Carta. EU Foreign Policy

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EU Foreign Policy through the

Lens of Discourse Analysis
Honouring both the plurality and fecundity that characterises discursive approaches, this
book demonstrates the pertinence of focussing on discourses, in their many different hues,
for understanding one of the most salient developments of the contemporary international
system: the production, reproduction and transformation of Europe. It will be of great
interest all at once to students and scholars interested in the role of language in international
politics, the workings of international governance, or indeed in the great European project.
Charlotte Epstein, University of Sydney, Australia
With its unique collection of essays, this book celebrates two kinds of diversity: the highly
diverse discursive environment that constitutes the EU’s multifaceted identities, and
the many academic approaches to analysing these multiple intersecting narratives. A
fascinating read celebrating what we need to accept as the EU’s irredeemable polyphony.
Kalypso Nicolaïdis, University of Oxford, UK
This book represents an excellent contribution to the literature. First, it unpacks discourse
analysis and demonstrates the diversity of the various discursive approaches. Second, it
uses these discourse analytical lenses to shed new light on EU foreign policy. Essential
reading for anybody interested in the application of discourse analysis to ‘real world’
issues!
Thomas Risse, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
EU Foreign Policy through the Lens of Discourse Analysis is the most comprehensive
collection to date covering the broad array of discourse analytic approaches to the study
of international relations and foreign policy. The chapters make clear that discourse, as
a concept, an object of analysis, and a method crosses ontological and epistemological
stances and is significant for a diversity of researchers.
Roxanne Lynn Doty, Arizona State University, USA
Globalisation, Europe,
Multilateralism
Institutionally supported by the Institute for European Studies at the
Université libre de Bruxelles
Mario TELÒ, Series editor (mtelo@ulb.ac.be)

International Editorial Board

Salma BAVA, JNU, New Dehli
Shaun BRESLIN, University of Warwick
Theofanis EXADAKTYLOS, University of Surrey
Andrew GAMBLE, University of Cambridge
Peter KATZENSTEIN, Cornell University
Robert O. KEOHANE, Princeton University
Christian LEQUESNE, CERI, Paris
Leonardo MORLINO, LUISS-Guido Carli, Rome
Ben ROSAMOND, University of Copenhagen
Vivien SCHMIDT, Boston University
Beth SIMMONS, Harvard University
Karen SMITH, LSE, London
Jan ZIELONKA, University of Oxford
Michael ZÜRN, WZB, Berlin
ZHU Liqun, CFAU, Beijing
Frederik PONJAERT, ULB, Series manager (fponjaer@ulb.ac.be)
The Institut d’Etudes Européennes de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles (IEE-ULB) is a

leading research institution, with a large global collaborative university network. As part
of successful research consortia, the IEE-ULB was awarded two EU funded programmes.
The first is an international multidisciplinary doctoral programme in Globalisation, Europe,
Multilateralism funded by the DG Culture and Education EU Commission. Over a seven
year period, this programme will fund up to 50 PhD students as well as hosting PhD school
seminars on every continent. The second programme is GR:EEN (Global Reordering:
Evolving European Networks), funded by DG research EU Commission. This is an integrated
research project including 16 universities on five continents. The remarkable quality of these
senior and junior scholars included in the project allows extensive research both in EU studies
and in global governance. Volumes in this series share innovative research objectives around
Globalisation, the EU’s evolution within it, the changing Multilateral cooperation, and the
role of transnational networks; emergent multipolarity and international order; comparative
regionalism and interregionalism; EU’s foreign policy and external relations.
The series includes collaborative volumes, research based monographs and textbooks
with the aim of contributing to the innovation of European Integration and International
studies. Every book is reviewed by an international referees process, scientific workshops
discussing the first drafts, anonymous referees and advice by the International editorial
board members. Other titles in the series can be found at the back of this book.
EU Foreign Policy through the
Lens of Discourse Analysis
Making Sense of Diversity
Edited by
Caterina Carta
Vesalius College (VUB), Belgium
Jean-Frédéric Morin
Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
First published 2014 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge

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Copyright © Caterina Carta, Jean-Frédéric Morin and contributors 2014

Caterina Carta and Jean-Frédéric Morin have asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
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Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

EU Foreign Policy through the Lens of Discourse Analysis: Making Sense of Diversity /
edited by Caterina Carta and Jean-Frédéric Morin.
pages cm.—(Globalisation, Europe, Multilateralism series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4094-6375-7 (hardback: alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-4094-6376-4 (pbk)
1. European Union countries—Foreign relations. 2. Discourse analysis—Political
aspects—European Union countries. I. Carta, Caterina, author, editor of compilation.
II. Morin, Jean-Frédéric, author, editor of compilation. III. Title: European Union foreign
policy through the lenses of discourse analysis.
JZ1570.E894 2014
341.242’2—dc23
2013041519
ISBN 9781409463757 (hbk)
ISBN 9781409463764 (pbk)
ISBN 9781315580692 (ebk)
Contents
List of Figures and Tables vii

Notes on Contributors ix
Acknowledgements xiv
List of Abbreviations xv
Introduction: EU Foreign Policy through the Lens of Discourse Analysis 1

Caterina Carta and Jean-Frédéric Morin
Part I: Poststructuralist Approaches
1 Speaking Europe, Drawing Boundaries: Reflections on the Role

of Discourse in EU Foreign Policy and Identity 27
Thomas Diez
2 Continuity or Change in National Foreign Policy Discourses

Post-Lisbon? The Case of Denmark 43
Henrik Larsen
3 Protection or Prevention? Different Visions of EU

International Terrorism Policy 59
Beste Isleyen
Part II: Constructivist Approaches
4 Constructing European Diplomacy in a Changing World 79

Knud Erik Jørgensen
5 ‘A Boost to our Economies that Doesn’t Cost a Cent’:

EU Trade Policy Discourse since the Crisis 95
Jan Orbie and Ferdi De Ville
6 Model, Player or Instrument for Global Governance: Metaphors

in the Discourse and Practice of EU Foreign Policy 111
Esther Barbé, Anna Herranz-Surrallés and Michal Natorski
vi EU Foreign Policy through the Lens of Discourse Analysis
Part III: Critical Discourse Analytical Approaches
7 Unravelling European Union Foreign Policy through Critical

Discourse Analysis: Guidelines for Research 133
Senem Aydın-Düzgit
8 (De-)Constructing the EU as a Civilising Power: CFSP/CSDP

and the Constitutional Debate in Poland and France 151
Amelie Kutter
9 Talking about Solidarity and Security in the Age of Crisis:

The Revival of Nationalism and Protectionism in the European
Union – A Discourse-Historical Approach 171
Ruth Wodak and Salomi Boukala
10 From the ‘Magnificent Castle’ to the Brutish State of Nature:

Use of Metaphors and the Analysis of the EU’s International
Discourse 191
Caterina Carta
Part IV: Discursive Institutionalist Approaches
11 The EU’s Normative Power and Three Modes of Liberal

Communicative Discourse 211
Ben Rosamond
12 Understanding ‘Constructive Ambiguity’ of European Defence

Policy: A Discursive Institutionalist Perspective 227
Antoine Rayroux
13 EU Leaders’ Ideas and Discourse in the Eurozone Crisis:

A Discursive Institutionalist Analysis 245
Vivien A. Schmidt
Index 265
List of Figures and Tables
Figure
5.1 Constructivism and (meta)theoretical perspectives 99
Tables
I.1 Actors, competences and ability to speak at the international

level 12
2.1 Articulations of actorness before and after the Lisbon Treaty 56
3.1 Three central constructions around EU counter-terrorism

governance 67
6.1 Frequency of discursive elements conceptualised as MODEL,

PLAYER or INSTRUMENT (per cent of speeches containing at least
one unambiguous reference) 115
6.2 Examples of metaphorical expressions of the EU as MODEL 116
6.3 Summary of the analysis of the metaphors of the EU’s

global role 120
8.1 Strategies of legitimation 156
8.2 Salient topics of EU reform in opinion articles 2002–2004

(in % of N) 162
10.1 Metaphors and related EU tropes 196
11.1 The EU’s modes of liberalism 219
11.2 Tentative classification of EU external intervention by mode 221
12.1 Discourses analysed 231
12.2 Constructive ambiguity and the national discourse 238
13.1 Ideas in the Eurozone discourse 248

viii EU Foreign Policy through the Lens of Discourse Analysis
13.2 Different levels of generality of ideas in discourse and

rates/mechanisms of change 250
13.3 Discursive interactions in the coordinative sphere 255
13.4 Discursive interactions in the communicative sphere 255

Notes on Contributors
Senem Aydın-Düzgit is Associate Professor and Jean Monnet Chair in the

Department of International Relations at Istanbul Bilgi University. She received
her PhD in Political Science at the Free University of Brussels (VUB), obtained an
MSc in European Politics and Policy from the London School of Economics and
Political Science (LSE) and a BA in Political Science and International Relations
from Bogazici University. Her principal research interests include EU enlargement,

EU-Turkey relations, discourse studies, politics of identity and democratisation. Her
articles have been published in West European Politics, Cooperation and Conflict,
South European Society and Politics, Alternatives, International Relations and
Politique Européenne. She is the author of Constructions of European Identity:
Debates and Discourses on Turkey and the EU (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
Esther Barbé is Professor of International Relations at the Autonomous University

of Barcelona and Coordinator of the IBEI research programme ‘Security, Power
and Multilateralism in a Globalised World’. She has been a visiting fellow at the
London School of Economics, Sciences-Po and the University of Cambridge.
Her research areas focus on Spanish foreign policy, EU foreign policy, Euro-
Mediterranean relations, international security, power transition in the international
system and multilateralism. She has published several books and articles in
Spanish and international journals, such as Journal of Common Market Studies,
Journal of European Public Policy, Foreign Affairs-Mexico, European Foreign
Affairs Review, International Affairs, Mediterranean Politics and Cooperation
and Conflict.
Salomi Boukala has worked as an international news specialist for various media
in Greece and still contributes to Greek newspapers. She holds a PhD in Linguistics
from Lancaster University, and her research centres on issues of European
identity and Greek media discourses, with particular reference to the discursive
construction of supranational and national identities and the representation of the
‘other’. She holds an MA in Media and Mass Communication from the University
of Leicester, UK and a BA in Social Anthropology and Social Policy from Panteion
University, Athens. She has also worked as a research associate at the Academy
of Athens on the ‘Greek media representation of migrants’ project. Her research
interests include Critical Discourse Analysis and Discourse-Historical Approach,
argumentation strategies, identity politics and media studies.
Caterina Carta is Assistant Professor at Vesalius College (VUB). She holds a

PhD in Comparative and European Politics from the University of Siena. She is
associated researcher at the Institute d’études européennes (IEE) at ULB, Brussels.
Her articles have been published in Cooperation and Conflict, the British Journal
x EU Foreign Policy through the Lens of Discourse Analysis
of Politics and International Relations and European Foreign Affairs Review. She
is author of The European Union’s Diplomatic Service: Ideas, Preferences and
Identities (Routledge, 2012).
Thomas Diez is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the

University of Tübingen. He received his PhD from the University of Mannheim
in 1999. From 1997 to 2000, he was Research Fellow at the Copenhagen Peace
Research Institute and subsequently, from 2000 to 2009, Lecturer, Senior Lecturer
and then Professor of International Relations and Head of Department at the
University of Birmingham. He joined Tübingen in April 2009. Diez has also
taught in Copenhagen, Aarhus, Munich and Victoria (BC). Among his most recent
publications are Key Concepts in International Relations (co-author, Sage, 2011),
An Introduction to International Relations Theory: Perspectives and Themes (co-
author, third edition, Pearson, 2010), European Integration Theory (co-editor,
second edition, Oxford UP, 2009) and Cyprus: A Conflict at the Crossroads (co-
editor, Manchester UP, 2009). In September 2009, he received the Anna Lindh
Award for his contribution to the field of European Foreign and Security Policy
Studies.
Anna Herranz-Surrallés is Lecturer in International Relations at Maastricht

University. Her research addresses the external relations and foreign policy of
the EU, focusing on aspects such as the international promotion and diffusion of
norms and policies, the practices of legitimation and democratic control of foreign
and security policy, and the concepts of governance and diplomacy, especially as
applied to the domain of energy policy. Her work has appeared in journals such
as West European Politics, Journal of Common Market Studies, Mediterranean
Politics, Cooperation & Conflict and Journal of European Public Policy.
Beste Isleyen is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Amsterdam Centre for

Contemporary European Studies at the University of Amsterdam. She has taught
on European Union external relations and the role of the European Union in
conflicts during her PhD studies at the University of Tübingen. Her research
interests include critical approaches to international relations, especially foreign
relations of the European Union, post-structuralist discourse theory, peace and
conflict studies, governmentality and the Middle East.
Knud Erik Jørgensen (PhD) is Professor in the Department of Political Science

at Aarhus University. He teaches International Relations theory, European foreign
policy and European Studies. He chairs the European International Studies
Association (EISA) and is co-editor of the Palgrave Studies in International
Relations and associate editor of Journal of European Integration. Publications
include the following authored and edited books: co-edited with Mark Pollack and
Ben Rosamond, Handbook of European Union Politics (Sage, 2007); International
Relations Theory: A New Introduction (Palgrave, 2010) and co-edited with Katie
Laatikainen, Handbook on the European Union and International Institutions:
Notes on Contributors xi
Performance, Policy, Power (Routledge, 2013). Articles have been published in

leadings journals such as the European Journal of International Relations.
Amelie Kutter is Researcher at the Cultural Political Economy Research Centre,

Department of Sociology, Lancaster University. She is working on management
and discourses of the current financial and economic crisis in the Eurozone, UK,
US and Germany. She holds a PhD (European University Viadrina, Frankfurt/
Odra) and an MA (Diplom, Free University Berlin) in political science. She has
lectured, researched and published on the financial crisis, European integration,
post-socialist transformation and transnational political communication at
Lancaster University, FU Berlin, EUV, TU Dresden, CERI/Sciences Po. She

specialises in discourse studies and methods of textual analysis.
Henrik Larsen is Associate Professor of International Relations and holds the

Jean Monnet Chair in European Foreign and Security Policy Integration at the
University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He has previously published Discourse
Analysis and Foreign Policy: France, Britain and Europe (1997), The ESDP and
the Nordic Countries: Four Variations on a Theme (with Nina Græger and Hanna
Ojanen, 2002) and Analysing Small State Foreign Policy in the EU: The Case of
Denmark (2005).
Jean-Frédéric Morin is Professor of International Relations at the Université

libre de Bruxelles (ULB) where he teaches international political economy,
foreign policy analysis and global environmental politics. His current research
projects explore the global politics of intellectual property rights as well as the
international biodiversity regime. His work has been published in leading journals
such as International Studies Review, Global Governance, European Journal of
International Relations, Review of International Political Economy and Review of
International Studies.
Michal Natorski is Senior Research Fellow at the European Neighbourhood

Policy Chair, College of Europe, Natolin Campus. He was an Associate Lecturer
in International Relations at the Autonomous University of Barcelona as well as
Visiting Scholar at the London School of Economics, the Aberystwyth University,
Peace Research Institute Frankfurt and Free University of Berlin. His articles
have appeared in Journal of European Public Policy, Cooperation and Conflict,
East European Politics, Journal of Contemporary European Research, European
Political Economy Review and Journal of Constitutional Law in Eastern and
Central Europe.
Jan Orbie (PhD) is Professor in the rank of Senior Lecturer at the Department of
Political Science and Director of the Centre for EU Studies at Ghent University
in Belgium. His lecture courses in the Master for EU Studies at Ghent University
include Theories of European Integration, European External Policies and EU
Trade Politics. His research focuses on the international policies of the EU, in
xii EU Foreign Policy through the Lens of Discourse Analysis
particular EU trade and development policies. He is the author of numerous

chapters, articles and edited books on EU trade politics and development, the EU’s
global social policy and EU democracy promotion. He is also supervising several
research projects in the field of EU external relations.
Antoine Rayroux is a Fulbright-Schuman postdoctoral researcher at Georgetown

University for the academic year 2013–2014. He holds a PhD in political science
from the Université de Montréal (CEPSI) and the Université libre de Bruxelles
(REPI). His research mostly deals with the Europeanisation of defence policies
in France and Ireland, within the framework of European Union military
interventions. He is interested in security studies, international peace operations

in Africa and sociological approaches to European integration and international
relations.
Ben Rosamond is Professor of Political Science and Deputy Director of the Centre
for European Politics at the University of Copenhagen. He is also editor of the
journal Comparative European Politics and principal investigator on a major new
interdisciplinary research programme entitled Europe’s New Global Challenges:
Market, Law and Society (‘EuroChallenge’: www.eurochallenge.ku.dk). He is
author or editor of some six books, among them Theories of European Integration
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), Handbook of European Union Politics (Sage, 2007,
co-edited with Knud Erik Jørgensen and Mark A. Pollack) and New Regionalism
and the European Union: Dialogue, Comparison and New Research Directions
(Routledge, 2011, co-edited with Alex Warleigh-Lack and Nick Robinson). His
work on theorising European and regional integration, the role of ideas in European
economic integration and sub-disciplinary pathologies in political science has
been published in journals such as British Journal of Politics and International
Relations, Cooperation and Conflict, European Journal of International Relations,
International Affairs, Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European
Public Policy, New Political Economy, Political Studies and Review of International
Political Economy.
Vivien A. Schmidt is Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration, Professor of

International Relations and Political Science at Boston University, and Founding
Director of BU’s Center for the Study of Europe. She received her MA and
PhD from the University of Chicago, her BA from Bryn Mawr College and also
attended Sciences Po, Paris. Schmidt has published widely on European political
economy, institutions and democracy, most recently on the Eurozone crisis. Recent
books include Resilient Liberalism in Europe’s Political Economy (co-edited,
Cambridge, 2013); Debating Political Identity and Legitimacy in the European
Union (co-edited, Routledge, 2011); Democracy in Europe (Oxford, 2006) and
The Futures of European Capitalism (Oxford, 2002). Recent honours, awards and
fellowships include an honorary doctorate from the Free University of Brussels
(ULB), the Belgian Franqui Interuniversity Chair and a Visiting Professorship at
the Free University of Berlin.
Notes on Contributors xiii
Ferdi De Ville holds a PhD (2011) in political science at Ghent University. In his
dissertation he analysed the relationship between the international trade regime and
European social, environmental and consumer protection. A paper summarising
his PhD research has been published in a Journal of European Public Policy
Special Issue (19: 5) highlighting the best papers of the 2011 EUSA conference.
He has published in several edited volumes on EU external relations and in
journals including British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Journal
of European Integration, European Integration Online Papers and International
Journal of Communication. De Ville has also done policy advisory research on
European trade policy for the Flemish government. His current research focuses
on new bilateral trade agreements of the EU and the relationship between EU trade
politics and the euro crisis.
Ruth Wodak is Distinguished Professor and Chair of Discourse Studies at

Lancaster University. She is member of the British Academy of Social Sciences
and the Academia Europaea, past President of the Societas Linguistica Europaea
2010, and holds an honorary doctorate from the University Örebro, Sweden.
Her research interests focus on Critical Discourse Studies, European and
national identity, language and politics, and issues of racism, anti-Semitism and
discrimination. She is co-editor of The Journal of Language and Politics, Discourse
and Society and Critical Discourse Studies, and of the book series Discourse
Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture. Recent book publications include
The Discourse of Politics in Action: Politics as Usual (2011); Analyzing Fascist
Discourse: European Fascism in Talk and Text (2013, with J. Richardson); The
Sage Handbook of Sociolinguistics (2010, with P. Kerswill and B. Johnstone); The
discursive Construction of National Identity (2009, with R. de Cillia, M. Reisigl
and K. Liebhart) and Rightwing Populism in Europe: Politics and Discourse
(2013, with M. KhosraviNik and B. Mral).
Acknowledgements
This edited volume is a direct product of the WIRE-GR:EEN workshop ‘The EU

as a Global Discursive Actor’, held at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB),
Brussels, on 14–15 February 2012. GR:EEN (Global Re-ordering: Evolution
through European Networks) is a European Commission FP7 project (project
number 266809) and the GR:EEN head coordinator for ULB is professor Mario
Telò. For more information about GR:EEN, please visit www.greenfp7.eu. WIRE
is a series of innovative Workshops on International Relations held regularly on
various topics and jointly organised by ULB and Ghent University. For more
information about the WIRE series, please visit www.wire-series.org. In addition
to the contributors to this volume, participants of the WIRE-GR:EEN workshop
included Amandine Crespy, Barbara Delcourt, Valentina Morselli, Claudia
Morsut, Christian Olsson, Amandine Orsini, Vicky Reynart, Mario Telò and Eleni
Xiachogiannopolous. We warmly thank the sponsors of this workshop for their
financial assistance as well as the participants for their constructive comments on
earlier versions of the following chapters.
Moreover, earlier versions of chapters 1 (by Diez), 2 (by Larsen), 4 (by
Jørgensen), 7 (by Aydın-Düzgit), 10 (by Carta) and 12 (by Rayroux) first appeared
in the journal Cooperation and Conflict in a special issue edited by the co-editors
of this volume. Likewise, earlier versions of chapters 5 (by Orbie and De Ville),
11 (by Rosamond) and 13 (by Schmidt) were first published by the British Journal
of Politics and International Relations in a special section edited by the co-editors
of this volume. We warmly thank the anonymous reviewers of Cooperation and
Conflict and the British Journal of Politics and International Relations for their
comments, journal editors Lee Miles and Andrew Baker for the constant support,
and the publishers for authorising the reproduction of parts of these original
articles.
Finally, a special thank you goes to Mario Telò and Frederik Poujaert, co-
directors of the GR:EEN-GEM book series for their steady encouragement and
assistance from the very beginning of this project, three years ago.

