Political scientist Monika Sie: ‘Only with a shared identity can we be strong internationally’
A shared identity is essential for a society to function, says Monika Sie. According to the director of the Clingendael Institute, it is precisely that question—what defines our identity?—that has been neglected for too long in the Netherlands and Europe. “Without a strong community with a shared culture, there can be no strong democracy.”
Text: Casper Thomas
It’s the height of summer, pleasantly warm, so the windows of Monika Sie’s office are wide open. The sounds of Clingendael Park—birds, quiet footsteps—can be heard. The serene surroundings of the Institute for International Affairs, which Sie heads, stand in contrast to the turbulent country outside, and the turbulent world beyond that. The Netherlands is heading toward new elections. A cabinet that had to accommodate the far-right preferences of a segment of the Dutch electorate while simultaneously upholding the fundamental principles of a liberal democracy proved to be an untenable arrangement.
And The Hague is still buzzing from the NATO summit in June, when the faltering defense alliance was propped up—at least for the time being—by a collective commitment to higher defense spending. For Monika Sie, this meeting marked a turning point that she has long observed in the public opinion surveys conducted by Clingendael. The institute ranks the threats that the Dutch perceive, she explains. For years, the Netherlands has been divided between a group primarily concerned about climate change and a—larger—group for whom irregular migration tops the list of threats. Now, however, citizens are all concerned about the threat of war. The possibility that the Americans will no longer be responsible for Europe’s defense, reports of severed undersea cables, and the call to stock up on emergency supplies—it all contributes to that feeling. “In that regard, there is certainly a shared reality,” says Sie. “The Netherlands remains a deeply divided country, but people find common ground in their fear of cyber threats, hybrid warfare, and war on their own soil. It’s a trend that’s noticeable in virtually all Western societies,” Sie observes.
Geopolitical Vacation
There is also a visible consensus regarding the response to the threat of war, says Sie. Clingendael’s studies point to broad support for investments in Europe’s self-reliance. “There is a widely shared conviction that we must make Europe more resilient to cyberattacks and hybrid attacks.” Even Euroskeptics believe that European countries must invest in a stronger defense so that we don’t have to bow down to Trump again. “The end of the geopolitical vacation,” is how Sie describes this moment.
At the same time, this new security consensus hides yet another source of division. After all, how exactly will that additional defense spending be allocated? And will it come at the expense of social services that people consider just as important? Especially in times of high inflation, this is a vulnerable point for democracies. Still, Sie believes that warfare and welfare don’t have to be a trade-off. After all, a resilient society also requires a solid economic foundation for everyone. “There is overwhelming support for greater investment in a European manufacturing sector, so that we aren’t overly dependent on countries that don’t have our best interests at heart for all kinds of strategic goods,” she says. “And to get that domestic production off the ground, more government intervention will be needed. China has been following this approach for quite some time, and the U.S. has also adopted this line of thinking. Only Europe has remained stuck in excessive hyperglobalization and the belief that government support is taboo.”
On this point, Sie believes the political elite is lagging behind the shared view of citizens across Europe. “Voters have long realized that investment in our own technology and industry is desperately needed—for example, to achieve greater digital sovereignty.” According to her, it is up to the leaders of Europe’s democracies to bring about this shift and steer it in the right direction. “The pledged five percent for defense spending offers a starting point for that.”
The major danger, however, is that European countries will shift course based on a “too narrow concept of security,” Sie continues. “The discussion quickly turns to spending on weapons, while the Russian threat, for example, is actually hybrid in nature.” Moreover, there is another question that precedes all of this—a question that, according to Sie, has been neglected for far too long. “What exactly is it that we want to defend? What defines us? Without a shared vision of what makes our society worth protecting, you can’t figure out how to do so. And catching up on that front also requires leadership.”
That central question—what is truly the foundation of Dutch society?—is one that has long captivated Monika Sie. Before taking office as director of Clingendael in 2016, she served as director of the Wiardi Beckmann Foundation—the research arm of the PvdA—where she was responsible for the “Van Waarde” project, which examined the issues a social democratic party should champion. Just as Clingendael is now asking what the Dutch fear and where they draw hope from, the WBS at the time asked people in in-depth interviews what truly made them happy or unhappy. It was crystal clear what people needed in their lives, Sie recalls. “When you compared the nearly one hundred stories we collected, security and connection emerged as by far the most important factors. And these were things that people felt were under social pressure. Especially after the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine and the high inflation that followed, that desire for connection and security is once again a pressing concern.”
She contrasts these social constants with another major concern of our time: the erosion of democracy and the rule of law. She argues that this is preceded by a decline in the ruling class’s willingness to listen. She is convinced that if politicians had listened more closely to concerns about economic security and the lack of social cohesion, trust in democracy would not have eroded so sharply. “What has truly been neglected is popular sovereignty—which means giving people a voice, listening to what they say, and acting on it.” This issue, combined with major defense budget cuts, alienated her at the time from the party she had been committed to. The PvdA should have addressed the concerns about what Sie calls “hyperglobalization” sooner, including the rapid population growth driven by migration. “Now that these problems are also seeping into the broader middle class, even the VVD put economic security on the agenda in the last election.”
