method and the type of questions asked in the module do not incite deliberative qualities of the student at all and is therefore not contributing to the objective it is aimed at.

In 2015 the European Economic and Social Committee2_{(EESC) published a European}

Passport to Active Citizenship (EPTAC). Since the EESC represents the civil society of Europe, the creator of the EPTAC Bruno Kaufmann, created this ‘passport’ to make citizens aware of their rights and capabilities as a European citizen and to facilitate public participation (European Economic and Social Committee 2015a). The EPTAC provides practical information on the various possibilities of active EU citizenship, such as participation in a Citizens’ Initiative or a Consultation of the European Commission, or filing a complaint at the European Ombudsman (European Economic and Social Committee 2015b, 16-17). Even though the target group is not stated explicitly in the document, the EPTAC seems to be targeting all the European citizens. The EPTAC could in fact be very useful as a deliberative tool in citizenship education. Not only does it provide an informative overview of the possible actions you can undertake as a citizen, it also explains why these actions were established and are important for the European Union (European Economic and Social Committee 2015b). The EPTAC is available in 23 languages, Irish is not included for an unknown reason.

A short analysis of the available educational material about the EU on the website of the European Commission targeted at young citizens above 15 years old, shows us the available material is available in all 24 official EU languages, but has simply been translated instead of customized for each country which makes it less likely to be applicable directly in each classroom across Europe. Furthermore, not all material incites deliberation by the students, which is crucial in enhancing active citizenship.

2.1.4 EACEA

The Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) is one of the six executive agencies of the European Commission. The EACEA is the body that determines the funding for projects’ applicants in Commission programmes that involve education, culture, sport, youth and media. The agency also conducts research in the aforementioned fields to provide several Directorate-Generals with information and data to use in their policy-making. Regarding education systems and policies, the Eurydice network conducts such research.

Applicants for the Europe for Citizens programme will be assessed by the EACEA’s criteria before they receive funding. The Europe for Citizens Programme is aimed at encouraging European

2_{The European Economic and Social Committee is not part of the institutional framework of the EU, but is}

highly connected to it. It has an advisory capacity, consists out of 350 members and gives opinions at the request of the European Commission, European Parliament and the Council of the EU. For more information see:

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24 remembrance and, relevant for this research, encouraging civic participation. This programme’s function is different from the examined programmes in the previous section, since the EACEA itself is not actively promoting civic participation. Instead, the agency gives funding to civil society

organisations, mostly small grassroots movements (Pelayo 2019), which in turn encourage civic participation on the local level. Hence, the Europe for Citizens Programme does not aim at a centralised EU approach in bringing the Union closer to its citizens, but rather takes a bottom-up approach. The budget for the Europe for Citizens Programme is around 187 million euros for the period 2014-2020 (European Commission/Directorate-General Migration and Home Affairs/EACEA 2018). Every Member State has its own Europe for Citizens Point (ECP) which provides information to interested applicants and gathers all national applications before they are sent to the EACEA. The Dutch ECP belongs to the organisation DutchCulture, which is mainly concerned with international cultural cooperation.

The Europe for Citizens programme is not particularly targeted at the younger generation of European citizens nor at educational organisations for that matter. The legal basis of the programme does mention the need to enhance participation and European remembrance for the younger

generation, but the Programme is not actively aiming at the youth per se in both the remembrance and the civic participation strand (Pelayo 2019). The Programme’s objective to encourage civic and democratic participation of European citizens can be interpreted as a rather broad and vague objective. Participation is understood by the Programme as much more than just electoral participation (Pelayo 2019). This form of participation is of course very measurable by looking at voter turnouts in European elections. So, the projects that receive funding in the Europe for Citizens Programme need to encourage other forms of participation which are very divergent in the implementation. For this reason, the Programme needs to assess each individual application to consider whether the project will, to one extent or another, contribute to citizens’ participation with a European dimension.

According to Pelayo (2019), this means the Programme sometimes grants funding to very small-scale projects in which the contribution to the participation objective remains rather shallow. Still, even these small-scale initiatives are valuable as they sometimes reach people on the local level who are very hard to reach by the EU itself for example. For this reason, the Europe for Citizens Programme is distinct from the initiatives and programmes from paragraph 2.1.

The EACEA evidently does belong to the EU framework since it is part of the European Commission, but the Europe for Citizens Programme does not lay down a policy framework. Instead, it determines which of the applicants receive funding for their envisaged projects. The Europe for Citizens Programme emphasizes that this does not mean only the ‘Europhile’ projects are granted with funding. The objective is the creation of a European political space, in which a European demos is active, which means the Programme also supports projects that advocate different views on policies than the EU does (Pelayo 2019). This approach is certainly very progressive, as it counters the persuasive approach of the EU in informing citizens about nothing but positive aspects of the

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25 European integration project. However, glancing through the lists of projects that received funding over the year, the vast majority does not come across as being Eurosceptic or critical towards the EU. This is not surprising, as you could wonder whether a Eurosceptic organisation or project would knock on the door to get funding from the exact organisation they criticize in the first place.

In addition to the management of funding of several EU programmes such as the Europe for Citizens, the EACEA also manages a network that is exclusively focused on education systems in Europe. At the request of the European Commission, Eurydice conducts research on all existing education systems in European countries. The aim is to be able to compare the systems and furthermore provide the European Commission with updates and developments in the field of education in these countries. The European institutions can in turn use the Eurydice reports to adjust their programmes to the results extracted from these reports. Among the Eurydice reports on education systems, research has also been conducted specifically focused on citizenship education in European countries.

In the 2012 Eurydice report on citizenship education the differences across Europe came forward in terms of duration and distribution in the curricula. Distribution here means whether

citizenship education is only integrated in several subjects throughout the curriculum or if it also exists as a separate, stand-alone subject in the curriculum. In twenty European countries, including the Netherlands, the latter is the case (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice 2012, 20). The duration of this obligatory separate subject on citizenship however, varies a lot in these twenty countries, from one year up to twelve years. These various implementations of citizenship education make it hard to compare them in the first place, and moreover, difficult to identify where improvements should be made. In the report five years later, in 2017, Eurydice mentions this challenge again by emphasizing the need for citizenship education to become more aligned to the traditional subjects in curricula such as mathematics and biology (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice 2017, 12). As a result, the execution and content of citizenship education as a real subject, makes it easier to compare and contrast the curricula across Europe. In several countries, including the Netherlands, the schools are autonomous in determining how much time is attributed to citizenship education (European

Commission/EACEA/Eurydice 2012, 25).

This paragraph on the European Union’s citizenship actors, programmes and objectives has shown that citizenship education certainly has become part of the EU agenda. Traditionally, ever since the

establishment of the ECSC, public communication was used by the EU to inform their citizens and foster legitimacy of the integration project. With this persuasive approach as scholars argue, the EU will not be able to bring the Union closer to its citizens. The Union prioritized citizenship education especially after terrorist attacks in the last decade and acknowledges formal citizen education is important in preventing radicalisation, but also xenophobia and populism. But the EU does not have legal competence in this field and therefore the ability to execute influence on education systems in the

Communicating Europe to the youth: Challenges in enhancing political participation on the European level through citizenship education in the Netherlands