Brussels, 2014
List of Abbreviations
AP Attentive public
CDA Critical discourse analysis
CFSP Common Foreign and Security Policy
CSDP Common Security and Defence Policy
CTC Counter-Terrorism Coordinator
DA Discourse analysis
DG Directorates-General
DHA Discourse-historical approach
DI Discursive institutionalism
ECB European Central Bank
EEAS European External Action Service
EFSF European Financial Stability Facility
EMU European Monetary Union
EP European Parliament
EPC European Political Cooperation
ESS European Security Strategy
EU European Union
FPA Foreign Policy Analysis
HR High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs
and Security Policy
IHEDN Institut des hautes études de défense nationale
IR International Relations
JHA Justice and Home Affairs
MS Member states
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NPE Normative Power Europe
POE Policy and opinion elite
R2P Responsibility to protect
UK United Kingdom
UN United Nations
US United States of America
WTO World Trade Organization
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Introduction:
EU Foreign Policy through the Lens
of Discourse Analysis
What Do Discourses Tell Us about the International Role of the EU?
For over 50 years, the process of European integration has profoundly shaped an
imagined sense of belonging to a European community. Despite difficulties in
establishing what exactly a European Union (EU) identity is supposed to be, the
process of European integration assumed the Aesopian motto ‘United we stand,
divided we fall’. Recent events conveyed the impression that European integration
is not to be taken for granted. Waves of enlargement, institutional reforms, social
and political unrest, economic and financial instability, both in Europe and in its
immediate neighbourhood, have profoundly challenged the meaning and course of
the European integration process.
In a speech delivered more than 20 years ago, Margaret Thatcher laconically
posited: ‘such a body [a European Community of 30 nations …] is an even more
utopian enterprise than the Tower of Babel. For at least the builders of Babel all
spoke the same language when they began’ (Thatcher 1992). This comment still
evokes some topical concerns about the process of European integration. Beyond
linguistic diversity, do European member states and EU institutions share the same
references when contributing to the articulation of EU international discourse?
Whose discourse is the one finally agreed upon? To what extent are different
discourses compatible with each other? And, how can this diversity be translated
into foreign policy practices?
This book looks at these questions through the lens of discourse analysis as
applied to the field of International Relations (IR). Depending on one’s theoretical
lenses, discourses can be conceived as exercising framing, generative, performative
and coordinative functions. First, discourses frame and structure what can be
conceived and uttered (Hajer 1993). The process whereby we attribute a signified
to a signifier entails the articulation of this signifier into a broader semantic
system of meanings (Derrida 1976). Second, discourses generate and construct
the meaning of what exists in such a way that nothing exists if it cannot be thought
through and transposed into language (Wittgenstein 1971). Third, discourses
have a performative power (Austin 1962). Rhetorical strategies inherent in
discourses contribute to the way we perceive social facts (Foucault 2011 [1969]),
by establishing semantic connections among phenomena. Therefore, discourses
2 EU Foreign Policy through the Lens of Discourse Analysis
shape our own perception of reality (Wæver 1995). Fourth, the process of creating
discourse is inherently interactive and intersubjective (Habermas 1984). In this
regard, discourses are semantic fields in which social interactions are produced.
This book bears testimony to the plurality of theoretical approaches and
methods within the remit of discourse analysis. Different theoretical perspectives
understand differently both the formative range of discourse and the functions
that discourse analysis, as a set of cognate methods, can perform. The very object
of analysis of this book is itself contested. EU foreign policy is characteristically
fragmented, and its meaning disputed. Different national and institutional actors
converge in the making of international discourses. If we define EU foreign policy

as the ‘sum of official external relations conducted by an independent actor’
(Hill 2003: 3), we will soon realise that the number of independent national and
institutional actors that form the EU voice account for an inherently pluralistic
choir. Discourse analysis can be of great use in illuminating the way in which
social discursive practices convey meaning to foreign policy discourses, through
both contestation and communicative action.
The underlying objective of this book is twofold: to shed light on the versatility
of discourse analysis toolkits and to link this with an empirical investigation of the
EU’s international discourse. In substantive terms, this book celebrates academic
diversity as it gathers contributions from different theoretical and analytical
schools. In analytical terms, it aims to contribute to advances in the study of EU
foreign policy discourse. The EU has been conceptualised as a ‘difference engine’
in which internal processes of construction and representation converge in its
international identity (Manners and Whitman, 2003: 380–81): the ways in which
EU actors articulate discourses in order to frame an international position is the
main topic of our collective enquiry. Is there anything specific about the EU’s
international discourse-making?
The first section of this introduction arranges the four theoretical approaches
and methods presented in the book – namely, interpretative constructivism,
poststructuralism, discursive institutionalism (DI) and critical discourse analysis
(CDA) – along two dimensions: a) the role of discourse in the constitution of
the world, depending on whether approaches perceive social structure as being
constitutive of or constituted by discourse; and b) interpretation of the weight of
material and ideational elements in discourses. This model helps us make sense
of the profound theoretical diversity that characterises analytical approaches to IR
discourse. The second section tackles the question of ‘who does the speaking’. It
identifies the different voices that converge in the EU’s international choir, and
problematises the discursive environment that forges international discourses
through the theoretical lenses of selected approaches. In the last section, the
contributions to this book are presented.
Introduction 3
Discourse Analysis and Theoretical Diversity
Although discourse analysis has been defined as ‘an emerging research programme,
engaging a community of scholars’ (Milliken 1999: 226), the term ‘discourse’ is
widely contested. Different conceptions range from narrow interpretations which
clarify that ‘in linguistics, [a discourse is] a stretch of language, larger than the
sentence’ (Bullock and Stallybrass 1977: 175, in Gasper and Apthorpe 1996: 3), to
broad ones that assume that ‘there is nothing outside discourse’ (Campbell 2005:
4). Linguistic traditions of discourse analysis draw on the distinction between text
and discourse (Wodak 2008: 6), or ‘small d’ and ‘big D’ discourses’ (Gee 2007:
26). Broad interpretations extend the focus to ‘the role of more macro linguistic
and social structures in framing our social and psychological life’ (Burr 2003: 20).
Discourse analysis as applied to IR generally focuses on ‘big D discourses’, with
a varying emphasis on the study of texts.
As mentioned, diversity not only concerns the object of our study (e.g., the
community of actors who collectively define the EU’s international discourse and
the nature and functions of discursive patterns connected with foreign policy), but
also the interpretative lenses adopted. On the one hand, IR can be conceived as
a dividing discipline (Holsti 1985), cut across by endless and unsolved debates
over the incommensurable (Kristensen 2012: 32). On the other, discourse analysis
is characterised by a plurality of disciplinary, theoretical and methodological
approaches marked by internal heterogeneity, in such a way that ‘it is perfectly
possible to have two books in discourse analysis with no overlap in content at
all’ (cf. MacDonnel 1986; Stubb 1983 in Potter and Wetherell 1996 [1987]: 6).
This internal heterogeneity makes it extremely difficult to synthesise the different
approaches presented here. As a cautionary note, we should therefore clarify that
when referring to determined approaches or authors, we exclusively have in mind
the references quoted in this chapter.
Despite these observations, it is possible to identify some common ground
among the discursive approaches presented in this volume. In general, analytical
discourse approaches to IR tend to have positivist approaches as a polemical
target. The latter generally claim that it is possible to individuate ‘law or law-like
regularities’ that allow one to infer and order patterns of human behaviour and social
life (Sil and Katzenstein 2010: 416). Social constructivism, poststructuralism, DI
and CDA approaches, in their differing variants and to different extents, tend to
criticise the positivist ‘separation of subject and object and the search for clear
cause-effect relationship[s]’ (Bieler and Morton 2008: 104). Hence, these theoretical
approaches view ‘as isomorphic the seer and the seen, the knower and the known’
(Ryan 1970, in Manning 1979: 660). In this sense – with the limits that inform all
generalisations – they tend to reflect an interpretative turn in social science, in that
they posit that ‘both the object of investigation – the web of language, symbols,
institutions that constitute signification – and the tools by which investigation is
carried out share inescapably the same pervasive context that is the human world’
(Rabinow and Sullivan 1988: 5–6). Therefore, what we can access are the different
representations of the world, constructed by perceptions, thoughts and language.
To grasp the diversity of IR theoretical approaches and their methodologies,
Sil suggests that one should focus on two ‘fundamental problems that have
plagued social science disciplines since their inception’ (2000: 354). These are the
relationships between ideas and material components of social action, and between
structure and agency. The former recalls the long-lasting theoretical dispute
between rational-choice and sociologically inspired theorists. These two camps
diverge on the question of what factors guide and inform both human motivations
and social interactions, whether material and interest-based, or ideational and

normative. The relationship between agency and structure raises a significant
question: ‘does the ontological primacy of the individual actors also accord them
epistemological primacy vis-à-vis the structures that constrain, or give meaning to
their action?’ (Sil 2000: 354).
If we are about to apply this framework to the field of discourse analysis, we
should slightly modify this model. In discourse analysis terms, a preliminary step
is to understand what social structures consist of and how they can be accessed. In
other words, does the social structure constitute discourses, or do agents’ discourses
constitute the social structure? While not denying that there is a world out there,
different theoretical approaches can be located along a continuum, depending
on whether they conceive a) discourse as heavily reproducing (and thereby
constituted by) real and structural dynamics; or b) discourse as the only point of
access to the real world and, accordingly, as constitutive of reality as we know it
(in Diez’s terms, as replicated in agency).1 Jørgensen and Phillips (2002: 20 ff.)
attempted to delineate such a continuum by including as crucial points of reference
Althusser, Gramsci and Foucault. With the addition of Habermas,2 the centrality of
these authors derives from two important common features of discourse analysis
approaches: their critical stance and their continuous oscillation between Kant’s
idealism and Marx’s historical materialism (for a review, Held 1980: 16).
Althusser applied and expanded Marx’s approach on ideology. Ideology is
conceived here as a ‘bricolage imaginaire’, drawing on the abstract projection
and reproduction of concrete and material historical dynamics (1976: 176).
He conceptualised the State as being composed of repressive and ideological
apparatuses which aim to subsume and reproduce the dominant ideology as
shaped by relations of production. Through ideology, material and structural
forces establish ‘imagined relations’ which turn concrete individuals into
abstract categories due to a ‘représentation du monde déterminée’ (1976: 180).
In this framework, individuals are visible only insofar as they are interpellated.
Interpellation reduces agents to mere puppets of superimposed structural logics.
Paraphrasing Berger and Luckmann, the structure is, therefore, able not only to
1 The authors would like to thank Thomas Diez and Jan Orbie for their comments
on this point.
2 The authors would like to thank Ruth Wodak for raising this point.
Introduction 5
dominate the appearance, but also the content of actors’ ideation (1991 [1966]: 21).
Ideational components are thereby mere reproductions of material relationships;
or in Althusser’s theorisation, ‘material displacements’ of an external or internal
(i.e., consciousness) verbal discourse.
Althusser’s approach has been criticised on the grounds of its structural
determinism and portrayal of agents’ inability to determine their beliefs
and actions. Moving away from Althusser’s concept of interpellation, a less
deterministic relationship can be established both between ideas and interests
and between agency and structure. This move allows one a) to bring agents back
into the analysis and b) to more decisively integrate the ideational dimension of
material factors by analysing the reification and objectification of social processes.
Starting from Marx’s assumption that capitalist society constitutes the core
structure that shapes all social phenomena, Gramsci contests Marx’s implicit
assumption that capitalism is just a system of production. Accordingly, Gramsci
refers to the term ‘language’, rather than discourse, to depict ‘a multiplicity of
facts more or less organically coherent and co-ordinated’ (1999 [1929]: 347).
Hegemony is contended for and finally conquered through the interaction of
diversified and internally heterogeneous societal forces. Hegemony, in this light,
represents a balance between political and civil society (Gramsci 1953 [1931]); it
is a multidimensional phenomenon, which benefits from several strategies aimed
at the imposition of what has to be considered ‘common sense’. As such, it cannot
be understood exclusively along the continuum of relations of production, and
it cannot be deduced by class belonging. Gramsci exerts a shift from economic
determinism to the organisation of social orders via the material structure of
ideology. The focus is therefore on the ways in which, by means of objectification
and reification, things acquire a meaning. This move allows researchers to focus
on ‘the very objectifications of subjective processes in human activity, or the ways
in which the socially constructed world is intersubjectively realised’ (Bieler and
Morton 2008: 117).
Elaborating on these premises, Foucault, in The Subject and Power, decisively
empowers the constitutive and foundational nature of discourse. Foucault (2011
[1969]) posits that both unities of discourses and objects are formed ‘by means of
group controlled decisions’ (2011: 32), under historically located conditions. Key
concepts in his theorisation are those of knowledge and power. As in Gramsci,
power is not portrayed exclusively as coercively imposed. It is seen as an ongoing
productive creation of shared knowledge and discourse. Through its performative
function, power creates both the social world and the discursive categories to
access it (Foucault 1982: 780). In so doing, power locates subjects both in society
and in the discursive field; it generates markers for the identity of individuals,
objectifying them. In contrast to Althusser’s model, an additional component of
power is resistance, where individuals struggle against objectification. Foucault
contextualises power in the framework of a diversified definition of social structure,
determined by ‘complex and circular relations’ (1982: 781). In this context,
individuals engage in what Foucault calls ‘anarchical’ struggles (1982: 781),
somehow shooting against a moving target: ‘the form of power’ (ibid., emphasis
added). In this context, struggles occur over a semantic field against a contingent
sense of oppression. This locates Foucault on the more subject-oriented side of the
continuum, and in a more ideational and less material realm.
Deeply engaged with the Frankfurt school, Habermas acknowledges the
crucial function of language as a ‘medium of domination and social force’ (1974:
17, in Forchtner 2011: 9) and argues against the Marxian tradition that ‘politics
is [no longer] only a phenomenon of the superstructure’ (1971: 101, quoted in
Held 1980: 251). Beyond the analysis of the pathologies of advanced capitalist
societies, Habermas assumes that society finds the seeds for social change in
communicative action. In the Theory of Communicative Action (1984), he posits

that social actions can be strategic or communicative, depending on ‘how they
specify the goal-directed actions of different participants: as interlacing of
egocentric calculations of utility … or as reflecting an understanding in the sense
of a cooperative process of interpretation’ (1984: 101). Communicative actions
are oriented towards reciprocal understanding and intersubjectively validated
through ‘validity claims’, ‘internally connected with reasons and grounds’ (1984:
209, emphasis in the text). Validity claims therefore set the grounds for the
intersubjective establishment of a shared ‘moral practical sense’ (ibid.). Through
cultural reproduction, social interaction and socialisation, individuals ‘coordinate
their actions through the intersubjective recognition of criticisable validity claims’
(1984: 208). In this context, through the establishment of discursive communities,
individuals can achieve collective goals, and empower their shared life-world.
Theoretical Diversity in this Book
In the wake of these pioneering works, selected theories do not presuppose that
agents form their identities and interests in isolation from the social context:
interaction within the social structure moulds the discursive activities of all subjects.
What changes are both the definition of actors’ degree of freedom in perceiving the
social structure and their own and other actors’ positions within this structure.
This difference determines what constitutes the main structural components around
which power is distributed. The blend of ideas and interests in individual motivation
and social interactions is generally presented in non-dichotomised terms. What
changes is the ways these components relate to each other.
Among selected approaches, constructivists tend to embrace ontological
idealism. Arguably, constructivism is all but a homogenous approach (Price and
Reus-Smit 1998; Fierke and Jørgensen 2001). To make sense of this diversity,
Checkel distinguishes three main variants marked by strong epistemological
differences: conventional, interpretative and radical/critical (2007: 58). In this
introduction we mainly refer to the interpretative school and ‘its emphasis on
the role of language in mediating and constructing social reality’ (Checkel 2007:
58). Constructivist authors have applied this framework to foreign policy and the
notion of national interest (Kubálková 2001; Weldes 1996).
Introduction 7
Interpretative constructivists emphasise the centrality of intersubjective

cognitions and norms in the definition of the social structure (Schimmelfennig
2001: 58). By discursively interacting within a given structure, agents
endogenously construct social reality, and, in turn, interactions within the
structural context contribute to reconstructing their preferences and interests. The
dynamics of communication are largely inspired by Habermas and his distinction
between communicative and strategic action (Deitelhoff and Mueller 2005).
While the latter type is oriented to gaining hegemony in discursive practices, the
former strives to gain recognition and build consensus. The concept of power is
therefore deeply related to responsibility (Connolly 1974: 97, in Guzzini 2005:

510). Constructivists distance themselves from the rational tenet that ideas and
interests are exogenous to any social structure. To explain this ontological turn,
Hopf places the question ‘“who am I?” … both logically and ontologically prior to
the question of “what do I want”’ (1998: 175).
In empirical accounts, constructivists generally argue that a logic of
appropriateness, rather than a logic of consequentiality (March and Olsen 1989),
informs both the nature of the agents and their reciprocal interactions. Therefore,
emphasis is on the process of intersubjective creation of meaning, as led by
interpretation (Kratochwil 1988) and reasoned consensus (Risse 2000). While not
denying the existence of brute facts, constructivists claim that in assessing reality,
agents enter the semantic field of collective intentionality (Searle 1995: 23).
Through interactions and social filters, individuals encounter a space composed
of intersubjective projections of what reality is supposed to be, which mixes
‘closeness and remoteness both spatially and temporally’ (Berger and Luckmann
1991 [1966]: 36). Among selected approaches, constructivism is the most
ideational. Put simply, its focus on cooperation, rather than power, stems from
a central tenet: normative concepts are ‘the names of the solutions of problems’
(Korsgaard 2003: 116). As normative concepts are ‘the names of the solutions
of problems’, discourses transcend both the material structure of society and
individual interests.
In a similar vein, Schmidt’s DI (2008) focuses on ideas through the lens of
discourse. By placing emphasis on discourse rather than on ideas, Schmidt claims
that it is possible to address ‘the representation of ideas (how agents say what
they are thinking of doing) and the discursive interactions through which actors
generate and communicate ideas (to whom they say it) within given institutional
contexts (where and when they say it)’ (2008: 306). Hence, the term discourse
enmeshes textual and contextual elements, components of agency and structure.
Accordingly, DI establishes a dialectical relation between agents and structure.
Institutions are seen as both influencing agents and being influenced by them
(Schmidt 2008: 314).
Contrary to constructivist approaches, DI posits that arguing (e.g., oriented
towards ideational persuasion) and bargaining (e.g., strategically oriented)
discursive practices are inherently intermingled (Schmidt 2008: 312). In this sense,
relying on Boudon (2003), the rationality of agents is conceived as cognitive in
nature, e.g., it informs the sense-making process of actors more than the setting-
up of their preferences. To come back to our distinction of discourse as being
constitutive of or constituted by the social world, Schmidt’s DI opposes ‘the
conflation of material reality and interests into “material interests”’ (2008: 312).
In a similar way to constructivists, DI refers to Searle’s distinction (1995) between
brute and social facts to depict the wide array of ‘real but not material’ factors that
concur to frame actors’ behaviours. This locates DI closer to constructivism in our
continuum.
While recognising the performative and enacting quality of discourses,
poststructuralist scholars place emphasis on the concept of power. Derrida’s often-

cited passage, that ‘there is nothing outside the text’ (Derrida 1976: 158–9) sums
up the tendency of seeing discourse as the key to access the social world. One of
the foundations of poststructuralism is the co-constitution of the world and the
subject. A key element of poststructuralist ontology stems from the idea that the
perceived world acquires meaning through discourse. Discourses provide ‘criteria
of intelligibility’ that ‘establish the conditions of possibility for social being and,
as such, cannot be considered as separate from, or secondary to the material realm’
(de Goede 2001: 152, quoted in Bieler and Morton 2008: 110). Semantic signs
mediate the relation between the objective reality and the subjective representation
of that reality, ‘signs [that] derive their meanings not through their relations to
reality but through internal relations within the network of signs’ (Jørgensen and
Phillips 2002: 11). Interactions among discourses constantly modify the structure
of meanings and the perception of social reality. Meanings are therefore highly
volatile, contingent, provisional and, as such, elusive. Discourses are modulated
by means of interactive articulation through a network of meanings among
different signifiers. Both as concept and as analytical tool, articulation works on
three levels:
Epistemologically, articulation is a way of thinking the structures of what we
know as a play of correspondences, non-correspondences and contradictions, as
fragments in the constitution of what we take to be unities. Politically, articulation
is a way of foregrounding the structure and play of power entailed in relations of
dominance and subordination. Strategically, articulation provides a mechanism for
shaping intervention within a particular social formation, conjuncture or context
(Daryl Slack 1996: 113).
In this conceptual framework, the concept of discursive struggle depicts the
modality of interaction in the discursive field. Recalling Gramsci and Foucault,
hegemony is hence not necessarily imposed through coercion, but through the
‘organisation of consent’ (Barrett 1991: 54, emphasis in the text). Inasmuch as
poststructuralism (at least in Laclau and Mouffe’s theorisation) detaches discursive
dynamics from the structure, ‘struggle is reduced to struggle in discourse, where
“there is no reason why anything is or isn’t potentially articulatable with anything”
and society becomes “a totally open discursive field”’ (Hall 1980: 56).
A heterogeneous movement rather than a homogenous school gathers under
the heading of CDA. CDA scholars are inspired by different epistemological
Introduction 9
traditions, generally located in the ‘Western Marxist’ tradition (Fairclough,

Mulderrig and Wodak 2012: 360), ranging from Foucauldian poststructuralism
to Habermas, from Gramsci to the Frankfurt School (Forchtner 2011). CDA is
explicitly committed ‘towards criticising and changing society, in contrast to
traditional theories oriented solely to understanding it or explaining it’ (Wodak
and Meyer 2009: 6). CDA establishes a dialectic relation between the role of
discourse and the real world. In other words, the world is out there and material
relations influence the positioning of subjects in the real world as well as in the
discursive field. Discourses are, therefore, seen as vehicles that reproduce the
social domination of one group over another, although power does not necessarily
refer to capitalism. CDA authors alternatively consider power in relation to
corporations, gender, race or political relations. As in the continuum presented
above, critical discourse analysts generally assume that the relations that tie up
social and discursive practices are ‘dialectical in the sense of being different
but not “discrete”, i.e., not fully separated’ (Fairclough 2010: 231). By giving
social practices centrality CDA ‘allows an oscillation between the perspective of
social structure and the perspective of social action and agency – both necessary
perspectives in social research and analysis’ (Chiapello and Fairclough 2002:
193).
Among the selected approaches, CDA, in its different variants, is the one with
the clearest commitment to linguistic analysis. This focus ‘accounts for its emphasis
upon practical ways of analysing texts, and the attention that it gives to the role
of grammar in its ideological analysis’ (Fairclough, Mulderrig and Wodak 2012:
361). Linguistic analysis is therefore pursued through a variety of methodologies
(for a review, Wodak and Meyer 2009). CDA does not strive to investigate the
linguistic unit per se, but analyses broader social phenomena (Wodak and Meyer
2009: 2). The heterogeneity that characterises CDA makes it difficult to generalise
as far as tenets, focus and methods of analysis are concerned. Wodak (2008)
suggested seven underlying themes in CDA. These can be summarised as: 1) an
interest in the language in use (as opposed to abstract language); 2) a focus on
texts, discourses, conversations, acts of speech or events as units of analysis; 3) an
extension of linguistics beyond isolated sentences; 4) the inclusion of non-verbal
elements in the analysis; 5) a focus on dynamic interactional moves and strategies;
6) a focus on the contexts in which language is used and its functions; and 7)
linguistic attention to text grammar and language use.
This section only superficially highlighted the main tenets of selected
approaches, drastically simplifying their internal heterogeneity. However, as can
be noted, placing selected theoretical approaches within the two-dimensional
continuum of material/ideational components and the constitutiveness of reality/
discourses helps to spot similarities and differences between cognate discourse
analysis approaches. The next section will focus on the question of ‘who does the
speaking in EU foreign policy’ and will present different theoretical insights on
how to make sense of the EU discursive field in relation to EU agents.
Who Does the Speaking?
The ‘self’ needs quotation marks because an order of expectations cannot be

expected to contain an identifiable self; it remains an order of distributions that
operate on one another. (Leydesdorff 2006: 541)
Both the EU and the process of European integration in foreign policy matters are
contested discursive fields (Hay and Rosamond 2002: 151). When travelling from
the state level to the EU level, we encounter an open and heterogeneous discursive
environment, where the very existence of a minimum of cultural homogeneity is
a matter of discussion. Throughout its evolution, the main architects of European

