This paper provides an answer to the question on why the Promethean myths – that were launched in Socialist Yugoslavia in the course of the 1960s and respectively in the EU in the course of the 2000s – did not serve their initial purpose to boost emotional attachment of the citizens to the supranational polities. The myths were encapsulated in the notion that the Yugoslav self-management system and the respective vision of post-national Europe would serve as a shining light to the rest of the world. The failure of the myths to promote more internal cohesion was conditioned by two reasons. The first one stemmed from the fact that the myths were interpreted differently in some national constituencies. The second one stemmed from the fact that the myths were exclusively conceptualized upon abstract civic values: the self-management socialism with accompanied politics of non-alignment promised the final emancipation of man and humanity – including solution to global inequalities – while the EU post–national politics of promoting human rights and environmentalism were promised to solve the problems of European and global inequalities and the ecological crisis. These myths also excluded competing myths/ideologies, thus creating conditions for a future backlash. As such, this paper contributes to the current debates that argue how supranational identity should provide a similar emotional attachment which in the case of modern national states has been supplied by national identity. Eventually, this comparison also sheds a light on the question of what lessons could be learned from the case of Socialist Yugoslavia in order to solve the current EU (identity) crisis.

The following working paper aims to harness W.E.B. Du Bois’ critical thought to illuminate the ideological characteristics of the modern imaginaries of Europe as manifested in dominant discourses, exemplified recently in how the European Union’s chief diplomat described the EU as a ‘garden’ committed to peace and law and order, as opposed to the ‘jungle’ outside its external borders. Building on contemporary critical-theoretical scholarship and postcolonial interventions, this paper emphasizes the ideological as a conceptual framework undergirded by a certain materiality shaped by societal processes and practices. On this account, the method of the Ideologiekritik necessitates a resuscitation of its normative significance. Key to addressing this issue entails not only unmasking hegemonic structures and epistemic inconsistencies, but also tying such critical analyses to emancipatory agendas aimed at transforming material social relations. This paper considers Du Bois’ historical-sociological works as contributory to such programs of emancipation as a pioneer of the Black Radical Tradition, arguing how his anti-imperial approach pertains to an ideology-critical method of engaging in immanent critique. I underscore that this radical critique is rooted from the inherent antagonisms of an existing racialized social structure, whose dynamic contradictions would stimulate the critical consciousness necessary to trigger practical opportunities for social transformation. In this vein, I hope to contribute to an emerging strand of scholarship of reclaiming Du Bois as a groundbreaking anti-colonial political theorist and Marxist sociologist, which would, in this context, consequently offer us critical European Studies scholars potential tools to revitalize the critique of ideology as an indispensable method of transformative social critique—aimed not only at unmasking but also overcoming the recurring and inevitable augmentation of the contradictions and crises of contemporary European society.

The main goals of this paper are to pluralize views on ‘European integration' and also explore suggestions on how the canon could be decolonized. Key textbooks on EU politics usually build up this teleological story where we evolve from a simple theoretical debate in the post-war era, towards increasingly scientific and sophisticated theorizations since the 1990s. This paper focuses on the early part of this story: how are early theoretical debates represented, what is missing and silenced, and what are the colonial entanglements of the canon? The analysis proceeds in three steps. First, debunking the binary that still structures all accounts of early European integration theory, namely the ‘neofunctionalism versus intergovernmentalism’ debate. Second, pluralizing the stories on the EEC by including alternative early perspectives that have been overlooked, and by radicalizing some of the critical potential in theories that are already known. Third, centering anti-colonial and pan-African voices that, first, problematize the eurocentric assumptions behind the canonical texts, and second, reconstruct how ‘European’ integration relates to regional projects in Africa and elsewhere.