During the recent economic crisis in Europe the call for “identification with Europe” has gotten louder once again. In order to legitimate the redistribute measures in Europe, which were de-ployed to save the European crisis states from economic failure, people where frequently re-minded of their solidarity and their responsibilities for their fellow Europeans. However, there is still little knowledge about what identification with Europe actually means to citizens. Espe-cially since in mass surveys, European identity is rather measured as self-categorization which lacks important aspects of the concept of identification such as a “we-feeling” or perceptions of shared group similarities.
Therefore, in this paper, a more-dimensional approach to the measurement of European identi-fication is presented which tries to capture not only individual self-categorization but also the significance of these categories and the individual perceptions of shared group similarities. It is further analysed how these measures relate to concepts such as national identification, support for the EU and attitudes towards out-groups. Thereby the paper provides an insight into the potentially positive and negative aspects of identification with Europe. The model is tested empirically using data from a quantitative survey specialised on capturing identities in Germany which was conducted in May 2014 at the University of Mainz. The analysis contributes to our understanding about how collective identities can be conceptualized and measured as well as how they relate to political attitudes.