integration have given a plurality of definitions of what the EU (and previously
the European Community) is. These definitions range from an ‘objet politique
non-identifié’ (Jacques Delors 1987, in Schmitter 1996: 121) to ‘a technocratic
edifice’ (paraphrased from de Gaulle 1965, quoted in Nelsen and Stubb 2003:
33),3 from ‘a Family of Nations’ (Thatcher 1992) to a ‘concept charged with
significance’ (Delors 1989, in Nelsen and Stubb 2003: 59, emphasis added). This
concept has been alternatively portrayed as sustained by ‘solidarity in production’
(Schumany scholars highlighted that the EU is a ‘flexible and disaggregated
series of patterns, arrangements and institutions which expresses a collective yet
pluralistic identity …’ [Allen and Smith 1990: 23]). It is best conceptualised as
a ‘variable and multi-dimensional presence’, certainly not a unified actor (Allen
and Smith 1990: 20). Scholars, therefore, focused on the ‘fragmented nature of
agency at the European level’ (White 1999: 44), and connected this inherent
fragmentation with definitions of the Common Foreign and Security Policy
(CFSP) in terms of a policy process, rather than as a policy (Edwards 1997).
Hence, both with reference to the term ‘common’ and that of ‘policy’, scholars
of European integration have underlined the misleadingness of the formula
‘Common Foreign and Security Policy’ inaugurated with the Maastricht Treaty:
for Ginsberg it can be regarded as a ‘system in evolution towards “a” European
Foreign Policy’ (2001: 33), for Edwards (1997) it is a misnomer and for Schmalz
(1998) it is mere rhetoric.
Despite this fragmented condition, several scholars suggest that it is still
possible to employ the tools of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) to analyse the
EU’s foreign policy system (White 1999), or to peer into the European foreign
policy ‘black box’ through institutionalist lenses (Smith 1996, 2004). This spurred
some analysts to assume an actor-centred approach (White 1999). By focusing
on actors, processes, issues, instruments, contexts and actions related to the EU
foreign policy system, it becomes possible to conceptualise European Foreign
Policy ‘as a part of a political system, with inputs from national actors and their
preferences (in conjunction with domestic politics) and from external sources; and
with the outputs of foreign policy actions and positions’ (Ginsberg 2001: 39).
3 All following quotes are taken from the collection of speeches compiled by Nelsen
and Stubb (2003).
Introduction 11
Despite its challenging nature, therefore, not dissimilarly from states, the EU is
primarily a ‘collective actor’, which expresses a pluralistic identity. The question
of ‘who does the speaking’ in IR opens up endless theoretical discussions on
how and through what kind of socio-political processes collective actors produce
statements. To summarise briefly the substance of this debate, we can refer to
the ‘two bodies’ metaphor elaborated during the sixteenth century: the physical
body of the juvenile King Edward IV and his body politic – the Crown. The latter
‘intangible body’ (conceived as the real core of political activities) enabled the
former to act in ways that went beyond the ‘minority’, ‘infirmity’, ‘old age’, ‘birth
or death’ of the physical body (Coleman 1974: 19–20).
In light of this distinction, capitalised Foreign Policy can be conceived of

as an activity of ‘production and reproduction of the identity in whose name it
operates … a modern cultural artefact implicated in the intensification of power
in the state’ (Campbell 2005: 68). Consequently, Foreign Policy constitutes a
form of ‘containment of challenges’ against both ‘internal’ and ‘external’ political
contestation (Campbell 2005: 71). Along the same lines, Diez (in this volume)
identifies three levels of ‘struggle’, or contestation in Campbell’s parlance. First,
the level of individual participants in discourse; second, the level of discursive
positions (see also Epstein 2010), which finds collective actors in the semantic
field in a variety of complex ways; and third, the level of the overall discourse, e.g.,
‘competing discursive positions that are not only actively pursued by collective
actors, but also shape the latter’s identities’ (Diez, this volume).
In this introduction, we take a different perspective and suggest locating
discursive positions within the EU foreign policy system of governance.
While aware that collective subject positions in the EU system of governance
are not reducible to their institutional location, national as well as bureaucratic
heterogeneity calls for reference to the positions of agents in the EU structure.
In order to act and speak at the international level, a complex system has been
established. Rosamond (2005) offers two different reasons for explaining the
inherently plural nature of this system. First, the ‘fragmented nature of agency at
the European level’ (White 1999: 48) enables different national and institutional
actors to act and speak on behalf of the EU. Second, the changing attribution of
competences creates a plurality of processes that contributes to shaping the EU’s
external action. Accordingly, at the executive level the management of foreign
policy issues is entrusted to four sets of actors who intervene in the creation of
foreign policy measures.
The division of competences defines the roles of all actors and the scope of their
interventions throughout the policy process. Two main policy methods converge in
the making of foreign policies: for so-called ‘high politics’, the prevalent method
is intergovernmental; for ‘low politics’ it is Community-based. The Lisbon treaty,
therefore, maintained the approach ‘to streamline foreign policy by combining
external action across the pillar system of divergent competences created by the
Maastricht Treaty’ (Laatikainen 2010: 476). In turn, a dynamic and fluid network
of informal exchanges cuts across and blurs the boundaries of both competences
and the attribution of competences.
For each set of competences, the EU relies on different individual national or

institutional executive agents to produce foreign policy statements. In turn, even
when agreeing on principles for action, the EU does not necessarily speak with
one voice, but through several voices that sing the same tune. Table I.1 below
summarises these institutional arrangements. In addition to these, other EU actors
can speak on behalf of the EU in more specific contexts. For instance, the President
of the Central European Bank or the President of the Eurogroup may explain the
EU position in multilateral forums such as the International Monetary Fund, the
G8 or the G20. We also acknowledge the growing institutional importance of both
the European Parliament and the intervention of the European Court of Justice
(Hillion 2009; Jørgensen and Wessel 2011) in shaping the EU’s international
discourse. However, due to their relative limitations, this introduction does not
locate these actors in the proposed grid.
Table I.1 Actors, competences and ability to speak at the international

level
Executive actors
converging in the
process of foreign Attributions of
policy-making competences Actors entitled to speak
The President of the European
Ultimate decision-makers, Council speaks in the name of
The Councils intervening in all EU the EU. The rotating Presidency
measures or other member states (MS) can
also speak on behalf of the EU
Power of initiative, policy
The President of the EU
formulation and policy
Commission and different
The Commission implementation of common
Commissioners speak in their
measures in first pillar and
areas of competence
mixed competences
High Representative-
Vice President of the
Commission (HR/ Power of initiative, policy The HR speaks in Common
VP); assisted by the formulation in second pillar Foreign and Security Policy
European External competences (CFSP)
Action Service
(EEAS)
MS’ representatives in their own
Still competences
capacity, regardless of
The Member States of exclusive pertinence
the formal attribution
of the MS
of competences
Note: This chapter refers to the old Maastricht terminology based on pillars to make sense
of the attribution of competences at the EU level. It is, indeed, argued that despite the
rhetoric of de-pillarisation, a real de-pillarisation did not occur for foreign and external
policies (Carta 2011).
Introduction 13
Even in this simplified grid, ‘the projection of the EU to the outside [remains]
as complex as the variegation that characterises its internal governance’
(Rosamond 2005: 465). Different procedures, individual actors, venues, informal
and formal codes of conduct inform discursive interactions. Instead of simplifying
the institutional structure, this overall reorganisation crowded even further the
‘leadership table’ (Nugent and Rhinard 2011: 13).
In discourse analysis terms, this network of relations represents the semantic
field where a given discourse is articulated and produces effects (Keeley 1990:
96). This disaggregated collective structure defines the modalities of articulating
foreign policy discourse within the EU. How do different actors interact in the
foreign policy-making environment? How do they tune the EU international voice?
Simplifying the constructivist perspective, any discourse has to be considered
as legitimate by the in-group, that is it has to provide the basis for a reasoned
consensus (Risse 2000) on moral, legal or ideological grounds (Breeze 2012).
Interactions between national and institutional actors within the EU thus define
the borders of legitimate discourses, and in-group discursive articulations concur
to fix meanings by means of ‘sociocultural conceptualisations’ (Silverstein 2004,
in Reyes 2011). In this perspective, socialisation and exposure to common norms
make it impossible not to engage with the rules and principles that characterise a
given regime. As with the meaning of membership, however, shared norms and
collective action do not rely on authoritative interpretation, and are constantly
collectively established (Kratochwil 1988: 276). This consideration leads us to the
possibility that in the act of interpretation, other (competing) principles converge
and co-constitute the discursive environment, thereby contributing to the framing
of common discourse.
From a Foucauldian perspective, members of a community are not driven by a
single logic. Contestation and competition characterise the breeding ground upon
which a common discourse is constituted. Any shared discourse embodies both
instances of convergence and competition over the framing of common meanings.
Hence, it is the EU discursive environment that defines the social context in which
a common discourse is articulated. As Diez (in this volume) posits, discursive
practices within the EU serve both ‘enabling’ and ‘disabling’ discourses, by
defining not only the nature of discourses but also the limits of the discursive
fields. This continuous process of contestation and enabling and disabling
meanings contributes to constructing the European identity and its foreign policy.
In a constant struggle over meanings, several discursive strategies ‘over naming
and evaluating things; applicable arguments and standards of judgements; and
over objectives and mechanisms’ coexist (Keeley 1990: 97).
The discourse that prevails originates from dynamic interactions, led by
differing logics. As such, contingent policy outcomes will not necessarily
coherently reflect the original intentions of actors. Power relations are therefore
mediated by the social structure in which discursive practices occur, and are
reflected in ‘the temporary hegemony of a particular political discourse’ (Larsen
1997: 22). Thus, seen through the lens of different discourse analysis perspectives,
a different blend of material and ideational discursive patterns can be identified.

On the one hand, different actors obey a shared set of rules (Searle 1996 [1969])
and principles that define the borders of what is considered socially acceptable
and legitimate. On the other hand, actors enact different discursive strategies in
different contexts to pursue their goals and adapt to the goals of other actors. In
this regard, different discourse analyses complement each other in depicting both
the main features of the EU discursive field and contiguous discursive practices.
Beyond the policy-making discursive field, a wider semantic field, where
discourses over European governance are articulated, includes the member
states’ polities. Accordingly, as Diez has argued, the structure of EU discourse is

inherently layered, consisting of three layers: ‘the “state-nation core concept”, the
“relational position vis-à-vis Europe” and the question of “what kind of Europe is
promoted”’ (2001: 11). Following the layered structure of the EU discourse, the
focus of discourse analysis approaches with regard to European integration varies
widely. Poststructuralist contributions (Larsen 1997; Hansen 2006) have tended to
focus their attention on selected EU member states’ discourses on foreign policy;
CDA have tended to focus on the EU institutional discourses on given policy fields
(see Senem Aydın-Düzgit in this volume); and DI and constructivist approaches
traditionally have had a swinging focus on both. For instance, DI has focused on the
coordinative dimensions of discourses to depict the interactions between different
levels of the EU multilevel foreign policy environment, whereas the member
states are significantly constrained by the domestic dynamics of both interactive
and communicative practices (see Rayroux and Schmidt in this volume).
As Shepherd notes, the ‘ways in which institutions are sites of discursive power
and both product/productive of particular discourses’ in turn ‘constitute particular
horizons of possibilities’ (2008: 385). Since the EU is widely considered a sui
generis engine composed of multifaceted identities (Manners and Whitman 2003),
is there any specific discourse that these interactions produce in terms of foreign
policy discourse? From the point of view of normative theory, there are at least
two important related questions. On the one hand, there is the question of how to
‘reconcile unity and diversity’; on the other, there is a problem of ‘dual ontology’,
i.e., ‘the need to theorise in a way that models appropriately the moral standing
of both individuals and states in relation to each other as well as in relation to the
supranational level’ (Dobson 2006: 515).
Drawing on Duchêne’s notion of the EU as a ‘civilian power’ (1972) and
on Manners’ seminal article on the EU as a ‘normative power’ (2002), a vast
body of literature has analysed the putative moral distinctiveness of the EU as
an international actor. By relying on a conception of power based on ideational
factors, Manners claims that the EU progressively developed the ability to ‘redefine
what can be normal in international relations’ (2002: 253). Yet, other authors have
contended that the EU tends to act as a pragmatic power: it mixes in a ‘flexible,
prudent, sometimes innovative, sometimes opportunist’ way (Wood 2011: 244),
‘instrumentalist security-oriented dynamics … within the parameters set by norms
defining the EU’s identity’ (Youngs 2004: 415). Simón (2012), for instance, argues
Introduction 15
that the EU’s emphasis on effective multilateralism and ‘soft crisis management’
may indeed have been strategically informed. In the 2000s, this emphasis was
useful to highlight Europe’s contrast with a markedly unilateral and militaristic
US administration that was met with a strong feeling of public rejection across
Europe and throughout the world. As Carta in this volume suggests, the analysis
of discursive practices can only convey differentiated patterns of foreign policy
discourses, articulated through a variety of strategies. Different discursive patterns
range from normative-based statements based on the values inherent in interstate
institutionally disciplined foreign policy practices, to an inherently colonising
discourse based on the presumed superiority of the EU, up to strategically oriented
foreign policy formulation.
Structure of the Book
The contributions gathered in this volume importantly draw attention to both the
diversity in the making of the EU’s international discourses and the diversity of
theoretical lenses adopted to make sense of it.
The contribution of Thomas Diez sets the scene for the section on
poststructuralist approaches. Drawing from previous works (1999), Diez’s
contribution posits that discourse analysis can enrich the analysis of European
integration in three complementary ways: an ‘Austinian’ move, which focuses
on speech acts; a ‘Foucauldian’ move, which focuses on the construction of
meanings; and a ‘Derridean’ move, which highlights the centrality of differences
in the process of meaning-construction. By crucially referring to the concept of
discursive struggles, he highlights both the ‘enabling’ and the ‘disabling’ functions
of discourse articulations. This tenet sheds light on the twin processes of the
marginalisation of certain discourses and the prevalence of others.
Henrik Larsen focuses on discursive articulations of the national ‘we’ at the
EU level. He identifies concomitant ways in which member states articulate their
‘national we’ with the EU in their foreign policy practices. Drawing from Foucault’s
and Laclau and Mouffe’s theorisations, Larsen elaborates on four different
articulations of member-state identities with the EU and offers an empirical analysis
that follows these articulations across policy areas and geographical areas. Larsen
finds that the way in which the Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs co-articulates
its national ‘we’ with the EU follows a mixed pattern, which generally highlights
an instrumental value of the EU for Denmark.
Beste Isleyen applies a poststructuralist discourse analytical approach to
examine the broadening of co-operation between the EU member states in counter-
terrorism governance. She argues that governance is discursively constructed
through the production of particular understandings as regards what terrorism is
and how the EU’s approach to terrorism should develop. Her analysis illustrates
that representing terrorism as a threat to the EU’s internal security has opened up
possibilities for the EU to develop a ‘protective’ anti-terror approach from 2003
onwards. This approach hinges upon the expansion of police and judicial policies
and the prioritisation of activities focusing on the borders, transport and critical
infrastructure. The evolution of the protective strategy has been in parallel with the
emergence of particular subjects, objects, levels and instruments as core elements
of EU governing.
The contribution of Knud Erik Jørgensen opens the section on constructivist
approaches. Jørgensen focuses his attention on the EEAS and highlights the ways
in which the EU level interacts with the member states’ national constituencies.
The distinction between the general public, the attentive public and the policy
opinion elite (Almond 1960) guides Jørgensen in introducing the wider European
context in which interaction between EU POE and national attentive publics occur.
His analysis highlights two central points: on the one hand, POE communicates
with the attentive public by means of abstract concepts, symbols and principles.
On the other, public philosophies conveyed in POE communication strategies tend
not to focus on foreign policy and are markedly uninterested in legitimating policy
contents vis-à-vis the EU national constituencies.
De Ville and Orbie consider that the multiplicity of market liberalisms
identified by Rosamond has not deeply destabilised DG Trade discourse. Contrary
to Meunier (2007), who argues that the transition between Pascal Lamy and Peter
Mandelson resulted in a ‘doctrinal shift’, De Ville and Orbie have found that
DG Trade has remained deeply neoliberal over time. For them, changes in DG
Trade discourse are limited to the policy ideas level, leaving the philosophical
core of market liberalism intact. Moreover, the creative adaptation of DG Trade
to the economic crisis helps to understand, according to De Ville and Orbie, ‘the
surprisingly resilient free trade agenda’.
Esther Barbé, Anna Herranz-Surrallés and Michal Natorski focus on a
crucial rhetorical element in the framing of the EU’s international identity:
effective multilateralism. They analyse political speeches on multilateralism
during the period 2004–2011. Drawing on a consistent body of IR literature,
they map the elusive and frequently changing meanings associated with the label
‘multilateralism’, a term that conveys several images of world order and the EU’s
role in it. Reflecting the EU’s multilateral genesis, the EU’s rhetoric taps into
conceptually and normatively conflicting standpoints and related debates. This
plurality of meanings associated with multilateralism also explains difficulties
in translating policies into actual practices. Conflicting discourses range from
descriptions of the EU as a model, as a player or as an instrument of global
governance, inflected on binary oppositions, such as those of Europeanism vs.
Atlanticism or Community Method vs. Intergovernmentalism.
The chapter by Senem Aydın-Düzgit introduces Critical Discourse Analysis
(CDA) contributions. By reviewing poststructuralist and CDA discourse
analysis applications, Aydın-Düzgit offers good insight into discourse analysis
methodologies. While acknowledging a certain tendency to refute methodology
as grounds for discourse analysis, she sheds light on several methodologically
grounded techniques that can inform empirical analysis. In particular, Aydın-
Düzgit’s contribution offers a wide range of methodological guidelines for
applying CDA to the analysis of foreign policy.
Introduction 17
In her contribution, Amelie Kutter reveals that discursive practices associated

with the edification of a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) are
inherently related to polity-building projects. She explores ways in which
multilateral negotiations on the EU constitution were re-contextualised by national
media debates in Poland and France (2002–2004). Once re-contextualised at the
national level, the construction of the EU as a civilising power undergoes several
changes, reflecting intellectual-political camps in the domestic arena. She notes
that, in the context of post-Cold War Europe, the rhetoric of an assertive, global
multilateral actor – somehow endowed with a civilising mission – has often been
associated with a legitimising discourse vis-à-vis the EU polity and with a project
of polity construction. Contrary to the view that EU foreign policy ambiguity

has to be related merely to the lack of strategic and geopolitical vision, Kutter
contends that the construction of the EU as a civilising power was primarily an
inward-looking persuasive strategy related to the experience of the EU’s eastern
expansion in 2004.
Ruth Wodak and Salomi Boukala focus on the recent revival of nationalism,
a complex and context-dependent phenomenon which meshes economic, socio-
political and historical rationales. They analyse debates in the EP in 2008 and
2009 and compare them with simultaneous EU-sceptic positions in Dutch and
British debates. By analysing European and national parliamentary and media
debates, as well as speeches of prominent politicians, they illustrate the huge
tensions and contradictions that characterise current European policies. Wodak
and Boukala retrace different conceptions of European identity, associated
alternatively with exclusive, inclusive and supranationalist tropes. They notice the
impact of contradictory forces in framing discourses about European identity: the
tension between, on the one hand, processes of economic globalisation – which
change the patterns of meaning-making by shaping new space-time structures –
and on the other, processes of social fragmentation, which pave the way for
discourses based on the praise of localism, growing xenophobia, social exclusion
and racism.
Carta examines ways in which individual civil servants of the Commission
and the EEAS frame their discourses on the EU’s international actions and its
underlying core values. By relying on a critical discourse analysis strategy, she
analyses the conceptions of foreign governance options held by foreign policy
actors. The chapter identifies three main patterns of discourse-making and
associates them with metaphors derived from the Western European literature
tradition: two figures taken from Voltaire’s Candide – Candide and Pangloss – and
a character taken from a Mozart opera, Don Giovanni.
Rosamond’s contribution offers a useful conceptualisation of market liberal
discourse using the debate over ‘normative power Europe’ as an entry point. In
doing so, Rosamond introduces several notions that are used by other contributors,
such as the false dichotomy between strategic and normative behaviour, the
interaction between background and foreground ideas, and the simultaneous
complementarity and contradiction among liberal discourses.
Antoine Rayroux adopts the concept of constructive ambiguity to explain

national French and Irish approaches to CSDP. He contends that rationalist
explanations have so far failed to depict the cognitive and normative components
of ambiguity in the construction of the EU as a political entity. Relying on
Schmidt’s DI, Rayroux’s analysis shows how different institutional settings
contribute to shaping national discourses on Common Security and Defence Policy
in both France and Ireland. He analyses a plethora of different actors’ statements
by showing how different voices shape and constrain the final national position.
He highlights that constructive ambiguity allows government representatives to
reduce conflicts in the domestic context and project CSDP as a natural continuation
of national preferences.
Schmidt’s contribution looks at discursive interactions precisely when
political accountability is blurred by institutional complexity and overlaps among
distinct forums. Schmidt studies discursive interactions about – and during – the
European crisis, taking into account the agency of a wider diversity of actors
than previous contributions. This agency includes national authorities, multiple
European institutions, private stakeholders, policy experts and the media.
Although her representation of their discursive interactions is made clear thanks
to her distinctions between types of arguments, levels of generality and discursive
spheres, policymakers involved in the process seem to have lost control over their
communicative discourse, to which political and economic actors react differently.
Unfortunately for policymakers, they cannot distinguish their discourse directed
to the market and to the people in the same way that they differentiate their
coordinative and communicative discourse. Policymakers can communicate with
the market, but can hardly coordinate it.
This brief overview aimed to provide insight into the theoretical endeavour of
the following contributions, while certainly not paying adequate tribute to their
analytical complexity. An attentive reader will find an insightful and eclectic range
of approaches in the following pages.
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Part I
Poststructuralist Approaches

Chapter 1
Speaking Europe, Drawing Boundaries:
Reflections on the Role of Discourse in EU
Foreign Policy and Identity
Thomas Diez
Introduction: Revisiting ‘Speaking Europe’1
The role of discourse in the construction of an EU identity and the legitimisation of

EU policies has become a widespread object of analysis over the past two decades.
It is in fact hard to imagine that when I made a case for bringing together discourse
analysis and European Integration Studies some 15 years ago (Diez 1999), these
were still two fields that did not really talk to each other. What I outlined then was
rather sketchy, suggesting three possible moves in our analysis that clarified the
importance of language in European integration: an ‘Austinian’ move focusing
on speech acts; a ‘Foucauldian’ move steering us away from individual speech
acts to the importance of broader discourses on the construction of meaning; and
a ‘Derridarean’ move alerting us to the importance of ever-changing differences
in this meaning construction. Much of the debate at the time was inward-looking.
Core concerns in the post-Maastricht Treaty era were to do with the features of the
evolving EU governance system and its legitimacy, as well as the old arguments
about contending explanations of the European integration process (see Diez and
Wiener 2009: 6–9).
In the meantime, while discourse analysis has by no means achieved mainstream
status in our analyses of European integration, it is nonetheless fair to say that
there has been a plethora of writings using a discourse analytical approach to
analyse European integration. As one would expect, these writings took different
turns, and thus have raised a number of questions. One of these, which I am less
interested in for the purposes of this chapter, is the question of whether discourse
consists solely of verbal and written utterances, or whether discourse includes all
meaningful practices, from flag raising to hand shaking, from images to silences.
While the exact relationship between the verbal and the non-verbal is still to be
conceptualised, at the same time it is hard to see how a narrow conception of
1 I presented a previous version of this chapter at the workshop ‘Speaking Europe