It is precisely this disregard for the willingness to listen on the part of the political elite that has damaged our democracy, according to Sie. “The foundation of a democracy lies in a community. That community must not only be a political and economic community, but also a social and cultural one. All these aspects of community-building have been neglected in the Netherlands. Ultimately, this has caused liberal democracy to lose its way.” “Restoring the democratic rule of law therefore begins with investing in the community, because without a strong community with a shared culture, there can be no strong democracy,” Sie said.
Excessive individualism
And that means resisting the impulse to view all issues primarily from a global perspective, Sie explains, and learning to think at the national level again. “The idea of the nation, the nation-state, and a national identity is currently the exclusive domain of the far right, but progressives and liberals must also give substance to these concepts.” Sie borrows the idea from Belgian sociologist Mark Elchardus that a collective identity must provide two things: “On the one hand, a sense of security—being part of a larger narrative. And on the other hand, the capacity to act—the idea that you can commit yourself to a cause for the greater good and achieve results as a community.” According to Elchardus, throughout history there have been only three collective identities that have been able to fulfill these requirements: religion, class, and the nation-state. The Netherlands is not a country with a single shared religion, and class has fallen considerably out of favor. “That leaves the nation-state,” says Sie. “Giving substance to that is the shared reality that a society needs in order to function. We’ve been so preoccupied with a Europe of markets and the rule of law that this essential element of what makes a democracy successful has fallen by the wayside.”
In short, do you believe we’re seeing a case of runaway individualism? “Of course, individual freedom is central as a core value of European civilization. That is precisely what sets us apart from all other cultures. However, that individual freedom must be supported by institutions and by community. And it is precisely that interplay—building communities that make individual freedom possible, recognizing the importance of those communities, and seeking out people’s shared experiences—that has been neglected.”
“We’ve been so focused on a Europe of markets and the rule of law that we’ve overlooked the element that makes a democracy successful.”
The easiest option is to define communities based on race or religion, and that is what the authoritarian leaders in power in various places are doing, Sie observes. “Those are visible categories. Much more complicated is the question of how to talk—in a way that is neither racist nor religiously exclusionary—about where we come from, what we stand for, and where we’re headed. We are a secular, pluralistic society, so that kind of exclusive nationalism no longer fits us. How to forge a collective identity from that—in the Netherlands and in Europe—is the great challenge of our time. To make clear how we differ from Chinese civilization, from American civilization, and from Islamic theocracies on the fringes of Europe. And then to make the world safe for this diversity of civilizations, as Kennedy once said.’
Sie argues that defining community boundaries is also necessary for geopolitical survival. “In recent decades, action has primarily been transnational, which is different from international cooperation between communities. If your community is undermined by the disappearance of borders, the labor market has become uncertain due to hyperglobalization, and you no longer recognize your neighborhood because of mass migration, then the ability to act collectively and support others also disappears.”
Sie believes that the fact that the U.S. now has a president who has little affection for Europe may help European countries to reconsider what they themselves stand for. “The neglect of European identity among liberal elites went hand in hand with an enormous transatlantic passion. For this group, it is now easier to define what European identity is, because they feel betrayed as Atlanticists. At the same time, a significant portion of Europeans see Trump as an icon of popular sovereignty and as someone who articulates what they, too, want: an end to mass migration, for example. And precisely because European identity has been neglected, Trump is welcomed as an inspiring figure. So, unfortunately, it’s not that simple.’
“Sometimes it helps to see Europe from an outsider’s perspective,” Sie continues. “In Iran, gay men are hanged from a crane simply because they’re in love. In the U.S., many people need two or three jobs just to make ends meet. That’s when you realize that in all European countries, we have constitutional states, democratic and secular states, and welfare states with moderate levels of inequality. Once you realize that, there’s more that unites us than divides us.”
Strongmen
Now that the leaders of authoritarian countries are meeting more and more frequently, it has become all the more necessary to emphasize Europe’s distinct identity, says Sie. “Those authoritarian strongmen are very adept at articulating the collective identity they envision. The geopolitical tensions this creates also call for European peoples who are united—who know where they come from, what they stand for, and where they want to go. Because that gives them the capacity to act and the power to do so.”
To take a step from division toward a shared reality on that front as well, Western democracies must overcome their deep internal polarization, according to Sie. When it comes to threats, domestic enemies are also increasingly being singled out. “The idea of an ‘enemy from within’ is vigorously promoted by the MAGA movement in America, and tragically, we now see this reflected in our public opinion polls as well—the idea that so-called ‘globalists’ have undermined our community. Among liberals and progressives, you see the same conviction, but in reverse. In their view, these exclusionary nationalists are often a greater threat than the threat from Russia or China.”
“It is precisely because Europe’s distinct identity has been neglected that Trump is hailed as an inspiring figure.”
She concludes that the geopolitical enemies of an open, free society ultimately benefit from this obsession with the domestic enemy. “They are the ones laughing all the way to the bank. They can sit back, stoke divisions through social media trolls, and watch as our Western societies are torn apart from within by polarization because we have for so long failed to articulate what we stand for together and to protect it with state resources. Now that majorities in all European countries recognize the geopolitical threat and realize that targeted European cooperation is necessary, there is new momentum to articulate a vision of Europe that protects the way of life in European democracies against geopolitical threats, far-reaching market forces, and mass migration. It is up to the centrist parties to forge that collective identity based on a shared ideal of society, rather than excluding people on the basis of race or religion.’
The Democracy and Media Foundation is conducting a series of conversations with various thinkers on the topic of shared reality. This was the third interview in the series. Other episodes can be found here.
