This book contends that public debates over wars and humanitarian military interventions after the Cold War represent an evolving process of comprehension and collective interpretation of new realities. Employing innovative computer-linguistic methods, it examines the dynamics of this debate across Europe and compares it to that of the United States. In doing so, it argues that transnational political communication has shaped European identity-formation in significant ways and that, in trying to come to terms with important crises and institutional events, shared understandings of Europe have emerged. Looking at evidence from a wide range of countries, including Austria, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, and spanning a continuous period of 16 years, this book empirically analyses these shared understandings of the EU as a problem-solving and ethical community.

1 Introduction: Transnational Political Communication and European Identity-Formation 2 The Theoretical Building Blocks: Transnational Identity Discourses on Wars and Humanitarian Military Interventions 3 Media and Media Analysis in Europe 4 Comparing Debates on Wars and Humanitarian Military Interventions across Nations 5 Reality and Identities 'Under Construction'

Cathleen Kantner is Professor of International Relations and European Studies at the Institute of Social Sciences of Stuttgart University, Germany.