Abroad: Institutional Cooperation and the Making of EU’s Discourse’, Brussels, 14–15
February 2012. The comments of the workshop participants and organisers, and in particular
Caterina Carta, are gratefully acknowledged.
discourse focusing only on the verbal is tenable, as clearly non-verbal interaction

also produces meaning (Hansen 2006; Williams 2003). This leaves us with two
further questions, which I would like to address in this piece. One is whether
discourse analysis is primarily a critical approach or whether it can be used for
explanatory purposes. The other is whether the role of discourse is to positively
enable particular policies or whether it works through constraining the policies
that can be meaningfully and legitimately pursued.
The latter question is particularly pertinent when analysing EU foreign policy
and the role of the EU in the international realm. Much of the debate in this area has
been on the idea of the EU as a normative power (Manners 2002). And in many of
these writings, there is a constitutionalised set of norms that shapes foreign policy,
or there is a given EU identity that finds its expression in EU external action. Yet
is this really the case? Or is it not at least only one side of the coin?
My argument in this chapter is as follows: first, while I see discourse analysis
primarily as a critical engagement in the sense of problematising prevailing
understandings in politics, this is logically based on the presupposition that
discourse provides the context in which individual policy articulations are set, and
in that sense can contribute to the explanation of policy, although this implies a
relaxation of the definition of explanation away from its narrow causal-analytical,
positivist sense. Second, the way in which discourse informs policy articulations
works both through providing meanings on which one can build, and through
setting the limits of a meaningful and legitimate policy. Both this ‘enabling’ and
‘disabling’ of articulations are set in a continuous political struggle, which in turn
links the critical to the ‘explanatory’ purpose of discourse analysis. Third, these
issues play a core role in the analysis of EU external and foreign policy. This is
partly the case because the poststructuralist argument that discourse constructs
meaning through difference, and therefore through setting limits, is at the heart
of analysing the role of foreign policy in identity construction, and therefore at
the heart of analysing the interconnections between EU foreign policy and an
emerging EU identity.
Discursive Struggles
The concept of ‘discursive struggles’, which is core to my argument, emphasises

the argument that meaning does not simply exist as a given, but that it has to be
fought over and negotiated – there is a struggle over meaning: a struggle that takes
place between discourses that construct and delineate meanings – for instance of
what European identity is or where its boundaries lie – in different ways. This
is different from a conception of discourse that focuses on coordination and
communication, as for instance in the work of Vivien Schmidt (this volume). I will
not dispute that actors can use discursive practices for coordinative purposes or to
communicate policies in order to legitimise them. Yet I do claim that underneath
these functions, there is a more fundamental and continuous struggle over meaning,
Speaking Europe, Drawing Boundaries 29
for instance of the notion of ‘liberalism’ as part of a normative European external

and foreign policy (see Rosamond, this volume, who discusses this example).
I understand ‘struggle’ in this context to operate on three levels: on the level of
the individual discourse participants, they are engaged in an articulatory struggle
in which they have to negotiate the competing demands arising out of complex
discursive contexts in order to provide themselves with a reasonably (but never
fully) coherent set of meanings. On the level of discursive positions, collective
actors articulating their views from these positions are engaged in a struggle with
other positions, sometimes compatible, sometimes competing, and by no means
necessarily in line with the positions of ‘executive actors’ (Carta and Morin in this
volume). On the level of the overall discourse, the picture is one of competing
discursive positions that are not only actively pursued by collective actors, but also
shape the latter’s identities.
Discourse is therefore not the same as structure, as I will discuss at greater length
in the next section. Instead, it both provides a constitutive context for political
articulations (leading to the question of how this context works in constituting
meaningful practices) and consists of articulatory practices that re-produce but also
reshape this context (leading to the question of how the struggles in the process
of this reproduction have an impact on the overall discourse). The literature that
has analysed EU foreign policy discourse from a discursive perspective so far
has in the main not paid sufficient attention to the fact that discursive contexts
work through the setting of limits to what is considered legitimate and practicable.
Thus, the struggles taking place on the three levels identified above are largely
focused on re-setting these limits, although at the same time, these struggles take
place within a terrain that is itself bounded by previous articulations and the (often
institutionalised) results of previous struggles.
In unfolding this argument, in the next section, I will provide a brief and
condensed review of the literature on discourse and foreign policy, especially
European foreign policy, and establish the different strands within this literature,
elaborating on the questions about the purpose of discourse analysis and the
function of discourse. I will then zoom in on the argument about the delimiting
effects of discourse, before using the debate about Normative Power Europe as an
illustration of my argument.
Discourse and Foreign Policy
Discourse analysis, if it is more than simply a methodological tool, has its roots
in poststructuralism (see also Aydın-Düzgit in this volume, engaging with Critical
Discourse Analysis as an alternative). As such, it is in the first place a critical
theory. Its aim is to problematise what is usually seen as given; to contest that
which is uncontested; to interrogate the familiar. Yet when it comes to the analysis
of foreign policy, discourse analysis has been used not only as a critical theory; it
has also been used in order to explain, or at least in order to better understand how
certain foreign policies have come about. The aims of critique and explanation
do not need to be mutually exclusive, and in fact critical discourse analysts have
implicitly or explicitly included an explanatory element in their analysis. Some
have even gone so far as to outline a discursive-analytical framework (e.g., Wæver
2002). Yet it seems to me that in these cases, the concept of explanation needs
to be spelled out and qualified. Generally speaking, the thrust of the argument
differs between critical and explanatory renditions of discourse analysis, broadly
along the continuum between a more traditional social constructivist and a more
poststructuralist approach (Christiansen et al. 1999).
For the social constructivist, discourse is important because it conveys

norms and identities that shape foreign policy directly through the logic of
appropriateness or through the shaping of interests that in turn shape foreign
policy. This makes discourse and the norms contained within discourse an
independent variable explaining – at least in parts – (foreign) policy outcomes
(Schmidt 2010). Actors who advocate norms play an important role in this strand
of the literature. These may be individual actors or groups who act as ‘norm
entrepreneurs’ and push a particular discourse, or it may be sets of actors such
as advocacy coalitions who promote norms (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Klotz
2002).
There is a curious resemblance between such social constructivist work and
some of the studies done from a discourse analytical framework in line with
the Essex School, following the work of Ernesto Laclau. While theoretically
moving away from subjects to discursively framed subject positions from which
articulations are performed, scholars in this tradition have used the concept of
‘discursive coalitions’ to capture the struggles between different social groups
(or, in my parlance, discursive positions). In relation to EU foreign policy, James
Rogers (2009) for instance has used this idea to show how the EU as a ‘global
power’ is winning over the concept of the EU as a ‘civilian’ or ‘normative power’.
He links this change to the advocacy of ‘euro-strategists … actively pushing for
a greater European power role’ (Rogers 2009: 854), and his ‘discourse coalitions’
consist of a variety of actors pushing for either one of the two conceptions of
the EU’s foreign policy role. Thus, while coming to the analysis from a critical
perspective in order to problematise the present, the logic of the argumentation
that Rogers pursues is not that different from the one that we find in more social
constructivist, explanatory work.
This is in line with the general research programme of the Essex School as set
out by David Howarth et al. While on the one hand seeing discourse analysis as an
approach that ‘investigates the way in which social practices articulate and contest
the discourses that constitute social reality’ (Howarth and Stavrakakis 2000: 3),
on the other hand the authors do attempt to explain political outcomes, although
given the inseparability of analyst and discourse, this can only be done through
‘a weakening of the once sacrosanct distinction between objective scientific
explanations and subjective hermeneutical descriptions and understandings’
(Howarth and Stavrakakis 2000: 6).
While for the Essex School, the discursive struggles between social actors –
operating on what I have identified as the second level of discursive struggles –
are at the heart of the explanation as well as the problematisation of policies,
Ole Wæver and colleagues have formulated a discourse theory of foreign policy
that is rooted in a sedimented discursive structure. Wæver (1998, 2002; see also
Larsen 1997) is less interested in EU foreign policy than in the European policies
of member states, but nonetheless his work warrants a closer look. His main idea
is that national discourses are built on a small number of core concepts, central
among which are ‘nation’ and ‘state’, with limited variation in their expressions.
This leads to the argument that within a national discourse, the meaning of ‘nation’
and ‘state’ are fixed in such a way that they make only certain articulations of
Europe meaningful and legitimate, and thus can be seen as explaining traditions
of European policies, for instance in the comparison between France, Germany
and the United Kingdom. Wæver thus operates without recourse to specific actors;
his explanation relies on the structure that organises the discourse, or what I have
identified as the third level of discursive struggles. While he acknowledges – along
the lines of my argument in this chapter – that discourses ‘delimit what can be said
and what not’ (Wæver 2002: 29), he nonetheless pursues an analysis focused on
the structural influence of discourse on policy where meaning is drawn positively
by one layer of discourse from another.
In the present context, I am not interested in a general critique of these variants
of the explanatory use of discourse analysis. Instead, I want to focus on two
characteristics that all of them share. Firstly, they see their work as explanatory,
but explanation in this context must be seen as constitutive rather than causal.
Secondly, the constitutive effects of discourse in these works are ‘positive’ in the
sense that they provide substantive meaning that enables particular policies.
As far as the status of explanation is concerned, the Copenhagen variant of
discourse analysis seems to have the biggest problems. Particularly problematic
is that the structure of the discourse is derived from the policy articulations that
the structure later is supposed to explain. In other words, the model is tautological
if not in theory then at least in its methodological consequences. The fact that
articulations are the effect of national discursive structures disregards transnational
discourses as much as discursive struggles in the production of meaning, which
are at the heart of the Essex School approach. Wæver’s tree model of ‘explaining
foreign policy by decoding discourses’ (Wæver 1998) therefore relies on a widened
notion of explanation in line with Critical Realism (see Kurki 2010), and unduly
privileges structure over agency.
The other approaches focus on agency and process. Yet their ‘explanation’
either falls short of being satisfying in that the conditions under which norm
entrepreneurs or advocacy coalitions are able to successfully push their norms
must remain vague, or, as in the case of Rogers (2009), it simply traces the process
of discursive change and does not actually explain why the process came about.
These problems are hardly surprising. As I have already argued in the
introductory section on discursive struggles, discourse has two sides; it has
structural qualities that inform articulations, and it relies on articulations to

reproduce its structures in constant struggles over meaning which can only be
temporarily fixed (Laclau and Mouffe 1985). Wæver ignores the latter, Rogers
the former. Furthermore, the discursive contexts in which an articulation is made
are multiple, and the articulation of a core concept such as ‘Europe’ in turn is
an attempt to negotiate and relate these different contexts to each other and thus
stabilise their meaning (Diez 2001). We therefore cannot draw causal inferences
from articulation to structure, as ultimately they both depend on each other; thus
the tautology noted above. And we cannot presume a causal linkage between
discursive contexts and the success of norm entrepreneurs, as this ignores the
constant struggles over the production of meaning. The relationship between
discourse, if by discourse we mean the context in which an articulation occurs,
and policy articulation, is therefore at best a mutually constitutive one. It is thus
appropriate to say that discourses inform articulations, and that articulations
reproduce discourses; but this is not a causal relationship in the positivist sense.
Yet by focusing on discursive struggles, I suggest that we bring the critical
purpose of discourse analysis back into focus. It is thus, in the classic sense of a
Foucauldian genealogy, the main objective of the discourse analyst not to explain
EU foreign policy, but to show how central concepts used in EU foreign policy
are actually contested, how the norms reinscribed through foreign policy are the
effect of hegemonic practices, and how foreign policy itself is a practice that takes
part in discursive struggles, in particular those over identity (Campbell 1998).
Such an approach may well help us to better understand how and on which basis
specific policies came to be adopted, but it does not resemble an explanation in the
positivist meaning of the term.
The explanatory logic that the approaches covered so far share brings out the
second problem identified above. Because they see policy as a consequence of
norms contained in a discursive structure or promoted by norm entrepreneurs
or discourse coalitions, they draw a positive line between norms/discourse and
policy. In the following section, I turn to this problem and suggest that we ought
to at least supplement such a conception with an understanding of discourse as
delimiting.
The Boundary-Setting Function of Discourses
To recognise the importance of discourse as a delimiting force, it is useful to

reconsider what I once called the ‘Derridarean move’ in discourse analysis (Diez
1999: 606). This move implied two steps: firstly, that meaning is produced through
difference; secondly, that meaning-production, while not being entirely volatile,
takes place in a fluid process.
On the issue of constructing meaning through difference, the argument follows
Saussure in stating that words do not carry any inherent meaning but gain their
meaning through being differentiated from other words. This basic insight has been
used in foreign policy analysis to draw attention to the discursive co-construction

of ‘anarchy’ and ‘sovereignty’ (Ashley 1988), and in particular the construction of
identity through foreign policy (Campbell 1998). In these works, foreign policy
does not start from a given subject of the state, but rather (re)constructs the identity
of the state through representing something or someone else as ‘foreign’ and
thereby also setting out what counts as ‘not foreign’, or in other words setting out
the attributes of the ‘self’.
In this conception, the individual act of foreign policy becomes an instance of
the articulation of the identities of self and other. Such an articulation is of course
set in a broader discursive context so that in order to be meaningful itself, it needs

to draw on the discursive tropes in concrete historical and societal circumstances.
This is what the explanatory approaches put at the centre of their analysis. In fact,
the conception of Saussure also privileged such contexts as structures to explain
why national languages work – they do so because every word has its ‘proper’
place in this structure of differences. Yet the fact that we often do not understand
each other shows that the differences that produce meanings are not fixed, but that
they change over time, and they do so through the practices of articulation that
constantly establish new meaning, not least because they add new contexts to the
already existing ones.
The effect is that of the constant presence of continuities and often only
marginal and incremental changes. These changes tend to become visible only
retrospectively, when they have taken on sufficient weight, and they tend to be
contested. This contest is the struggle over meaning that is at the heart of politics
for many discourse analysts (Connolly 1983; Laclau and Mouffe 1985). Especially
social and political core concepts – and it is these that are relevant to the present
discussion – tend to be ‘essentially contested’ precisely because they take on
the function of a nodal point, drawing different meanings together and therefore
stabilising broader conceptions of society (Diez 2001). As a consequence, it is
difficult to establish a hegemonic understanding such that one can indeed consider
their meaning to be fixed – as Laclau and Mouffe (1985) have pointed out, such a
fixation can only ever be temporary, until new contestations come to the fore and
gain importance.
In this process of meaning production, discourse therefore works as delimiting
on two levels. On a micro level, discourse provides meaning through the opening
of differences, i.e., by drawing boundaries between two concepts. Thus, meaning
production through the use of metaphors as explored by Caterina Carta in this
volume only works if the difference relationships of the metaphor are always
present in the articulation of the metaphor itself. On a macro level, the possible
changes to the construction of a particular concept are limited by discourse, in
particular if changes are articulated in a period of relative fixation. In this latter
sense, then, discourse as a context sets the boundaries of what can be legitimately
articulated, but in contrast to the ‘positive’ impact on the content of concepts, the
focus here is not on tracing discourse back to core statements, but rather on the
limits of what can be said. In turn, it is only through this delimitation, through
the marking of a boundary beyond which a statement becomes unacceptable (or

even unrecognisable) that the core concept at the heart of the statement acquires
meaning.
The consequences for my theorisation of the workings of discourse are twofold.
Firstly, rather than focusing solely on the substantive meanings generated in
discourse and informing policies, we ought to take into consideration the ways in
which discourse inscribes the boundaries of what can be articulated. Secondly, this
delimitation of what can be articulated itself needs to be constantly rearticulated,
which brings into focus the struggles over setting the limits to discourse. It is only
through such delimitation that a substantive fixation of meaning becomes possible.

Thus, even if we assume that there are core meanings in society that seem fixed,
their stability relies on the constant rearticulation of their boundaries.
Following the lead of poststructuralist work on the construction of political
identities, foreign policy is central to the delimitation of national identities or
their equivalents. If we study foreign policy discourses, we ought to therefore
ask: how does foreign policy set the limits of national, or for that matter EU
identity? This, incidentally, is not how this question is commonly phrased, as even
in Campbell (1998) and others, foreign policy leads to a substantive definition of
national identity rather than to its delimitation. Furthermore, we need to analyse
how foreign policy statements are themselves governed by limitations, how their
borders are constantly probed, how this probing leads to contestation, and how
through this contestation the old limits are both reproduced and transformed.
In such an approach, the critical purpose of discourse analysis finds its
expression in the focus on discursive struggles and the consequent interrogation
of seemingly accepted meanings when it comes to its normative implications.
However, the critical engagement with foreign policy discourses is in itself
ambivalent. On the one hand, focusing our attention on contestations and therefore
on marginalised discourses may serve to bring these discourses ‘back in from the
cold’ and free us from the fixations that would otherwise dominate our politics
and societies. On the other hand, however, discursive constructions are not better
from a normative point of view simply because they are marginalised. In fact,
limitations may be a good thing if they prevent harm from being done and if we
accept that ‘all human beings have a prima facie moral obligation not to harm each
other’ (Linklater 2006: 343).
The central ethical question implied in the analysis of discursive delimitations
is therefore not per se about the expansion of discursive space. Rather, we ought to
support those who probe the boundaries because discursive limits have been drawn
too narrowly or unjustly; and we ought to fight those who probe the boundaries in
order to do harm to others. From a critical perspective, the latter however requires
us to constantly interrogate the boundaries that we seek to defend so that we do
not simply accept them because they seem to be fixed and fall into the trap of
self-righteousness. And in the end, there is no clear-cut objective way of deciding
which boundaries ought to be defended – this is a problem that throws us back
onto the issue of delimiting discourses. The ‘harm principle’ may constitute such
a limit, but apart from setting up an ethos with which to approach this question,
its own boundaries are themselves contested. Recognising this problem however
does not need to lead to resignation. From the argument I have outlined, there
follows an obligation to interrogate the ways in which discursive articulations set
limits and to normatively evaluate the probing of these limits. That the norms on
which our evaluations are based may not be universally accepted does not mean
that we cannot perform such an evaluation (see also the discussion in Linklater
2005), as long as we are cognisant of at least two requirements: that we constantly
question our own normative assumptions; and that we focus on the limits set by
the rather basic harm principle (or rather our own understanding of it).
On this basis, let me illustrate my argument by looking at a particular instance

of ‘speaking Europe abroad’, the Normative Power Europe discourse.
The Normative Power Europe Discourse
The concept of Normative Power Europe was coined by Ian Manners in a

prizewinning article published in 2002. The article can in itself be seen as the
rearticulation of the international role of the European Union, reshaping two
existing discursive strands. The first one emerged in the early 1970s and saw the
then European Community (EC) as a ‘civilian power’, a concept which gained its
content through a differentiation of the EC from the then superpowers of the United
States and the Soviet Union, against which the EC was marked by ‘amilitary values’
(Duchêne 1973: 19). The second relevant discourse was that of the ‘actorness’ of
the EU, which centred on the question of whether the EU constituted a foreign
policy actor in its own right in light of the intergovernmental structure of the
Common Foreign and Security Policy, and the fact that member states continued to
pursue their own foreign policy (e.g., Manners and Whitman 1998).
Manners’ argument was that the international role of the EU was not only
characterised by its actorness, but also its mere presence, and that its distinctiveness
lay not merely in its use of civilian means to pursue its interests in foreign policy,
but in that its main foreign policy tool was the shaping of what counts as ‘normal’
in world politics (Manners 2002: 239). While I think Manners’ distinction between
civilian and normative power does not fully recognise the normative element in
Duchêne’s writing (see Diez 2005: 617–18; but also Diez and Manners 2007),
the point here is that his article has successfully reconstructed the meaning of EU
foreign policy and has set a new point of reference. In this point of reference, the
EU pursues the spread of its norms even if these contradict economic interests;
it works towards a civilisation of international politics; and it binds itself to
international norms, especially the UN Charter; yet it may well use military force
if this is democratically legitimised and necessary to enforce norms.
The debate that ensued has largely focused on the question of whether the
EU in its foreign policy does indeed behave according to the norms described by
Manners as being central to its existence as a normative power (see the overview
in Whitman 2011). In what follows, I am not interested in this particular debate.
For one, it seems pretty clear that while the EU does operate in world politics in a
way that is different from traditional great powers, at the same time it is also fair to
say that its own norms are often violated by actors within the EU, be it in regard to
arms trade exports (Erickson 2013) or the disregard of human rights when it comes
to strong economic interests (Balducci 2010; Youngs 2004). Alternatively, we
often cannot empirically distinguish between EU norms and interests, as they go
hand in hand, for instance in the promotion of particular environmental standards
(Falkner 2007). This raises the question of why Manners’ article has had such an
impact when its arguments are rather problematic if empirically scrutinised. My
hunch, following the argumentative line of this chapter, is that we ought to read
the piece first and foremost as a foreign policy articulation that was able to draw
links to existing discourses about the international role of the EU and that plays a
role in the crafting of an EU identity.
Yet secondly, and more importantly for the purposes of this chapter, the
debate about whether the EU acts or does not act according to the standards of a
normative power seems to miss the ambivalent epistemological status of Manners’
piece. On closer inspection, Manners uses the normative power argument in three
different ways: as a description of what the EU is (this is what the bulk of the
literature has taken up), as a causal argument in the sense that the EU pursues a
particular foreign policy because of internally constitutionalised norms (following
the social constructivist understanding of the role of norms and discourse), and
as a normative argument about what the EU ought to be. Thus, Manners himself
notes that his argument has an ‘ontological’, a ‘positivist’ and a ‘normative
quality’, although he uses the second term in a slightly different sense than I do
here (Manners 2002: 252).
The explanatory function of Manners’ argument is in line with the discursive
explanations of foreign policy noted above: there are, he claims, central norms
inherent to the EU constitution and identity, and these do cause the EU to act in
particular ways. My interest in this section however is with the apparent tension
between the other two aspects of the argument; namely that the EU at the same
time is and ought to be a normative power. Such an argument only makes sense
if one recognises that normative power is in fact an ideal which is on the one
hand partly realised yet on the other hand constitutes a normative horizon which
one needs to strive for but which may never be fully achieved. In fact, Manners
operates here not unlike the Habermasian discourse ethics, in which the ideal
speech situation, freed of domination, serves both as an ideal and the factual yet
counterfactual assumption we make whenever we engage in serious conversations
(Habermas 2005: 118). Thus, Manners sets out the normative aim of normative
power Europe on the basis of arguing that there is in fact a common understanding
that this is the nature of the EU. Yet at the same time he only constructs this nature,
and he does so by opening up the classic difference with the United States by
illustrating his argument with the engagement of the EU in favour of the abolition
of the death penalty, and by pointing to the disputes with the US on this particular
issue (Manners 2002: 247–8).
How does the concept of normative power now work in the discourse? The
plethora of works trying to link EU policies to particular norms show that one
line of argument tries to draw positive linkages between norms and policies. Yet
my claim in this chapter is that such an undertaking only makes sense through the
probing of the boundaries of the norms implied, as well as of what constitutes a
normative power. Thus, the questions of whether normative power excludes the
possibilities of military engagement and if not, under which conditions military
forces can be legitimately used (Sjursen 2006; Wagner 2006) or whether the
simultaneous pursuit of interests contradicts normative power (Youngs 2004;
Falkner 2007) are questions that engage with the limitation of normative power
to set out what kind of political decisions are defensible and which ones are
not. Likewise, the pursuit of competing liberalisms in EU foreign policy (see
Rosamond, this volume) is a struggle not only about the pursuit of different
basic worldviews, but at least also a struggle about the boundaries of the EU as a
promoter of liberalism: where are the limits of market forces, where are the limits
of interventions in the name of peace, and where are the limits of cosmopolitan
duties, to follow Ben Rosamond’s threefold distinction (Rosamond, this volume).
Yet such delimitations are not drawn on the basis of an already existing core of
normative power; it is rather that both these academic works and the ‘liberal’ EU
policies are to be seen as articulations of the boundaries of normative power by
drawing distinctions between that which is acceptable and that which is not.
The importance of the Normative Power Europe discourse thus lies as much
in advocating the pursuit of particular norms as it does in providing the basis on
which the boundaries of an EU foreign policy discourse can be constructed. The
decision of the European Parliament to not extend the fisheries agreement with
Morocco in December 2011 is a case in point. For a long time, the agreement
was a prime example of legal inconsistency as it allowed EU fishermen to utilise
the fishing grounds in front of the coastline of the Western Sahara, while at the
same time the EU did not recognise the authority of Morocco over the Western
Sahara. Thus, the fisheries agreement could be used as an example that the EU
is not acting as a normative power if its interests are at stake. Yet the European
Parliament decision makes explicit reference to the problems of overfishing as
well as to the self-determination rights of the people of the Western Sahara, and so
engages in the normative power discourse to determine that a policy transgressed
the boundaries of this discourse. It is therefore setting the limit of legitimate EU
foreign policy.
It is in such declarations of a policy having crossed the boundary that the
boundaries of what can legitimately be pursued are articulated and that discourse
works as a delimitation. Very similar observations can be made in the debate
over whether Germany is a civilian power or not. Again, the actual content of the
concept is contested, as well as the empirical evidence (consider Maull 2000 and
Risse 2004 against Hellmann 2002). While the argument that the idea of civilian
power informs German foreign policy can clearly be challenged on the evidence,
ranging from breaches of multilateralism in the recognition of Croatia and Slovenia
and in the resistance to the supranationalisation of EU asylum policy to the role

of Germany in the global arms trade, it does make more sense once one considers
how the idea is utilised to delegitimise particular foreign policy articulations, for
instance in the pressure put on former President Horst Köhler when he considered
a role for the army to secure trade paths (he had to resign) or the immense public
debate about the role of the German army in Afghanistan.
I see these articulations as examples of the effect of discourse not as a cause
of but as a barrier to policy. The discursive context from which these articulations
are made on the one hand allows them to be made, and on the other hand means
that they reinscribe the borders of the discourse. The examples also demonstrate
that the discursive struggle over the EU’s global role does not, at least not only,
take place between member states as actors, but involves different EU institutions
as well as debates within societies in member states. Finally, in the normative
power Europe case as much as in the civilian power case, the discourse is about
how to limit harm in international relations. The reinstatement of the borders
through these articulations therefore is not normatively problematic, but in fact
warranted in a critical exercise not so much to problematise these borders, but
to problematise the grounds on which other articulations try to remove them.
Reading the Normative Power Europe argument from this angle therefore rescues
its normative component, which is lost if NPE is used solely as an empirical
category.
Setting the Limits
The starting point of this chapter was that discourse in the analysis of foreign
policy has too often been used as an explanatory variable to account for specific
foreign policy decisions. In doing so, analysts have often aimed at drawing
positive linkages between core concepts central to a deeper discursive structure
and the policy that builds upon them. In contrast, I have focused both on the
critical purpose of discourse analysis and on the function of discourse in setting the
limits of legitimate and meaningful foreign policy. I have argued that the critical
purpose and the delimiting function come together in interrogating the boundaries
of discourse so as to point to marginalised positions, and, more relevant for this
chapter, in interrogating attempts to move the boundaries of discourse beyond the
limitation set by the principle of not to do harm to others.
The debate about Normative Power Europe has served to illustrate the argument.
It provided pointers to what future empirical analysis of EU foreign policy
following my line of argument might look like. My claim is that the normative
power-discourse in the EU, as much as the civilian power-discourse in Germany,
sets the limits of legitimate foreign policy. However, as these illustrations have
shown and as my theoretical considerations have argued, these limits need to be
articulated as part of a struggle about the borders of the discourse. In other words,
setting the limits does not happen by structure as such, but through the enactment
of the limits through a variety of actors in civil society, politics, the media, the arts
and not least academia.
There is therefore a need to focus less on the core norms of the EU and how
they are pursued through EU foreign policy, however worthwhile this may also
be. Instead, we need to recognise that these ‘European’ values and norms are
themselves contested and fraught with tensions (Diez 2012). EU foreign policy
thus can never simply reproduce a previously given set of norms. Instead, it needs
to carve out the space in which the articulations of norms can move. In other
words, it contributes to the construction of the limits of what can be legitimately
said and what not. EU foreign policy is not only the result of a discursive structure
inside the EU, but is part of broader discursive struggles over what the limits of our
‘European-ness’ are. This struggle is of vital importance to the fate of the European
integration project, and as such it needs to be integrated more consistently and
carefully into our analyses.
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Chapter 2
Continuity or Change in National Foreign
Policy Discourses Post-Lisbon?
The Case of Denmark
Henrik Larsen
Introduction
The Lisbon Treaty has brought a number of significant changes in the field of
foreign policy. Most importantly, the role of the national presidencies in the field
of foreign policy has all but ended. The High Representative and the President of
the European Council have assumed the previous representative and executive
roles of the national presidencies. They are supported by a new European External
Action Service which provides stronger administrative support for EU foreign
policy than under the old regime. While the member states are the originators of
these changes, the treaty changes also embed the member states in a new political/
legal context.
Does the new institutional context mark a shift in the way member states
conceive of themselves in the field of foreign policy? On the one hand, new treaty
provisions per se do not lead to a change in the way the member states conceive of
themselves; and state identities often change slowly. On the other hand, significant
treaty changes may contribute to a context where member states see themselves
in a different way. And more importantly, the treaty changes may themselves be
an expression of a shift in the way the states understand themselves. Whatever the
answer, it is bound to be interesting as it may affect the workings of the Lisbon
Treaty – how big a change EU foreign policy can be expected to undergo post-
Lisbon. This chapter looks at whether the discursively constructed state identities
in foreign policy have undergone any change after the entry into force of the
Lisbon Treaty. It does so by examining the case of Denmark.
The political system of the EU and its member states is frequently seen as
post-Westphalian within constructivist-inspired research drawing inspiration from
Ruggie (1993). This is based on the view that political authority and legitimacy
are to be found both at the EU level and the national level with no clear borders
between them. The same can be said about the EU’s foreign policy system more
specifically. The Lisbon Treaty contributes to strengthening the foreign policy
structures at the EU level, i.e., through the new functions mentioned above; thus,
the post-Westphalian character of the system as a ‘multiperspectival’ system
(Ruggie 1993: 173) is bolstered in such a way that both member states and EU
institutions are ascribed political authority and legitimacy in foreign policy.
The broad question raised in this chapter is how the member states conceive of
themselves as foreign policy actors in this situation where they are both politically
embedded in EU foreign policy structures and, in most cases, formally able to act
outside the EU structures in the field of foreign policy. It addresses this broader
question through looking at how we can theoretically conceptualise the discursive
articulations of the national ‘we’ within the EU foreign policy system.
Of the four theoretical approaches to discourse analysis outlined by Carta and
Morin in the introduction of this book, the approach of this chapter is closest to
the poststructuralist category. Unlike the majority of the contributions in this book,
this chapter, like the one by Rayroux, focuses on the discursive articulations at the
national level in the EU. Thus, it focuses on the member states as actors rather than
the institutional EU actors (Carta and Morin, this volume: Table I.1).
The chapter first presents theoretical considerations relating to discursive
articulations of state identity in an EU context. It is suggested that at least five
different articulations of national actorness can be expected. The theoretical
framework outlined is then applied to Denmark before and after the Lisbon Treaty.
Theoretical Considerations1
Based on poststructuralist assumptions, the discursively constructed framework

of meaning within which national foreign policy takes place is seen here as
shaping and constraining national foreign policy. Basic frameworks of meaning
are conceptualised as discourses. The key assumption is that people’s ways of
speaking are organised in discourses which do not just mirror our surroundings,
identities and social relations in a neutral way but play an active role in shaping
and changing them. Discourse is a constitutive force in the construction of the
social world (Jørgensen and Phillips 2002).
This understanding of discourse takes as its point of departure the
poststructuralist Foucauldian understanding of discourse as a limited range of
possible statements promoting a limited range of meanings. According to Foucault,
discourses create the social world by constituting certain forms of knowledge,
identities and social relations. Discourses are socially and culturally specific and
our knowledge, identities and social relations are constructed in discourse and
therefore contingent: they are tied to a particular time and place but could have
been, and can become, different (Foucault 1989 [1972]; Jørgensen and Phillips
2002; Larsen 1997).2
This chapter focuses on the discursive articulations of actorness of the nation-
state both in general terms and in particular policy areas. By ‘actorness’ I mean the
discursive construction of the ‘we’ in a given policy context. This is a different usage
of the term ‘actorness’ from the work of Bretherton and Vogler where actorness
1 This section, to large extent, draws on Larsen (2005).

2 For the advantages of discourse analysis compared with belief system approaches
or phenomenological approaches see Larsen (1997: 20–21).
Continuity or Change in National Foreign Policy Discourses Post-Lisbon? 45
is based on something pre-existing, a presence (Bretherton and Vogler 2006: 33).

In contrast, a discursive conceptualisation of actorness is non-essentialist based
on poststructuralist premises; (state) identity is seen as discursively constructed
(Epstein 2011).
By ‘articulation’ I mean the practice which establishes a relation between
elements (for example signs) in such a way that their identity is changed as a result,
in Laclau and Mouffe’s terms, turning elements into moments. The structured
totality of this is a discourse (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 105). The discourse that
is of interest in this chapter is the discourse on actorness both in general political
terms and in particular policy areas.

One should not take for granted that the ‘we’ of state representatives or state
documents is necessarily articulated as a narrow national ‘we’: while one would
expect states to be articulated as actors in their national foreign policy documents,
actorness may also be articulated with other states or international organisations.
Identities are not fixed once and for all and multiple identities may be articulated in
‘national’ foreign policy. If a particular moment goes from being articulated within
a discourse of national actorness (for example ‘Denmark’, ‘Danish policies’, etc.)
to being articulated with elements such as ‘the EU’, then the moment is placed in a
different context of meaning and given a different identity. Importantly, the interest
in this chapter is the articulations of the ‘we’ with other organisational or national
units. This relatively narrow focus means that this chapter is not looking at the
attributes of the ‘we’ articulated (the adjectives associated with the ‘we’, etc.); it is
only interested in the association articulated with other units, the EU in particular.
The main argument in the chapter is that the articulations of member-state
identity with the EU take at least five forms. Four discursive articulations were
identified in a study of Danish foreign policy and the EU (Larsen 2005). This study
suggested that the way a member state articulates its foreign policy identity in
relation to the EU varies across policy areas. A fifth likely articulation of actorness
arises from studying the national articulations of actorness during the presidencies.
The five national articulations of actorness vis-à-vis the EU are as follows:3
1. National ‘we’ only: ‘member state x (for example Sweden) has acted in the
field of development’.
2. The member state ‘we’ is articulated through its actions in the EU: ‘the
x member state (for example the NL) has through the EU supported the
national reconciliation process in …’.
3. Combination member state + the EU: ‘member state x (for example
Denmark) and the EU have acted in the Russian crisis’.
4. Only ‘the EU’ (the member state disappears as a subject in national
diplomatic contexts): a document from a member state foreign ministry
might state that ‘the EU has condemned the violence in …’ without any
reference to national agency.
3 These categories are not based on the logical possibilities. The analyst may well
empirically identify other articulations or blurrings of actorness (see Larsen 2009).
5. The EU through the member state (the member state expresses itself on
behalf of the EU, implicitly or explicitly): ‘member state x (for example
Denmark) has presented this view on behalf of the EU’.
The individual member states construct their foreign policy identity both in
general terms and in particular policy areas. These articulations have implications
for how to understand the foreign policy of the individual member states in an
EU foreign policy system. There may, then, be differences as to how the post-
Westphalian character is enacted at the member state level – and between areas.
The debate about late sovereign diplomacy in the EU context is often conducted
at a high level of abstraction. The same is the case with the argument that the EU
is a supplement to, or a support for, member states, not a new sovereign subject
superseding them (Wæver 1995). Studying the national articulations of actorness
vis-à-vis the EU in different areas may allow us to nuance this more general
picture – possibly in ways that challenge the post- Westphalian characterisation
more fundamentally.
Studies so far – including my own (before my 2005 book) – have analysed
the basic discursive configurations in relation to states, nations and Europe in
the countries examined and linked these to general foreign policy or to European
policy (see Hansen and Wæver 2002; Larsen 1999; Wæver 1998; Larsen 1997).
This chapter is interested in discourse as a shaping and enabling force also in
specific foreign policy areas.
It could be argued that a poststructuralist text looking at constructions of a
‘we’ should also look at the constructions of ‘they’ or the ‘other’ as part of the
constitution of the ‘we’. However, the chapter does not deal directly with this aspect
because the focus is different: the interest is in constructions of equivalence at the
level of actorness, not difference. It is a focus on the ‘we’ without investigation of
the ‘we’s’ substance. The interest is, then, in the association of the speaking ‘we’
with the EU or others, not in who this ‘we’ is constructed against or the substantial
content of this ‘we’ (for an analysis of the content of the ‘we’ see Larsen 2005).
To the extent that there is a relevant ‘other’ in the analysis presented here, it is
the actors or forums that the policy of the (co-)articulated ‘we’ is directed at – the
actors and forums that the ‘we’ is not articulated with.
The above focus also means that the analysis does not look at the historical or
institutional genealogy of national or EU articulations of actorness in particular
areas (See Larsen 2005 for an empirical analysis of these aspects).
Agency in Danish Foreign Policy vis-à-vis the EU
In this section we will look at how the EU member state Denmark articulated its
relationship with the EU before and after the Lisbon Treaty. One may argue that
Denmark contains some unique features that make it uninteresting as an example
or a case for the EU as a whole. However, in the present EU of 27 members with
very different histories, cultures and sizes, it is difficult to establish what a typical
member state is. While it would certainly be interesting to look at more, or ideally
all, member states there is no reason why Denmark should not be an interesting
case for the pre-/post-Lisbon analysis.
The analysis is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the situation
between the end of the Cold War and the introduction of the Lisbon Treaty in
December 2009. This part presents the general findings in Larsen (2005) and Larsen
(2011), giving illustrative examples. Larsen (2005) analyses in depth (amongst
other things) the Danish articulations of actorness in seven policy areas after the
Cold War: bilateral member state policy, development, anti-terrorism, Africa, the
Balkans, Latin America, trade. The rationale for the choice of these areas is that
they cover the geographical and functional breadth of the policy issues involved in
Danish and EU foreign policy. Both areas inside and outside Europe (two regions)
have been chosen. Trade, security and development are different and important
functional areas both in Danish and EU foreign policy (see Larsen 2005: 9–10 for
an in-depth explanation of the choice of policy areas). The book also sketched out
some preliminary findings in other policy areas of Danish foreign policy (Larsen
2005: Ch. 10). This contributes to a full picture of the articulations of agency in
the areas of Danish foreign policy. Larsen (2011) updates the findings up to 2009.
The source material drawn on in Larsen (2005) and Larsen (2009) is, to a large
extent, official Danish material about the policy area in question. An important
source is the annual article ‘The International Situation and Danish Foreign
Policy 20xx’ by the Permanent Secretary on Danish Foreign Policy, in the Danish
Yearbook of Foreign Policy. The article is a tour de horizon of Danish foreign
policy and its priorities. It is produced by the different departments in the Danish
Foreign Ministry, each of which contributes on their area of responsibility. Rather
than being an expression of the thoughts of the Permanent Secretary, it is thus
a bureaucratic product where changes in language are significant. The source
material also includes other official material from the Danish Foreign Ministry
about Danish foreign policy areas and, to a lesser extent, parliamentary debates
(where this material is quoted directly, it is referred to in the list of literature).
The analysis here looks at the discourses which are dominant within the formal
political/administrative system as found in this material.4 The extensive use of
source material from the Danish Foreign Ministry means that the analysis draws
heavily on an institutional context which can be strongly expected to articulate
Danish agency. While this heavy reliance can be seen as a weakness, it also has
advantages: if we find co-articulations with other countries or organisations here,
it is analytically interesting and noteworthy.
The first part presents results of analyses of instances where the subject-matter
is Danish foreign policy and where expressions of Danish actorness or ‘we’ in some
form would therefore be expected due to the institutional context (material from
the Danish government including the Foreign Ministry or the Danish parliament,
the Folketing).
4 For the reasons for this choice see Larsen (2005: 59) and Larsen (1997: 26–7).
The second part deals with the situation after the entry into force of the Lisbon
Treaty on 1 December 2009. The main source of the analysis is the annual account
of Danish foreign policy 2010 and 2011 in the Danish Yearbook of Foreign Policy
(2011, 2012). The method is the same as in the studies on which the findings
before Lisbon are based except that the corpus drawn on is much narrower due to
the short period examined. This section presents the analysis of the material. The
analytical strategy is to focus on whether and how agency is co-articulated with
the EU in the areas outlined above.
Danish Articulations of Agency before Lisbon
During the Cold War the dominant Danish foreign policy discourse presented the
EU as one of four cornerstones in Danish foreign policy, the other cornerstones
being the UN, NATO and Nordic Cooperation. After the Cold War, the markers of
Danish foreign policy were articulated differently in the dominant discourse. The
other cornerstones were, to a large extent, presented as being dealt with through
the EU which therefore acquired a pivotal role (Larsen 2000).
At least five articulations of Danish and/or EU agency in a given area are found
(as outlined in general terms above): 1) ‘the state’ (Denmark); 2) only ‘the EU’;
3) ‘Denmark and the EU’;5 4) the ‘EU’ as an important instrument for ‘Denmark’;6
5) the EU through Denmark.7
The analysis shows a mixed picture with different articulations of the Danish
‘we’ with the EU. At the most general level, the EU is articulated as a prerequisite
or point of departure for Denmark’s ability to influence the surrounding world.
This draws on a discourse according to which the EU is constructed as an
indispensable and pivotal framework for Danish foreign policy – including Danish
participation in the CFSP (Larsen 2000). A Changing World: The Government’s
Vision for New Priorities in Denmark’s Foreign Policy from 2003 reads: ‘The EU
is the key to Denmark’s ability to influence the world around us … the foreign
policy situation more than ever calls for a EU that stands united and assumes
global responsibility …’ (Regeringen 2003: 4). Here the EU is articulated as an
5 ‘Denmark and the EU’ also includes constructions of the relationship between ‘the
state’ and ‘the EU’, where the two agents are not directly co-located, but co-articulation is
nevertheless identifiable from an analysis of texts, for example in the form of ‘Denmark
in cooperation with its EU-partners’. This category also encompasses instances where it is
difficult to distinguish between the two agents in articulations in a particular policy field
as the identity of the actor is not clear from the text (for example through an amorphous
‘we’). It also comprises cases of polysemy where usages of ‘the state’ and ‘EU’ slide into
each other.
6 This need not involve the use of the term ‘important’, but can take forms such
as ‘Denmark has through the EU’ or broader articulations of the EU as essential for
‘Denmark’s’ foreign policy in a given field.
7 For example in the form of ‘On behalf of the EU, Denmark has …’.
instrument for Denmark’s aims in the world. This is the background for why
Denmark must strengthen the EU as an international actor. Because the quotation
above is a general statement about Denmark’s foreign policy, this may lead the
analyst to believe that this same articulation of the EU with Danish agency can
be found across policy areas. However, the concepts or issues at stake in each
field of policy do not per definition link up with more general statements of policy
articulating one general policy line. The following presentation of the Danish case
before the Lisbon Treaty demonstrates that the articulations of Danish actorness
vary across policy areas.
Geographical Areas8
Co-articulations with the EU’s foreign policy in Danish foreign policy are very
significant with respect to Latin America, Oceania and Asia. Articulations in the
form of ‘Denmark’ can often, if not only, be found in relation to bilateral trade
promotion (see for example Udenrigsministeriet 2007: 2 and 11). However, the
EU is clearly presented as the most important policy instrument and the central
multilateral forum, particularly vis-à-vis Asia. Articulations of agency often
take the form of ‘Denmark through the EU’, ‘Denmark and the EU’ or just ‘The
EU’. The EU is, to a large extent, the focus for more general policy concerns (as
opposed to trade promotion):
Denmark does not stand alone in Asia. In a number of areas we act through the
EU, for example in connection with wide-ranging foreign policy issues or in the
area of trade agreements … . Where the EU takes care of Denmark’s interests,
the task is to ensure that Danish interests and views are presented to the best
effect in the EU policy conducted. (Udenrigsministeriet 2007: 11)
The EU is also attributed a central role in relation to the general political and
security aims in the region and thus also to the fulfilment of these goals in relation
to China and other major states of the region:
The EU’s presence in Asia must be more marked. In recent years steps have
been taken to strengthen the EU’s dialogues on the security situation … with a
number of key players [such as] China, Japan … Denmark will work towards …
further strengthening of the bilateral and EU based dialogues with important
Asian players, in particular China, Japan … . (Udenrigsministeriet 2007: 14)
The EU is thus presented as the other main channel of policy towards China,
besides bilateral action. It is the most important multilateral framework for
Denmark’s policy towards China.
8 The points in the following two sections are drawn from Larsen (2005, 2011) unless
otherwise stated.
The frequent association of the EU with Danish agency in these areas suggests
that Danish identity is constructed in conjunction with an EU identity in these
areas, even if there are also areas in these regions in which ‘Denmark’ is presented
as an actor without reference to the EU and Danish agency is presented as pre-
existing.
Articulations of actorness with the European Neighbourhood, Russia and,
in particular, North Africa are predominantly articulations through the EU.
The Danish ‘we’ with regard to Russia involves the EU in most general policy
contexts. This is also the case with regard to the Balkans. The exception is the UN/
NATO military deployments in the area. Here Copenhagen articulates actorness

as ‘Denmark’.
With regard to Danish policy towards the Middle East and the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict, the Danish ‘we’ with regard to the Middle East also involves
the EU in most general policy contexts, although there are also articulations of
‘Denmark’, particularly in relation to aid to the Palestinian Self-Ruling Authority
or the Arab Initiative. Danish agency is, however, often co-articulated with the EU
in the form of ‘Denmark and the EU’ or ‘Denmark has through the EU’. Even so,
Denmark does construct itself as an actor in this field (without the EU).
As far as the relationship to the US is concerned, significant elements of policy
are conducted with the EU. In the 2003 Priorities in Danish Foreign Policy Danish
policy towards the US on non-security issues is presented as increasingly going
through the EU, so that the Danish ‘we’ with regard to the US is also an EU ‘we’.
Outside the Northern hemisphere, Denmark articulates strong agency as
‘Denmark’ in the field of development. On development issues, the UN and its
special agencies are also articulated with ‘Denmark’ in a way that the EU is
not (Regeringen 2007b). A Danish ‘we’ is also articulated in relation to Africa.
However, in the Danish Foreign Ministry’s strategy for Africa from 2004,
Denmark is presented as an actor as well – ‘with’ or ‘through’ the EU in relation to
general trade issues and cooperation with the African continent as a whole – where
there is no bilateral equivalent. The more general and political the issue, the more
articulations with the EU.
Functional Areas
The impact of the EU on Danish foreign policy is strongest in trade, agriculture

and external fishing where there is no policy outside the EU due to the legal
establishment of the Community as the international negotiator in these fields.
Co-articulations with the EU are common in official texts. These take the form of
‘the EU’, ‘Denmark and the EU’ or ‘Denmark through the EU’. For example, in a
publication from the Danish Foreign Ministry in 2004 it is stated that: ‘Together
with other countries, the EU and Denmark would like to see WTO agreement on
these four subjects …’ (quoted in Larsen 2005: 188).
However, even if articulations of ‘Denmark and the EU’ or ‘Denmark through

the EU’ are very common, articulations of just ‘Denmark’ as the only acting subject
are also found. For instance, in an information booklet from the Danish Ministry
of Foreign Affairs about the WTO and trade policy, the main focus is on describing
the WTO system and Danish views and initiatives in relation to the WTO (Larsen
2005: 189). The full legal competence of the EU in this field has not, in other
words, brought about a merger or a persistent co-articulation of actorness. This can
be understood on the basis of the strong Danish agency in this area, historically
linked to a heavy involvement in international trade (Larsen 2005: Ch. 9).
In relation to the non-military aspects of security, Danish agency is often

articulated with the EU. This is in contrast to the military aspects of security, as
in Kosovo or Afghanistan where articulations of Danish actorness often take the
form of ‘Denmark’ or ‘Denmark and NATO’ (Larsen 2005: chs. 4 and 10). In
relation to military security, there are no co-articulations of agency with the EU.
To the extent that there are articulations other than ‘Denmark’, it is with ‘the US’
or ‘NATO’.
In summary, the general articulation which presents the EU as the key to
Denmark’s influence cannot be found uniformly across policy areas. There are
areas where ‘the EU’ is rarely articulated as an actor with ‘Denmark’ in any form.
This is particularly the case in the areas of development and military security. But
in the majority of areas the EU is the most important organisational framework
with which ‘Denmark’ is articulated, mostly in the form of ‘Denmark through the
EU’. And in some of these areas ‘Denmark’ is not the main actor articulated in
concrete instances of policy, but rather ‘the EU and Denmark’ or just ‘the EU’.
Such articulations of actorness are found in the cases of the Balkans and Latin
America, and to a lesser and varying extent in the other policy areas analysed in
Larsen (2005).
However, in most areas apart from development and military aspects of
security, the co-articulation with the EU takes the form of ‘Denmark via the EU’
(the exception is when Denmark held the Presidency in 2002 where there were
more articulations in the form of ‘the EU via Denmark’). Denmark is thus the
privileged part of the subject articulated. As this is the most common articulation
beside ‘Denmark’ in these cases, it is analytically very interesting. The prominent
place of the EU in the articulations of actorness positions the EU as essential for
Danish foreign policy (see Table 2.1 below).
It should be stressed that membership of the EU has not done away with
national articulations of ‘Denmark’ altogether. A total co-articulation or merger of
agency in the form of ‘Denmark and the EU’ or just ‘the EU’ is not the case in any
of the foreign policy areas analysed. Even so the mixed articulations of the ‘we’
show that actorness is not stable and therefore point to how participation in EU
foreign policy may have profound effects on the ‘we’ in Danish ‘foreign’ policy.
This challenges the general assumptions in FPA which tends to assume a state
actor with a stable ‘we’ identity.
Danish Agency and the EU after the Lisbon Treaty
In the following the chapter will look at whether Danish articulations of actorness
have changed in parallel with the introduction of the Lisbon Treaty in October
2009. As mentioned, the main sources of the analysis will be the annual accounts
of Danish foreign policy 2010 and 2011 by the director of the Danish Foreign
Ministry published in the Danish Yearbook of Foreign Policy.9
The EU is still articulated as the point of departure for Danish foreign policy
after the Lisbon Treaty: ‘As a small state, Denmark primarily promotes its interests
through international organisations such as NATO, the UN and the WTO. Yet it is
first and foremost the EU that provides Denmark with a gateway to influence on
the global scene’ (Grube 2011: 22).
It is ‘Denmark’ as an actor which promotes its interests through the EU
‘gateway to influence’ (‘Denmark through the EU’). The Lisbon Treaty is central
in furthering Danish interests and the importance of the Lisbon Treaty is stressed.
The Treaty can and will enhance the abilities of the EU:
For the EU member states it has become increasingly clear that they need to
stand together in the face of global transformations. In this respect the year 2010
was a momentous one for the EU … . The Lisbon treaty will help the EU punch
above its weight in the world … [mention of the role of the High Representative
and the European External Action Service]. (Grube 2011: 22–3)
This gives Denmark ‘all the more reason for supporting the High Representative’
(Grube 2011: 23), which indicates the importance of the new foreign policy
structures for Denmark:
Yet there is still some way to go before the EEAS is fully functioning. This
gives Denmark all the more reason to support the High Representative in her
difficult task. We need to overcome national idiosyncrasies and improve our
coordination on the ground. This also involves close cooperation between the
tried, tested diplomatic services of the member states. (Grube 2011: 23; see also
Grube 2012: 27–9)
The Danish Foreign Ministry still presents its aim as the defence of Danish
interests even after Lisbon both through bilateral and multilateral measures. The
general aims of ‘Denmark’ remain the same:
… ensuring that Denmark’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs remains effective and

performs at its best to promote and safeguard Danish interests. … Focus will
be on ensuring that Danish interests are promoted through traditional channels,
such as the most important multilateral organisations, and not least the EU, with
the new possibilities provided by the Lisbon Treaty. Of course, there is still a
need for strong bilateral diplomacy, which, apart from its own merits, is also
a prerequisite for effective multilateral diplomacy … [due to] budget cuts …
9 The 2011 article is different in form from the previous ones analysed (see below).
[there is a] general trend towards maintaining a certain breadth in promoting

Danish foreign policy interests while at the same time steering that policy
towards greater depth and focus in promoting and safeguarding Danish interests.
(Grube 2011: 47)
However, while the stated aim is still the defence of Danish interests, a dilemma
between a bilateral and a multilateral dimension is hinted at. Budget cuts bring
up suggestions for a greater focus on the safeguarding of Danish interests and,
in this context, this implies an allusion to the potential role of the EU in taking
over some of the broader tasks of national foreign policy. Although the interest-
promoting ‘we’ is still ‘Denmark’ as the point of departure, it is a ‘we’ whose

instrumental concerns slide towards the EU as a forum in the formulations above
(‘maintaining a certain breath in promoting Danish foreign policy interests while
at the same time steering that policy towards greater depth and focus in promoting
and safeguarding Danish interests’).
Turning to the question of how Danish foreign policy is articulated with the
EU across policy areas after Lisbon, the mixed pattern of articulations can also be
found after Lisbon. With regard to geographical areas, co-articulations of agency
with the EU are very common with regard to areas around Europe. In a section in
the 2010 Danish Foreign Ministry annual account on the EU’s Neighbours (Grube
2011: 37–8) the first two paragraphs are only about the actions of the EU. In the
third paragraph, the only reference to Denmark occurs: ‘In the EU, Denmark has
emphasised the need to develop the attractiveness of the Eastern Partnership for
our partners … .’ This paragraph then continues with a description of the EU’s
policies. The section continues with a paragraph on the Baltic Sea Region which
starts with a description of the EU’s strategy. It is stated that ‘Denmark has assumed
considerable responsibility for implementing the strategy’ (Grube 2010: 38). The
structure is the same in the 2011 article (Grube 2012: 30–31).
The section on Russia in Grube (2011) draws on three kinds of articulations. It
starts out with an articulation of Danish agency – ‘mutual efforts by the Russian and
Danish governments to expand bilateral relations’ – then turns to an articulation of
the ‘EU and its member states’ in relation to a declaration signed with Russia. It
finishes with a co-articulation of Denmark and the EU: ‘Russia is set to become an
even more important economy for Denmark and the EU countries’ (Grube 2010:
38–9). The 2011 article only articulates Danish agency. The focus is the economic/
trade-related dimension and not foreign and security policy (Grube 2012: 26).
The section on the Middle East (Grube 2010: 32–3) starts with two paragraphs
in which only the EU is articulated as an actor. Danish agency is only mentioned
in relation to the Danish forces in Southern Lebanon and then only in one line.
There is one paragraph articulating Danish agency in relation to the Danish-Arab
Partnership without any co-articulation with the EU (in the 2011 article, the EU is
not mentioned in this context, see Grube 2012: 35–6). A final paragraph on Iran in
the 2010 article only articulates EU (and UN) agency.
There are other areas where we first encounter an articulation of Danish

agency, and then articulations where the only actorness expressed is ‘the EU’s’. In
the section ‘China and India Still on the Rise’, ‘Denmark’ is the only articulation
of actorness in the first three paragraphs. These mainly deal with trade promotion
and technical cooperation: ‘Danish policy in 2010 was a reflection of this, with
a … stronger … focus on … the largest emerging economies, China and India’
(Grube 2011: 40). In the last paragraph, which mainly deals with general strategic
issues, ‘Denmark’ disappears as an actor and the actorness articulated is the EU’s,
as in ‘the rise of China, India and other emerging global players has prompted
calls for a more unified European approach to its strategic partners’ (Grube 2011:
39–41). However, in the 2011 account there is no mention of the EU. Here it is the
economic/trade elements that are highlighted and not foreign and security issues
where co-articulations with the EU are frequently found (Grube 2012: 42–3).
With regard to the transatlantic relationship, Danish actorness is articulated
first: ‘The US continues to be a natural and very close ally with which Denmark
shares both values and economic interests. Therefore, Denmark cooperates closely
with the US on a very broad range of political and economic issues …’ (Grube
2011: 39).
It can even be argued that there is an articulation of actorness with the US.
Later in the section, the EU takes the stage as an actor. The section finishes with
‘Denmark’ and ‘Denmark through the EU’: ‘Denmark will work to ensure the
strengthening of increased and results-oriented cooperation with the US, both
bilaterally and through the EU’ (Grube 2011: 39).
In the Nordic area and in the Arctic Council, there are only articulations of
Danish actorness or ‘The Nordic Countries’ (Grube 2011: 44–5, 2012: 22–3).
As for functional areas, there are areas where EU articulations of agency are
dominant. In a section on global free trade, it is stated that ‘it became even more
evident that Denmark has a vital interest in global free trade … . It is essential
that the fight against protectionism through the EU and the G20 continues’. The
remaining part of the section is about the EU (and the G20) without mentioning
‘Denmark’ (Grube 2011: 20). There are also sections where the articulations of
actorness start out by being ‘Denmark’ followed by articulations of ‘EU’, ‘Denmark
and the EU’ or ‘Denmark through the EU’ (see also Grube 2012: 20–24).
A section on a new Danish policy on fragile states in the 2010 account starts
out by describing efforts to integrate different dimensions in Danish policy. This
is followed by:
Hence we often need to combine our instruments in an integrated approach that

respects humanitarian principles. This applies both to bilateral Danish efforts
and to efforts challenged through the EU and multilateral frameworks such
as the UN and NATO … [Danish payments, stated in euros, will go towards]
strengthening Danish involvement in stabilisation efforts in fragile states, either
through bilateral engagements or contributions through the EU and multilateral
frameworks such as the UN. (Grube 2011: 31; see also Grube 2012: 44–6, where
the co-articulation with the EU is weaker)
A section on Democracy and Human Rights starts out with an articulation of

Danish actorness: ‘Respect for … human rights … constitute[s] a key element of
the Danish government’s basic values.’ In a second section Denmark is articulated
as an actor within the EU (with Germany) in relation to developing a human
rights strategy within the EU. The third section goes further into Danish priorities
whereas the rest deals with the UN, US and EU stances in this field (Grube 2011:
45–6; see also Grube 2012: 47, which ends with a section on ‘the EU level’).
A section on international terrorism contains articulations of Danish actorness.
But it also contains articulations such as ‘The EU and Denmark’: ‘Immediate threats
to Europe and Denmark from some of the regional affiliates of Al-Qaeda’ (Grube
2011: 36). And Denmark through the EU: ‘that Denmark has worked to prevent …
through a combination of bilateral projects and international cooperation, building
not least on the UN Counter Terrorism Strategy and EU cooperation. In 2010,
Denmark played a very active role in developing the EU counter-terrorism
activities under the EU Instrument for Stability’ (Grube 2011: 36).
Finally, there are functional areas where substantial articulations of EU
actorness do not occur. This is the case in the section on security (including
Afghanistan and Pakistan). Denmark is mostly articulated as a subject, often
together with NATO. In the 2010 account the EU is only mentioned substantially
once in the six pages where Denmark and the EU are co-articulated in the form of
‘Denmark through the EU’ in Pakistan (Grube 2011: 24–30; see also Grube 2012:
36–41). This is also the case in relation to the two- to three-page sections on a new
strategy for Denmark’s development cooperation and Danish development policy
in general. Only ‘Denmark’ is articulated as an actor (Grube 2011: 41–4, 23–4).
It should be added that that many articulations in the 2011 article have a
different emphasis from the other articles analysed. There is generally more
Danish agency articulated without co-articulations. Denmark is, to a larger extent,
presented as a promoter of European interests, ‘The EU through Denmark’. An
important background to this was the forthcoming Danish EU Presidency:10 ‘One
overall ambition of the Presidency … is to create concrete results that demonstrate
the value and necessity of European Cooperation. The first priority is achieving
an economically responsible Europe …’ (Grube 2012: 29). And, ‘An important
initiative was taken with the launching of a positive dialogue between the EU and
Turkey, which will be explored during the Danish Presidency. Finally, on Iceland,
enlargement negotiations gained decisive momentum in 2011, leaving the Danish
Presidency with a firm base to build on’ (Grube 2012: 30).
All in all, the EU is by far the most common multilateral organisation with
which Danish agency is articulated. In most areas there is an expression of EU
agency in a Danish foreign policy context, but the character of the articulation
varies across areas. And in some areas there is hardly any articulation of EU
actorness.
10 Other important events were the change of government (and foreign, development
and trade ministers) in September 2011 and the participation in the operation in Libya.
The main features are very similar to the pre-Lisbon period, although there are
some indications of a stronger articulation of the general role of the EU. The EU
is, to a slightly higher extent, articulated as an instrument for Denmark, and there
is a slight increase in articulations of ‘Denmark and the EU’ and ‘The EU’ when
the subject is general Danish foreign policy. Also, there is a stronger articulation of
‘The EU through Denmark’ than in the immediate pre-Lisbon period close to the
Danish EU Presidency in spring 2012. Apart from the very short distance in time
from the pre-Lisbon period, this may show that articulations of (national) agency
do not necessarily change across the board with treaty changes. Articulations vary
across EU policy areas in a manner which does not relate, in a simple way, to
treaty changes. The role of the EU across national foreign policy areas may have
as much to do with national articulations of foreign policy identity in particular
areas as it does with the role of the EU driven by treaty changes. At the same
time, it looks as if treaty changes may go together with changes in articulations of
general Danish agency, possibly because treaty changes and general articulations
are expressed at the same level of generality.
Table 2.1 Articulations of actorness before and after the Lisbon Treaty
Articulation
Denmark Denmark The EU
through and the through With
Denmark the EU EU The EU Denmark others
X X X
(slightly (slightly (Slightly X
General X stronger stronger stronger (Around X
post- post- post- Presidencies)
Lisbon) Lisbon) Lisbon)
Latin America,
Asia and X X X X As above
Oceania
EU
Neighbourhood,
X X X X As above
Russia and
North Africa
Areas
Balkans X X X X As above
Middle East X X X As above
USA X X X As above
Development X As above X
Trade,
agriculture and X X X X As above
fishing
Military aspects
X X
of security
Non-military X
aspects of X X X (Around
security Presidencies)
Conclusion
The analysis of articulations of Danish foreign policy agency after Lisbon suggested
that there were few or no changes post-Lisbon. To the extent that there were any
changes, general articulations of the relationship between ‘Denmark’ and the EU
tended to further stress the important instrumental value of the EU for Denmark.
The EU was still the most common multilateral actor with which Danish foreign
policy actorness was co-articulated. And, in many of those areas, ‘the EU’ was the
‘we’ that was presented in the annual accounts from the Danish Foreign Ministry.
‘Denmark’ remained the actor articulated in areas such as military security and
many parts of development policy, sometimes co-articulated with ‘the UN’ or

‘NATO’. The pattern identified after Lisbon could still be seen as varied.
The chapter also presented a way of conceptualising and analysing the ‘we’ in
national foreign policy through studying the articulations of actorness – the ways in
which the ‘national’ we was (or was not) co-articulated with the EU. The analysis
presented showed that the articulation of ‘national’ identity within the foreign
policy system of the EU was not uniform in the case of Denmark. Rather, we
find a varied configuration of national discursive constructions of actorness with
the EU in different foreign policy areas along the lines of the five articulations of
national actorness outlined above. This configuration does not seem to be altered
by the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, even if the EU seems to be attributed
a slightly more important role in general Danish articulations of actorness.
However, on this background, studies of national articulations of actorness
with the EU in different policy areas can provide an interesting picture of how
member states construct their foreign policy identity with the EU. We may well
find that some states’ identity is more interwoven with the EU in particular policy
areas than others. In some areas, the border between the European and the national
is contested. The resulting mosaic can be said to be the state level complement
to the general argument above about neo-Westphalian structures in Europe. An
analysis of the states’ construction of foreign policy identity with the EU is a
central part of analysing ‘national foreign’ policy in the EU (Larsen 2009).
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Chapter 3
Protection or Prevention? Different Visions
of EU International Terrorism Policy
Beste Isleyen
Introduction
In June 2002, the member states of the European Union (EU) adopted the
Council Framework Decision on Combating Terrorism, with which they
agreed on various measures to enhance their cooperation on counter-terrorism.
The framework decision defines terrorism as a security threat, specifies which
individual and collective acts count as ‘terrorist offences’, and puts forward policy
recommendations as to how such offences can be effectively addressed. It calls on
the member states to adopt a common definition of terrorism and improve their
legislative practices and policing capabilities in order to better implement the
objectives of the EU counter-terrorism action (Council 2002).
In consequence, EU external action in the field of counter-terrorism has
expanded in terms of both scope and content. There has been a widening of
Community policy-making to encompass a wide range of new policy areas,
actors and instruments. Examples include the intensification of member state
coordination in intelligence and information exchange, border controls, and law
enforcement; the decision to make the European Police Office (Europol) an EU
agency; the appointment of a Counter-Terrorism Coordinator (CTC) to organise
EU counter-terrorism policies; and the adoption of a wide range of EU directives
and regulations on counter-terrorism.
How was it possible that certain governance structures were able to emerge
in EU counter-terrorism policy? A general tendency in the literature is to link the
transformation of EU anti-terrorism governance to member states’ interests such
as threat perceptions (Monar 2007; Joffé 2008) or relations with third countries
and international institutions (Keohane 2008). However, these studies take foreign
policy as a self-evident category, whose existence precedes the broader political
field in which foreign policy is formulated. I propose a different approach based on
poststructuralist discourse theory and argue that the meanings of subjects, objects,
levels and instruments of governing as well as their relationships are not ‘simply
there’ (Gottweis 1999: 63). Instead, governance is a discursive construction
(Gottweis 1999; Diez 2001), and the establishment of particular elements of the
EU’s fight against terrorism is a matter of discursive practices.
Before moving forward, three definitions are of vital importance: discourse,

the discursive, and governance. Discourse is the ensemble of social practices,
both linguistic and behavioural, which produce social meaning through the
construction of particular understandings of and relationships between social
phenomena (Howarth and Stavrakakis 2000). To put it differently, discourse is
a particular system of linguistic patterns, symbols, beliefs, norms, traditions,
actions, policies, etc., through which people understand the world surrounding
them (Howarth 2000). Discursive, on the other hand, is a broader system of
signification which exceeds discourses. Known also as ‘the field of discursivity’
(Laclau and Mouffe 2001 [1985]: 111), the discursive is ‘the horizon of
classificatory rules and differences’ (Howarth 2000: 9) in relation to which
people conceive of, associate certain meanings to and establish particular
linkages between divergent elements of the social world (Torfing 1999; Howarth
and Stavrakakis 2000). Lastly, governance is ‘the structured ways and means
in which the divergent preferences of interdependent actors are translated into
policy choices “to allocate values”, so that the plurality of interests is transformed
into coordinated action and the compliance of actors is achieved’ (Eising and
Kohler-Koch 1999: 5).
Analysing governance from the perspective of poststructuralist discourse
theory, I illustrate that the expansion of EU-level action in combating terrorism is
an effect of discursive struggles over the definition of the terrorist threat, including
its origins, whom and what it targets, which means it utilises, as well as what needs
to be done to combat it. There are three main visions of governance engaged in
discursive battles to frame the EU’s counter-terrorism approach: ‘radicalisation
from within the EU’, ‘radicalisation as an external security threat’ and ‘the
Schengen zone under threat’.
Throughout these contests, the three different ideas of EU anti-terror action
have relied on a set of narratives and filled them with particular meanings for
purposes of representation and legitimisation. The process has resulted in the
prevalence of ‘the Schengen zone under threat’ construct through the skilful
confluence of national differences around a commonly acknowledged strategy for
governance and the use of expert knowledge to strengthen arguments and justify
policy choices. The analysis also demonstrates that ‘the Schengen zone under
threat’ vision has generated ‘de-politicisation’ and ‘discrimination’ in European
governance practices.
In the following, the first section discusses past research on the transformation
of EU terrorism cooperation. The second section presents the discourse analysis
approach adopted for this study. The third section addresses methodological
questions; and the fourth section analyses EU counter-terrorism discourse on
the basis of the suggested theory. The fifth section summarises and discusses the
finding.
Protection or Prevention? 61
Reconsidering EU External Action on Counter-Terrorism
The development of EU foreign policy activities in the area of counter-terrorism

has been extensively examined (e.g., Lugna 2006; den Boer, Hillebrand and Nölke
2008). Much of the focus has been on the expansion of governance practices
through the growth of the competences of Community institutions and the
proliferation of instruments, types and actors of policy-making at the EU level
(Balzacq 2008; Bossong 2008). Numerous studies have sought to account for
these developments, and an overwhelming majority of scholars argue that ‘the
external dimension’ (Kaunert 2010) of the EU’s fight against terrorism has been
driven mainly by the interests and power capabilities of the member states along
with their strategic relations with third countries (e.g., Edwards and Meyer 2008;
Keohane 2008).
From this perspective, the member states are the central actors determining the
scope and degree of cooperation in counter-terrorism issues. They promote EU
governance only to the extent that national sovereignties are preserved, and vital
state interests are not jeopardised. Decisions on the transfer of authority to EU
institutions rest with individual countries (Monar 2007). The primacy of national
interests is reflected in member states’ preferences for the modes and instruments
of EU governance. Supranational policies are favoured when collective gains
are expected, and states push for the approximation of national practices. The
increase in the adoption and implementation of European Community directives
and regulations concerning the prevention of terrorist financing is an example
of how common interests can prompt integration (Kaunert 2010). Contrary to
this, integration is weak in areas where member states have ‘established bilateral
and multilateral working relationships’, both among themselves and with third
countries (Edwards and Meyer 2008: 21). For instance, Britain and Ireland have
specific arrangements for detecting and pursuing terrorists within their territories,
whereas France and Spain conduct joint counter-terrorism operations (Keohane
2008). As for third countries, France works closely with North African states in
policing and information exchange, while Spanish and Moroccan authorities have
built bilateral cooperative linkages in intelligence sharing on terrorist networks
and financial channels of terrorism (Wolff 2009).
Following this, Kaunert (2010) argues that the intensification of EU foreign
policy activities in combating terrorism can be explained by the convergence of
national interests. The attacks on the United States (US) on 11 September 2001
revealed to EU member states that they were all under terrorist threat. Collective
action was seen as a necessary and important instrument to protect the Union from
different acts of terrorism (Guild 2008). Therefore, the widening of EU external
counter-terrorism action is a response to the events of 9/11 (Joffé 2008).
However, international terrorism is not an issue that was first put on the EU’s
foreign policy agenda after 2001. Addressing terrorism is one of the objectives
of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, which was launched in 1995 with a view
to increasing political, social and economic relations between the EU and the
countries in North Africa and the Middle East. The partnership document known
as the Barcelona Declaration states that combating ‘terrorism will be a priority
for all the parties. To that end, officials will meet periodically with the aim of
strengthening cooperation among police, judicial and other authorities’ (Barcelona
Declaration 1995: 16). Likewise, at the Tampere Summit in 1999, the member
states declared their willingness to create an Area of Freedom and Security and
Justice through closer collaboration in Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) issues. In
this regard, they emphasised for ‘the first time ever … the “external dimension”
of JHA’, and subsequent practices incorporated counter-terrorism into EU external
action (Wolff 2009: 140). Therefore, the point is not whether terrorism is really
a threat for the EU. Instead, the interesting question is: how was it possible for
terrorism to have become an issue to be addressed through closer cooperation
among the member states in external policies?
In asking the ‘how’ of governance, I suggest poststructuralist discourse theory
as both a theoretical and methodological approach to the study of EU international
anti-terrorism policies. It is important to note that my objective is not to refute
previous studies on the topic. Rather, I argue that discourse analysis can shed light
on several important aspects of the Union’s counter-terrorism efforts that are left
unanswered by past research. First, I see governance as an effect of discursive
struggles over the formation of meanings and relationships that condition political
action. Second, I am interested in the historically contingent understandings and
linkages with respect to which certain constructs prevail over others and become
more or less leading in guiding politics. Third, I indicate the political consequences
of discursive practices under ‘the Schengen under threat’ conception, thereby
assessing the workings of the European counter-terror strategy.
A Discourse Theory Approach to EU Counter-Terrorism Governance
The primary contention of poststructuralist discourse theory is that there is no

meaning independent of discourses. Rather, it is through and within particular
discursive formations that we conceive of, associate certain meanings to and
establish particular linkages between divergent elements of the social world
(Torfing 1999; Howarth and Stavrakakis 2000). Neither is there a permanent
discursive structure with everlasting concepts and eternal signification systems.
Rather, discourses are historically contingent meanings that are relational and
subjected to change through new practices of signification (Howarth 2000).
To give an example, Torfing (1999) examines three different discourses, in
which the concept of welfare has acquired different meanings and undergone
significant transformations. For instance, the mercantilist discourse defines welfare
by reference to state wealth that is to be achieved with the help of a working
population, whereas the liberal discourse prioritises private ownership and links
welfare to the liberalisation of economic activities. After the Second World War,
the concept of welfarism in Western Europe was reconstructed to stand for the
well-being of the population through the provision of state aid and social rights to
the vulnerable and poorer segments of society.
Thus, from the viewpoint of poststructuralist discourse theory, discourses
are never complete, and there is no possibility of ultimate social constructions
with fixed attributes. Similarly, the linkages between objects and subjects are not
permanent fixations. As relationships between diverse elements of discourses are
partially arranged (Laclau and Mouffe 2001 [1985]), there are constant ‘power
struggles’ to fix social meanings. These power struggles are discursive battles
‘that aim to establish a political and moral-intellectual leadership through the
articulation of meaning and relationship’ (Torfing 2005: 15). The goal is to form
a discursive unity with a particular distribution of power in a given social entity.
Power can take the form of, for instance, organisational structure, knowledge and
material resources (Wodak 2011).
Discursive struggles intensify during crisis situations, whereby a particular
discourse ‘is confronted with new events that it cannot explain, represent, or in
other ways domesticate’ (Torfing 2005: 16). In such cases, meanings enter into a
state of flux, as old meanings are unable to integrate the emerging phenomena into
the already existing discursive system. Challenged by new events, old meanings
are contested and opened to renegotiation. This triggers discursive battles,
competitions to overcome the crisis through alternative discursive articulations
(Wodak 2011).
In this regard, discursive contests rely on different strategies of identification,
presentation, negation and justification. They make use of ‘metanarratives’
to stabilise meanings and reorganise relationships. Metanarratives are central
conceptions of ‘what the world is about’, in the sense that they entail meanings
and rules in relation to which we make sense of social phenomena, such as
politics, economics and society (Diez 2001: 6). In a discursive formation, different
metanarratives are positioned to one another in accordance with a set of rules
which concern the legitimate way of doing things. Discursive battles rest on such
metanarratives and put them in a particular relationship with a view to forging
a discourse that seems both fair and legitimate (Diez 2001; Schulz-Forberg and
Stråth 2010). Within these struggles for power, discursive practices also utilise
other sorts of legitimacy in the form of organisational linkages, knowledge and
political networks (Hansen and Sørensen 2005).
Following this, I argue that the transformation of EU counter-terrorism
governance is the outcome of discursive struggles over the definition of terrorism
and counter-terrorism and the central components of the European anti-terror
strategy, including the subjects, objects and mechanisms of governing. Seeing
governance as an effect of discursive struggles requires scrutinising how different
articulations on EU anti-terror action construct different visions of governance
through acts of definition, affirmation and negation.
I argue that the particular constructions of terrorism and its related concepts
engage in a contest for power; that is, the framing of ‘legitimate’ governance.
First, they strive to determine the subjects of governance. Governing is about
‘who’ is authorised to speak and act within the framework of EU political action.
Battles take place over the functions, authorities and tasks of actors as well as the
‘positioning’ of subjects in relation to other subjects (Doty 1993; Howarth 2000).
Second, in line with the construction of the terrorist threat, the EU’s fight against
terrorism is targeted at particular political, social and economic phenomena as
objects of governing (Doty 1993). ‘What’ needs to be governed in order to eliminate
factors generating terrorist activities? Third, governance functions by means of a
set of instruments produced and utilised to pursue the EU anti-terror strategy. As
with the subjects and objects of governing, the employment of counter-terrorism
instruments complies with the specific understandings of terrorism and its root
causes.
The question remains as to how one idea of governance prevails over others?
I argue that it is those articulations that are able to compromise among different
positions (both national and institutional) in a shared framework and present their
arguments as plausible and proper that stand out as more or less dominant in
shaping European counter-terrorism governance. Practices of legitimisation bring
together a set of metanarratives to stabilise the meaning of diverse phenomena
related to terrorism and constitute a discourse that represents the legitimate
conduct. Within these processes of legitimisation, discursive articulations try to
provide backing for their positions through different sources of legitimisation. The
key aspiration is to bring divergent personal, institutional and national positions
onto common political ground, and in this respect discursive struggles rely on
different sources of legitimisation to reinforce their arguments towards legitimate
conduct (Schulz-Forberg and Stråth 2010; Wodak 2011).
Methodology
There are two main steps of the methodological approach selected for the
examination of the development of European counter-terrorism response. The first
step applies to the collection of data. Because the objective is to uncover competing
discourses on EU anti-terror governance and demonstrate how meanings condition
political action, text selection paid particular attention to the plurality of data
so as to be able to indicate conceptions, overlappings and contradictions in the
imagination of governance. The analysis opted for qualitative data on the grounds
that such data are best suited to depict the political context in which discursive
battles come into view through acts of negation, affirmation and legitimisation
(Hansen and Sørensen 2005). Furthermore, qualitative data are most appropriate
to reveal the concepts and rules according to which visions of governance seek to
structure meaning and struggle for discursive legitimacy.
The central criterion in data selection is the political significance of the
individual and institution producing linguistic and non-linguistic meanings of
European counter-terrorism governance (Jackson 2007). Therefore, the majority of
qualitative data comes from official documents in the form of Council conclusions
and declarations, Commission working papers and statements, European Parliament

debates and statements, publications by the state institutions of the EU member
states, and press releases, as well as other relevant publications on the subject
such as assessment reports. This corpus of data is supplemented by published
interviews with officials from Community institutions and representatives of the
member states along with media publications. Besides these, secondary forms
of qualitative data were also used to enrich the analysis. The main sources of
the secondary data were academic books and journal articles on historical and
political accounts of the EU’s terrorism policy.
Another central question in data gathering is the amount of reading that is

necessary to have a comprehensive picture of the topic under scrutiny. The
quantity of documents matters only to the extent that the collected information
provides novel and helpful insights for the analysis. In this study, more than 100
documents were collected and the analysis ended when the kinds of data under
examination were repetitive of previous statements and gave hardly any new
information (Hansen and Sørensen 2005; Jackson 2007).
The second step is about how to analyse the collected data. In the first stage,
the key task is to unearth the different conceptions of governance within European
debates on terrorism and counter-terrorism. This task involves the revelation of
the central arguments, patterns of meaning and rules that are used to constitute
understandings of European governance. Questions guiding such an undertaking
are: what are the central conceptions of EU governance, and what kind of concepts
do these conceptions make use of to address terrorism, and the sort of governance
that is needed to fight effectively against the terrorist threat? These questions are
significant to investigate the plurality of visions on European governance.
The disclosure of the main visions of governance brings us to the second stage
of analysis: the demonstration of the main narratives underlying the different
constructions of EU governance. The practice of legitimisation is a significant
criterion for discovering the main narratives in accordance with which the
competing images of the European counter-terrorism strategy take form (Diez
2001). Legitimisation shows itself in representations and argumentations that strive
to present particular meanings, choices and ways of doing this as self-evident,
urgent and unquestionable, including the subjects, objects and mechanisms of
governance (Hansen and Sørensen 2005). The question is: what are the major
concepts that discursive practices make reference to with a view to justifying
particular arrangements and decisions? This question enables us to see which
linguistic and non-linguistic channels of legitimisation are at play when proposing
a scheme for governance.
On the basis of these two stages of investigation, the following section
examines the development of the EU counter-terrorism strategy by looking into
struggling ideas of governance, the acts of justification behind these images, and
the various means these images exploit to gain legitimacy.
EU Counter-Terrorism Policy: Governance as a Discursive Struggle
The transformation of EU governance in terrorism issues has materialised through

discursive struggles over what terrorism is and how it should be effectively
addressed. The battles over the key concepts of terrorism have taken shape as part
of a crisis of identification and justification which emerged in the aftermath of
the 11 September 2001 events in the US and became reinforced through the 2004
Madrid and 2005 London bombings. The crisis was characterised by tensions over
the identification of problems and specifying solutions in formulating a European
anti-terror strategy. Contests over European counter-terrorism governance pertain
also to discursive attempts to constitute what the EU stands for. The analysis
indicates that ‘the Schengen zone under threat’ came out as the key construction
of European response to terrorism through the successful merging of the national
and the technical in the formulation of a framework for governance.
Discursive Struggles for Political Power: Three Visions of Governance
The development of European counter-terrorism policies cannot be understood

without looking at the broader context in which discursive attempts to constitute
governance are embedded. The 9/11 events along with the Madrid and London
attacks gave rise to debates within both public opinion and political circles in
Europe as regards terrorism and counter-terrorism. International terrorism became
a key security concern among EU citizens, and various public opinion surveys
pointed to a growing public uneasiness following Madrid and London. Meanwhile,
the governments of the EU member states had difficulty in understanding the
root causes of the terrorist threat and deciding on the most appropriate measures
to tackle it. Similar problems were also evident at the EU level, as Community
institutions entered into intra- and inter-institutional disputes over the necessary
strategic choices in counter-terrorism action (Edwards and Meyer 2008).
Within this historical, political and institutional context, a crisis of legitimisation
arose as to what, whom and how to govern. Attempts were made to give meaning
to the key concepts revolving around terrorism and to constitute European counter-
terrorism governance in such a way that the emerging construction would become
a legitimate and helpful political action. The process of constituting governance
implied the emergence of a plurality of understandings competing for recognition
in the formulation of the European anti-terrorism policy. In this regard, three
main constructions have engaged in discursive battles and sought to gain political
leadership: ‘radicalisation from within the EU’, ‘radicalisation as an external
security threat’ and ‘the Schengen zone under threat’. Each of these visions draws
upon a set of narratives to describe the content, scope and instruments of counter-
terrorism, and strives to gain legitimacy for political power through various
strategies of justification and representation (Table 3.1 below).
Table 3.1 Three central constructions around EU counter-terrorism

governance
Type of Emergence Makers of Modes of

governance of the the discursive governance
construction construction Narratives practices practices
‘Radicalisation 2004–2005 – freedom – European – Media Strategy
from within the versus Commission – Internet (Check
EU’ religious – CTC the Web)
extremism – education
– community – youth dialogue
(value-based) – interreligious
– security exchanges
‘Radicalisation 2003 – freedom European – development
as an external (European vs. religious Council; EEAS cooperation
security threat’ Security extremism – formerly DG – technical and
Strategy) – community RELEX financial aid
(universal – academic
values) exchange
– security programmes
– interreligious/
intercultural
dialogue
‘The Schengen 2003–2005 – freedom of – DG RELEX Information-
zone under movement as a – FRONTEX and intelligence-
threat’ problem – DG Justice, sharing; technical
– community Liberty and cooperation
(EU citizens Security)
sharing – JHA Council
common – Europol,
borders) Eurojust
– security
(of borders)
Discursive struggles largely applied to three narratives; namely, freedom,

security and community. The vision of ‘radicalisation from within the EU’, which
appeared after the bomb attacks in Madrid and London, linked terrorism to ‘violent
radicalisation’, referring to ‘the phenomena of people embracing opinions, views
and ideas which could lead to acts of terrorism’ (Council 2005: 2). Constructed
primarily by the Commission and embraced by the Council of Europe – especially
by the CTC appointed in 2007 – the radicalisation concept perceived terrorism as
the outcome of radical ideologies which take root within particular segments of
European societies. Radicalisation grows particularly among individuals or groups
of individuals facing problems in integrating into their respective societies and
harbouring feelings of exclusion from the social environment. Needing to belong
to a community, they affiliate themselves with groupings which disseminate
extremist religious views and justify terrorism by reference to a religious ideology
(European Commission 2005).
In associating terrorism with religious extremism, the ‘radicalisation from

within the EU’ defines freedom as a core element of the EU’s identity, and regards
radicalisation as a violation of the freedom of expression and the freedom of religion
which are intrinsic to the EU. As the CTC affirms, though freedom of expression
is one of the core elements of democratic societies, it is not an unlimited right.
Freedom of expression can be limited on the grounds that it serves the purpose
of diffusing extremism, disseminating terrorist propaganda and inciting people to
take part in terrorist activities (de Vries 2006).
Thus, the narrative of community takes on a particular meaning through the
specification of freedom and determination of its limits. Community comes to

mean ‘the European society’ embodied in the EU which is built upon ‘human
dignity, liberty, equality, solidarity, respect for human rights and fundamental
freedoms’ as well as ‘democracy and … the rule of law’ (Council 2002: Article 1).
Security then is an issue of protecting the core values of the European community
from extremist views and radical ideologies which spread through certain societal
groupings in the member states. And since the use of technology is one of the
central means of being exposed to radicalisation, the Commission as the main
producer of the vision has justified governance initiatives aiming to counter the
diffusion of terrorist propaganda through media and prevent radicalisation and
recruitment into terrorism through the Internet. Cooperating with the authorities
of particular member states, the Commission sought to legitimise governance
practices directed at the monitoring of the Internet and media with a view to
preventing terrorism-related information from being diffused to the European
public (European Commission 2005).
‘Radicalisation as an external security threat’ has a similar conceptualisation
of freedom to that of the ‘radicalisation within the EU’ construction, yet it differs
in its references to the narratives of security and community. From this view,
radicalisation is no longer confined within the borders of the Community. Rather,
it is argued to have its roots in countries and regions beyond the Union. Constituted
by the European Council and the European External Action Service (EEAS) –
formerly the Directorate-General for the External Relations (DG RELEX) – the
vision of radicalisation as emanating from the outside manifested itself in the
European Security Strategy in 2003 and became consolidated after Madrid and
London. The contention is that certain non-EU countries serve as a ‘foothold’
for terrorist operations and ‘breeding grounds’ for radicalisation and recruitment
into terrorism (Council 2009). Terrorist activities stem primarily from countries
and regions suffering from regional conflicts, state failure, and organised crime
which prepare the necessary conditions for individuals to be attracted by radical
ideologies and become members of terrorist organisations (Council 2003, 2005).
In externalising the terrorism risk, ‘radicalisation as an external security threat’
generates an understanding of community which incorporates not only European
citizens, but also those sharing the core values which the EU rests on. Community
represents both the EU and non-EU countries that are vulnerable to acts of terrorism
and radicalisation (Council 2005). Enlarging the frontiers of the community under
terrorist threat brings forward the extension of the meaning of security to include
the safety and well-being of a broader population existing beyond the boundaries
of the Union (Council 2004).
What is remarkable here is the discursive struggle to construct the EU as a
‘security provider’ in international relations. Linking radicalisation to conditions
belonging to the outside and rendering specific third countries as victims of terrorist
acts make it possible to turn governance into an issue of international political
action and to specify responsibilities and functions for the EU in international
politics. Because terrorism comes to the surface and operates freely in countries
facing different types of political conflict, the main governance strategy to combat
radicalisation is through EU development aid in the form of technical, financial and
development assistance, along with interreligious/intercultural dialogue by means
of Community programmes. In so doing, the determination of the targets and
strategies of counter-terrorism governance signifies a power struggle undertaken
by the Council and the EEAS (then DG RELEX) to present their exercises as
appropriate and valued, while seeking at the same time political legitimacy for
their operations in third countries.
However, neither ‘radicalisation from within the EU’ nor ‘radicalisation as an
external security threat’ could dominate the discursive construction of European
anti-terrorism governance. Instead, it is ‘the Schengen zone under threat’ which
has stood out throughout the discursive battles and come to be instrumental
in shaping political processes within the EU, including those at the national,
Community and international levels. This vision took shape with the publication
of the European Security Strategy (2003), and gained strength after Madrid and
London. The makers of ‘the Schengen zone under threat’ are the JHA Council and
three Commission DG’s – DG RELEX (now EEAS), along with DG Justice and
DG Home Affairs, both of which belonged to DG Justice, Freedom and Security
before they were split into two separate institutions in 2010. In addition, Europol
and Eurojust are also significant producers of this construction of European
counter-terrorism governance.
The three narratives which the ‘radicalisation from within the EU’ and
‘radicalisation as an external security threat’ together rest on are also crucial
for the production of ‘the Schengen zone under threat’ governance vision. The
concepts of freedom, security and community are fundamental reference points
for ‘the Schengen zone under threat’ in positioning it within discursive battles
and organising its strategies for justification over political leadership. To begin
with, the leading construction of EU counter-terrorism governance differs from
the two other images in its perception of community. Whereas ‘radicalisation
from within the EU’ and ‘radicalisation as an external security threat’ define
community in terms of political values that are under attack by extremist
ideologies, ‘the Schengen zone under threat’ views community as ‘the EU
community’, sharing common borders which physically demarcate EU citizens
from the terrorist risk originating from outside the confines of the Schengen area
(Council 2003, 2004).
In connection with this, freedom carries a meaning that is dissimilar to its

connotations in governance visions of ‘radicalisation from within the EU’ and
‘radicalisation as an external security threat’. Freedom in ‘the Schengen zone
under threat’ is associated with the freedom of movement within the Community.
It is a problem emanating from the freedom of movement granted through the
Schengen zone regulations. As the Council affirms, terrorists abuse the freedom
of movement to plan and perform their activities. The absence of border controls
between the member states makes it easier for terrorist groups to travel freely
and transfer money, goods and technologies across the EU for terrorist purposes
(Council 2005). Intimately related to the issue of the freedom of movement,

security represents the security of the Union’s physical structures, including its
borders, citizens and the critical infrastructure. The belief is that since terrorist
networks exploit the free movement of people, capital and goods within the
Community, the main target of the terrorist threat is the security of movement
within the Community (Council 2007, 2008).
The advancement of ‘the Schengen zone under threat’ among three main
images of governance has paved the way for the proliferation of policies focusing
on information- and intelligence sharing along with technical cooperation in
border management issues. The remaining question is: how is it that ‘the Schengen
zone under threat’ has developed into the prevailing governance construction
of European counter-terrorism strategy? The next section aims to answer this
question.
The Power of Merging the National and the Technical
The prevalence of ‘the Schengen zone under threat’ vision relates to the successful
assembly of different national positions and the use of technical knowledge in
the fight against terrorists and terrorist networks. What is common to these two
discursive elements is their function in justifying the necessity and contribution
of ‘the Schengen zone under threat’ vision in the formulation of an efficient and
targeted counter-terror strategy.
First, the success of ‘the Schengen under threat’ governance construction lies
in its reconciliation of national positions during an instance of political crisis. The
September 2001 events and subsequent terrorist attacks in Europe left the EU
member states and Community institutions in a state of uncertainty about how
to understand the terrorist threat and formulate an effective European counter-
strategy. At that time, national policies were diverging as regards the description of
terrorism and the determinants of a collective response. On the one hand, not every
EU member state was equally concerned about the terrorist threat. Support for EU-
level policy-making was especially high in countries subjected to diverse forms
of terrorism in the past, such as Germany, Spain and France. On the contrary,
given their relatively low level of exposure to terrorism, Scandinavian members
of the Union were less willing to allocate considerable resources for a common
fight against terrorism at the European level (Edwards and Meyer 2008). On the
other hand, there were strong national variations in the interpretation of concepts
such as ‘human rights’ and the ‘non-intervention principle’ (Wiener 2008), and
EU countries found it hard to harmonise their views on the best method of dealing
with terrorism. Certain member states favoured multilateral solutions and were
unsupportive of military action, whereas others advocated law-enforcement and
interventionist strategies (Edwards and Meyer 2008). Such ambiguities were also
reflected in policy action within and among EU institutions. The ambitious action
plans and declarations published immediately after the terrorist attacks in the US
and Europe hardly turned into concrete policy instruments (Bossong 2008).
Against the backdrop of this plurality of understandings, ‘the Schengen zone

under threat’ assembled divergent positions around a common framework for
policy action. It did so by reconciling individual views, uniting similar perceptions
and repositioning actors in such a way that the resulting agenda has come to serve
as a common denominator in formulating European counter-terrorism strategy.
Two constructions have been particularly important in this regard. The first is
the successful linking of terrorism to the internal security of the EU (Council
2005; Jackson 2007). Contending that terrorism threatens the EU as a whole
and that the freedom of movement within the Community renders every single
member state vulnerable to attacks (Council 2004), this governance frame has
been able to demonstrate the necessity of joint strategies and responses in border
management, information-sharing, and intelligence-exchange. The second is
the ability to represent the proposed measures as not being detrimental to the
national interests of the individual member states. ‘The Schengen zone under
threat’ suggests a set of practical arrangements which concentrate on selected
judicial and technical aspects of counter-terrorism (Council 2005, 2007). It does
not intervene into policy fields that are traditionally regarded as ‘high security’.
By persuading the decision-makers that its policy action does not run counter to
national concerns, ‘the Schengen zone under threat’ could harmonise differences
by bringing divergent political position to a common ground which has generally
been embraced as just and plausible (Gottweis 1999).
Second, the power of ‘the Schengen zone under threat’ is the strategic use
of expertise to integrate a technical/scientific component into political debates
over governance and to shape the policy agenda through knowledge (Wodak
2011). The makers of this construction have been effective in employing their
technical knowledge in terrorism-related issues to push for policy development
and implementation in particular directions. The producers of the governance
vision have relied on their specialisation to articulate their positions. By reference
to their extensive knowledge and experience in terror-related crimes, intelligence
and data collection, these actors were able to establish expert networks and situate
themselves within ongoing discursive struggles.
Accordingly, expertise made it possible for the Europol to persuade the decision-
makers of the urgency to strengthen European capabilities in information- and
intelligence-sharing (European Commission 2005, 2006), thereby contributing
to the production of ‘the Schengen zone under threat’ governance image. It did
so through an efficient employment of expert knowledge on terror-related crimes

and providing intelligence to EU member states on terrorist networks. Drawing
on its information database, Europol has constituted itself as a significant law
enforcement agency through information exchange in identifying terrorists,
detecting and tracing terrorist networks, and preventing the illegal production
and purchase of explosives and other technologies utilised for terrorist acts
(Council 2008). The power of expertise is evident in that Europol has been
quite successful in persuading decision-makers of the plausibility of its policy
recommendations and in legitimising the expansion of the operational practices
of counter-terrorism. To give an example, analysis and intelligence assessments

by Europol are significant in framing Council decisions. With regard to Europol’s
annual report on organised crime, a Council official states that: ‘Without input
from Europol the Council would not be in a position to take common priorities in
the implementation phase’ (quoted in Disley et al. 2012: 36).
The same is true for the European Agency for the Management of Operational
Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European
Union (FRONTEX). Being an EU border control agency, FRONTEX is a
clear manifestation of the instrumental function of expertise in advancing EU
governance practices. Created in 2004, the institution has performed important
functions in the production of the ‘Schengen zone under threat’ governance.
By taking on tasks in the coordination of interstate cooperation on operational
practices, the provision of technical assistance to national capacity-building
programmes and the conduct of risk assessments (Council 2007), the institution
has made use of its expertise to emphasise the urgency of strengthening the
operational and information-related aspects of the EU counter-terrorism
governance. In this way, FRONTEX has expanded its area of influence in cross-
border cooperation and border management practices, and exerted influence
on agenda setting through its assessment reports, information sharing, and
policy analysis. In other words, expertise has enabled FRONTEX to position
itself among other institutions and enhanced ‘the Schengen zone under threat’
by contributing a substantial level of input in policy proposals underlying
governance vision (Argomaniz 2011).
Conclusion
In this chapter, I suggested a discourse theory approach to examine the

expansion of EU governance in counter-terrorism. I argued that the different
aspects of member state cooperation in combating terrorism are formed through
discursive struggles, which constitute certain understandings of terrorism and the
way terrorism is to be addressed. Through a detailed examination of the three
competing visions of European strategy in the fight against terrorism, I specified
‘the Schengen zone under threat’ as the leading construction of governance.
This conception places its primary emphasis on protective policy strategies and
instruments focusing on border management and information- and intelligence

exchange on terrorism, terrorist networks, and organised crime.
‘The Schengen zone under threat’ governance model has two main
problematic consequences. First, the protective strategy guiding the EU’s policy
against terrorism has culminated in the ‘de-politicisation’ of European counter-
terror action in the sense that the overwhelming focus on technical cooperation
brought with it an inadequate attention to the political issues connected with
the terrorist threat (Balzacq 2008: 93–4). By dealing with terrorism only as a
matter of border protection and intelligence exchange, governance practices
disregarded the political and socio-economic issues which are/might be of

great relevance in terrorism and counter-terrorism. Since 2001, a number
of Community policies have been developed to cooperate with selected third
countries in capacity-building measures in countering terrorism. Along the same
lines, the EU has introduced stability programmes and made available technical,
financial and development aid to conflict and post-conflict societies to eliminate
factors that increase participation in terrorist activities (Council 2008, 2009).
Yet, such policies have been limited in scope, and their effect on the broader
European counter-terrorism strategy has been marginal. The vast majority of the
measures adopted within the EU institutional framework address intelligence-
and information-sharing in order to keep the ‘terrorist risk’ outside the borders of
the Community and secure freedom of movement within the Union.
Second, ‘the Schengen zone under threat’ governance action has been
‘discriminatory’, as it has created unfavourable conditions for those who wish
to enter EU territories for reasons that are not related to any act of terrorism. On
the one hand, the tightening of border management practices has complicated
member states’ visa procedures, and third-country nationals have had difficulties
in obtaining visas. This has put severe restrictions on visa seekers travelling to
the EU for business, education and touristic purposes. On the other hand, the
workings of ‘the Schengen zone under threat’ have been detrimental to refugees
heading towards the EU. For instance, the EU’s border agency FRONTEX carries
out operations beyond the territories of the Union over the course of which it
apprehends refugee boats and prevents them from reaching EU shores. If the
operation takes places in the waters within the jurisdiction of a third state, the
rescued boats are sent back to this state ‘without providing these would-be
refugees the possibility to ask for asylum’ (Pollak and Slominski 2009: 918).
This runs counter to EU claims concerning ‘refugee protection: the protection
of refugees from being returned to places where they might be subjected to
persecution and the prohibition of sending them back without considering their
proposal for asylum (the principle of non-refoulement)’ (Klepp 2010: 2).
Therefore, the protective strategy of EU counter-terrorism action requires
critical appraisal to improve EU political action and advance governance
practices in the fight against terrorism. The protection of the borders through
intelligence-led policy strategies might obstruct the access of terrorist groups into
the Community only to a limited extent. As the Council affirms, terrorists use
different channels for communicating their views and ideologies, such as through
media and the Internet (Council 2005). Furthermore, radicalisation within the EU
is a problem just as significant as border control, data gathering and intelligence-
exchange (Council 2005, 2007). Addressing the political, social and economic
conditions which incite radicalisation and recruitment to terrorist groups requires
careful attention to a long-term European anti-terror strategy, rather than short-
term technical measures that serve to keep the threat at bay. Moreover, as reflected
in the case of refugees and asylum seekers looking for shelter in the EU, certain
governance exercises are carried out at the expense of putting peoples’ lives at
risk. To avoid the detrimental outcomes of governing, political actors need to

reflect adequately upon the disadvantageous implications of the current European
exercises in combating terrorism.
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Part II
Constructivist Approaches

Chapter 4
Constructing European Diplomacy
in a Changing World
Knud Erik Jørgensen
Introduction
Relations between Europe and the world are notoriously difficult to define.1 It is,
in the first place, not a straightforward task to characterise the global environment
in which European diplomacy is being (re)constructed. Contending perspectives
are plentiful and include emphasis on emerging economies/powers, sometimes
phrased in terms of an increasingly multipolar international order. Others point
to diffuse distribution of power and authority, with reference to the (increasing)
role of multilateral institutions and transnational actors in global governance.
The changing world is also said to be characterised by new threats, including
climate change, piracy, failed states and terrorist organisations. Perceptions of
Europe in the world vary over time and currently, due to the economic crisis,
include notions of European decline. As concerns European diplomacy, the
universe in which it operates is characterised by a remarkable reconfiguration
of the diplomatic services of both EU member states and the European Union
(Keukeleire et al. 2010; Donelly 2010). The creation of the European External
Action Service (EEAS), combined with severe financial challenges, has prompted
European governments to downscale diplomatic representation – embassies
and consulates – in third countries. Moreover, traditional patterns of (informal)
authority have been challenged, even occasionally turned upside down – for
instance when EU Presidencies make themselves available to serve the needs of
the EEAS.
This chapter analyses the construction of the domain of social reality we
often call European diplomacy, specifically the EEAS. Consequently, the chapter
focuses on institutions, communication, discourse and policy paradigms. In
terms of institutional identity, the European External Action Service (EEAS)
has its home at Place Schumann, Brussels, situated symbolically between the
European Commission’s Berlaymont building and the European Council’s Justus
Lipsius building. The tall, heavy gate at the entrance to the building symbolises a
diplomatic service of some significance. The EEAS has a considerable number of
1 An earlier version of this chapter was presented at the GR:EEN workshop, ‘The
EU as a global discursive actor’, Brussels 14–15 February 2012. I would like to thank the
participants for their very helpful comments and feedback.
staff, expected to reach 5,000+ eventually, and an organisational chart that some
find impressive. But perceptions of the true size of the EEAS vary significantly.
In the capitals of most EU member states, the EEAS might appear ‘big’, not
least because the implicit comparator tends to be the local ministry of foreign
affairs. In the capitals of larger EU member states, housing diplomatic services of
13,000–15,000 diplomats, the EEAS does not appear to be that impressive (and
is not meant to be). From a Dutch perspective, the EEAS appears to be somewhat
Dutch, at least in terms of size.
Whether big, small or medium, the EEAS has a sizeable budget and, being
tasked to represent the European Union internationally, also an important mission.2

It is one of the institutional interfaces between Europe and the world, and between
European and world politics. (If the EEAS is the formal institution, there are also
other, informal institutions of some relevance for the present chapter.) Thus, the
EEAS frequently organises press conferences, explaining what it does and why.
Moreover, the EEAS briefs other European institutions, including the Council of
Ministers, the European Parliament and the European Council. Notably, despite
functional similarities, the EEAS is not a European Ministry of Foreign Affairs
but a European External Action Service, so it must regularly brief those in whose
service it works.3 Notably, the world of diplomacy is a world of institutions, whether
formal, informal, symbolic or ceremonial. Other informal institutions include the
meetings of diplomatic peers in foreign offices, state departments or international
organisations, and thus the High Representative, Catherine Ashton, meets John
Kerry, Yang Jiechi, Ban Ki-moon and many others. Finally, the EEAS makes use
of and contributes to specific European institutions such as the Eurobarometer
and Eurostat. The former informs EEAS officials that what they do might have a
surprisingly high degree of approval among European citizens, also in countries
not known to be particularly friendly to Brussels.4 Eurostat contributes the
(aggregate) European data that national statistical services systematically neglect,
for which reason Europe is somewhat unknown to Europeans.
In terms of communication, those visiting the EEAS website will know that it
communicates with its environment, issuing news and statements and providing
meeting schedules, photos and videos of top officials. Those who so desire can
become a friend of the EEAS on Facebook.5 The EEAS employs different means of
communication, reflecting the variations in the audiences it addresses. The EEAS
2 While the budget is sizeable, it is a composite budget consisting of contributions

from other EU institutions.
3 Functional similarity includes diplomatic recognition and the distinction between
headquarters and diplomatic representations in 130+ countries (see Rijks and Whitman 2007).
4 However, Richard Sinnott (2000) points out that Eurobarometer data should be
handled just as cautiously as any other source of data.
5 Further down the street, i.e., the Rue de la Loi, there is another institution of some
significance for foreign affairs, DG Trade, representing the European Union in international
trade negotiations, whether bilateral or multilateral. Though DG Trade also has a website and
communicates with the world, the present chapter will focus on the activities of the EEAS.
Constructing European Diplomacy in a Changing World 81
website is one such means, both as a means in its own right and as a gateway to
a rich variety of communication channels. Additionally, Ashton and EEAS top
officials give speeches, and her staff issues statements and provides news.6 They
are involved in drafting both Council and European Council conclusions. Ashton
is also, as Vice-President of the European Commission, involved in authorising
white papers, green papers, communications and other kinds of policy documents.7
This chapter examines the significance of institutional communication and how it
resonates with existing discourses on foreign affairs. It does so by bridging two
avenues of research: one avenue focusing on relations between elite and public,
and a second avenue focusing on foreign policy paradigms, thus illustrating some
of the arguments that Caterina Carta and Jean-Frédéric Morin have emphasised
(see the introduction to this volume).
In research on the relationship between foreign policy and public opinion,
Gabriel Almond’s (1960) distinction between a ‘general public’, an ‘attentive
public’ and a ‘policy and opinion elite’ has proved to be of lasting value.8 According
to Almond’s slightly provocative claim, the general public does not understand
and, in any case, does not care about foreign policy, except perhaps during crises.
The attentive public is a fairly exclusive and educated segment of the general
public, and the elite can interact with the attentive public, at least in terms of
more general or abstract reasoning. The policy and opinion elite comprises several
groupings – diplomats, journalists, politicians, academics – who know to various
degrees the insights and rationales of policies and, thus, are in a perfect position to
interact within the elite as well as with the attentive public.
This chapter also focuses on the interaction between the policy and opinion
elite (POE) and the attentive public (AP), especially discursive interaction, i.e.,
how the POE articulates European foreign policy to the AP. Which abstract idioms,
symbols or (historical) analogies are being employed by politicians, diplomats
and the media, and which idioms are typically aimed at the hearts and minds of
the attentive public? In this context, the chapter examines the issue of contested
discourses between, within and especially across EU member states, arguing that
significant insight can be gained by means of analysing contested discourses within
6 Speech delivered by Nick Westcott, Managing Director Africa EEAS, to the

European Union Institute for Security Studies conference on EU-Africa foreign policy
after Lisbon, 18 October 2011. For an analysis of specific EEAS speeches, see Carta, this
volume.
7 E.g., Joint communication, ‘A partnership for democracy and shared prosperity
with the Southern Mediterranean’ (8.3.2011); Joint communication, ‘A new response to a
changing Neighbourhood’ (25.5.2011); Joint Communication to the European Parliament
and The Council, ‘Human rights and democracy at the heart of EU External Action –
towards a more effective approach’ (6.1.2012).
8 Almond’s book is obviously not the only show in town. Indeed, other approaches
have more trust in the knowledge and interest of the general public (for an overview, see
Holsti and Rosenau 1990). Thus, I do not necessarily find Almond’s approach compelling,
but I do find his distinction useful for this chapter.
member states, including the degree to which these discourses have a transnational
nature. In this respect, the chapter focuses on themes similar to those analysed
by Caterina Carta and Thomas Diez (both this volume), even if the approach is
different – Carta employing critical discourse analytical approaches and Diez
employing poststructural approaches.
Finally, the chapter explicates two key terms, public philosophy and mythology,
highlighting their crucial importance for the objectives of the chapter. Both terms
seem to enjoy some family resemblance with the notion of policy paradigm, the
latter connoting world views or general ideas that play a role at a deeper level than
policy as such. Policy paradigms inform policy ideas of a more programmatic

nature (Campbell 2002; Carlsnaes 1987; see also Schmidt in this volume). In
this fashion, the chapter singles out the nature of epistemes in foreign affairs and
examines their role in the politics of European diplomacy.
Contested Discourses between and within EU Member States
Research on foreign policy and discourse has frequently focused on national

discourses and their impact on political approaches to European foreign policy
(Hellmann 1996; Larsen 1997; Aggestam 2004; see also Larsen’s contribution
to this volume). This literature can be seen as a discursive variant of research
on the interplay between national and European foreign policy (Hill 1983, 1996;
Wong and Hill 2011; Manners and Whitman 2001), i.e., research emphasising the
significance of national foreign policy for the genesis and dynamics of European
foreign policy. While this literature has proved to be highly informative and
probably is the best available on relations between member states and EU foreign
policy, it is also characterised by a number of weaknesses.9 In the first place, it
tends to reify the national, thereby downplaying the contested nature of both
national and, to a lesser extent, European foreign policy. Moreover, it focuses
on only one dimension of contested policy, i.e., it highlights how foreign policy
is contested among EU member states and downplays different worldviews and
preferred foreign policy directions within member states. Finally, it somehow
downplays processes of Europeanisation, that is, the impact of Europe on member
states’ institutions and policy-making processes. These tendencies constitute
classic examples of analytical trade-offs, obviously implying that the alternative is
also characterised by its own distinct configuration of strengths and weaknesses.
In order to create an alternative perspective, it is fruitful to examine some
historical and a few contemporary examples of contested foreign policy
discourses. When E.H. Carr in 1939 engaged in criticism of liberalism, especially
what he called utopian idealism, he was first and foremost criticising a distinct
foreign policy tradition in Europe (Carr 2001 [1939]). His target was British
liberal internationalism, but the tradition was not unknown on the European
9 Except for studies of trade policy, principal agent theory and rational choice
approaches have never really made it to the field of foreign policy.
continent, e.g., in France, Scandinavia and elsewhere. By contrast, it had been

effectively repressed in Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain and other countries where
authoritarian or totalitarian rule had been introduced. E.H. Carr did not only
criticise, he criticised from a position – for example, pleading for appeasement,
a distinct form of limited engagement (Haslam 2000; Sylvest 2007, 2009). Hans
Morgenthau (1946) phrased Carr’s message slightly differently but the target was
identical, though extended to include also, and perhaps especially, the American
(Wilsonian) liberal tradition. When Jean-Yves Haine (2009) criticises European
liberal internationalism, he essentially replicates Carr’s and Morgenthau’s
criticisms, yet situates his analysis and criticism in the early twenty-first century.
Hence, criticism of liberal internationalism seems to be a constant (see also Paris
1997). As both Carr and Morgenthau are famous early representatives of the realist
theoretical tradition, we also witness here an example of the connection between
theoretical orientation and criticism of political practice, including the discursive
dimension of political practice.
Criticism of the opposite political position has, likewise, been a constant.
There is a long discursive line from Norman Angell’s criticism of power politics,
via Ernst Haas’ criticism of the notion of balance of power, to Mario Bettati and
Bernard Kouchner’s (1987) argument for an international right to intervene,
provided interventions are prompted by humanitarian concerns. A fairly similar
reasoning is behind R2P, the newly established principle of a responsibility to
protect (see Knudsen 2013). Terry Nardin (2006) has eminently examined how such
a right can possibly be supported by philosophical arguments. Jane Sharp (1997)
has delivered a devastating criticism of British conservative internationalism,
especially in the context of the wars in the former Yugoslavia. Joschka Fischer
has forwarded similar arguments vis-à-vis the doctrines of German foreign policy,
as defined by Angela Merkel’s government, i.e., limited engagement and a high
degree of risk aversion. Liberal and conservative internationalism are just two
among several foreign policy traditions. In Europe there are other foreign policy
traditions – e.g., isolationism, commercial internationalism and the tradition
sponsoring development policy (see Gavas and Maxwell 2010; see also Jørgensen
2013). However, the present account is not intended to be exhaustive. It only
serves illustrative purposes.
We have already seen how politicians and academics make use of distinct
idioms – e.g., ‘utopian idealism’, ‘Munich’, ‘Maginot’ – when analysing a given
state of affairs or characterising their opponents. In other words, when addressing
their attentive public, they make use of certain discourses, and because the attentive
public has certain insights into foreign affairs, we can speak about a certain
discursive shareware. Before examining discursive shareware, two follow-up
questions should be addressed. Recalling that Almond wrote about foreign affairs
within a state, one question concerns the degree to which national experiences
can be or are replicated at the European level. According to Vivien Schmidt, ‘the
lack of connection between spheres of discourse is a frequent occurrence in the
European Union’ (Schmidt 2008: 311). According to Paul Statham, options for
such replication are limited:
Applying this formula to a Europeanised politics, we believe that the ‘attentive

public’ has been very much smaller than it usually is in domestic politics. This
is supported by our findings that civil society mobilisation is weak in discursive
influence. A consequence of this very small attentive public from civil society
over Europe is that the mass media has taken centre stage as the actor representing
the public. (2010: 301)
Though this conclusion concerns European integration as such, it is difficult to see

why it should not also apply to the field of foreign policy, perhaps even more so than
for European politics as such. Essentially we do not know whether this is the case,
particularly because the triangle ‘foreign policy’, ‘discourse’ and ‘public opinion’
has been under-researched. In short, we might find a fragmented public sphere
and a relatively limited attentive public in Europe. Existing research points in this
direction, yet further study is needed in order to reach a more decisive conclusion.
This potentially fragmented public sphere can be seen as bad for processes of
public deliberation on the direction of European foreign policy. Yet analytically, it
should make the task of understanding the dynamics of European foreign policy
relatively easier. Seemingly, such understandings have to be complemented by
studies of media coverage of foreign affairs.
The second question is whether the foreign policy traditions and their key
idioms somehow connect to the EEAS. The short answer to this question is that
it varies. Members of the isolationist tradition (often nationalist and populist,
though not always) generally do not aim at influencing the direction of European
foreign policy. They aim at destroying it, thereby performing the role of the
enemy within. When examining the foreign policy thinking within Le Pen’s Front
National, among members of the UK Independence Party, segments of British
Conservatives, Vaclav Klauses and Kazcinskis, Lega Nordists, Vlaams Blok and
Scandinavian progress parties, studies consistently conclude that their discourse is
not only directed at their political opponents but also at the institutions that have
been built and are occupied by political opponents (see Swyngedouw et al. 2007).
Studies also conclude that isolationist populists generally do not care greatly about
global affairs, except when, for example, border issues can be politicised. It should
be added that not all European nationalist are hostile to the EU; indeed both the
Lega Nord and the Front National were once friends of the EU, the former finding
the role of EU regions attractive, the latter using the EU instrumentally in its blatant
anti-Americanism. Catalan, Basque, Scottish and Welsh nationalists, to mention
just a few, turn their criticism towards their own national capitals and the politics
that national capitals represent, not Brussels. While the EU might function as a
partner vis-à-vis national capitals, European foreign policy is for these nationalists
often a horizon too far.
For members of the commercial internationalist foreign policy tradition, the
EEAS might be of some interest, but it is DG Trade that is of crucial importance –
not least when representing European commercial interests, e.g., in negotiations of

bilateral trade agreements or during deliberations within multilateral institutions.
As commercial interests can be promoted or protected by different means, the
tradition is split along a range of lines, e.g., free traders vs. protectionists.
No matter the differences between and within traditions, data is available
and the traditions can be researched – and, to some degree, already have been.
The advantage is that a focus on foreign policy traditions avoids the traps of
methodological nationalism. The analytical challenge is to connect research on
foreign policy traditions, discourse and the EEAS.
Public Philosophies
One important notion for this chapter is public philosophy, coined by Samuel H.
Beer (1978), elaborated by Margaret Weir (1992) and recently further refined by
Paul Schumaker (2008).10 It is probably difficult to overestimate the analytical
importance and possibilities embedded in the distinction between public
philosophy, policy and administrative programmes. In the words of Margaret
Weir, public philosophy
expresses broad concepts that are tied to values and moral principles and that
can be represented in political debate in symbols and rhetoric … . Public
philosophies play a central role in organising politics, but their capacity to direct
policy is limited; without ties to programmatic ideas their influence is difficult
to sustain. (Weir 1992: 207–8)
Political rhetoric is often characterised by vague notions, ambiguity and generous

inconsistency, leaving plenty of space for connotation (for a thorough analysis of
the discrete charm of ambiguity, see Reyroux, this volume). Often, it is precisely
such qualities that make political rhetoric work. Let us now turn to Paul Schumaker,
who explains that ‘Public philosophies, like political ideologies, provide fairly
comprehensive and coherent sets of ideas about politics. Both provide beliefs
about how political communities are governed, ideals about the goals that should
be sought by political communities, and principles providing broad guidelines for
achieving those goals’ (Schumaker 2008: 1). Schumaker not only defines public
philosophy, he also provides a framework for generating, describing and analysing
public philosophies. He emphasises that public philosophies are promising for
public policy debates that can function as an alternative to ideological warfare.
The notion of public philosophy provides direction and guidelines, especially
in terms of what to look for, and is therefore immensely helpful for research into
the discursive dimensions of foreign policy.
10 This section and the following draw on K.E. Jørgensen (2013).
Mythologies
The second important notion is mythology. Myth plays an important role within
anthropology, and Roland Barthes (2000) has thoroughly examined the nature of
mythology. Myth also plays a certain role in sociological institutionalism (March
and Olsen 1989). However, in the present context John Kane (2009) is of crucial
and direct importance, emphasising that
the myth, being mythical, never accurately described American realities, for the
function of myth is not to reflect and report the superficial realities of this or any
other moment. The domain of myth is not empirical reality but imagination, and
the source of its sustenance is not reason but faith. One of the functions of myth
is to provide people with a deeper story, a narrative that can encompass their
own individual stories and give them meaning, worth, and hope, connected by
something more than mere contingency. (2009: 5)
It could be said that several of the connections to foreign policy traditions were
introduced above. Nevertheless, it remains a challenge to conduct research on
imagination and faith and the role of these features within the field of foreign
affairs. Did we academics get the function of notions such as ‘civilian power
Europe’, ‘Europe as a model’ or ‘European values’ right? Did we not examine the
(limited) degree to which these notions match European realities? If the domain
of myth is not empirical reality but imagination, then the contending processes
of meaning formation should be our prime field of study (cf. Thomas Diez’s
contribution to this volume).
Discursive Shareware
Communication between POE and AP is largely handled by means of abstract

concepts, symbols, principles and a range of mythologies; that is, by means of
what is sometimes, cf. above, called public philosophies. Such philosophies are
shared, but only in their general outlines. In order to understand the function of
public philosophies, it might be helpful to distinguish between four levels.
At the first level we find transnational foreign policy traditions. Representatives
of these traditions typically employ their own distinct categories and idioms and
the degree of discursive shareware with other traditions might be somewhat
limited. Exactly how limited depends on specific traditions and circumstances,
and it varies over time (Holbraad 2003; Mead 2002; Nau 2002; Sylvest 2009). If
we look at the transnational dimension, the distinct traditions might share quite a
bit of discursive components, although some traditions seem to be more coherent
than others.
At the second level, the national, we find distinct national symbols and
mythologies (see Larsen, this volume). Some Danish examples would be ‘1864’,
‘never again a 9th April’, ‘foreign policy activism’, ‘a small open economy’,
‘neutralism’ (especially vis-à-vis European great powers), ‘footnote policy’,
‘something on heroes’. Beyond Danish borders, these categories do not necessarily

make much sense, but they play a key role in constituting the imagined community
of Danes and help organise the politics of Danish foreign policy. Research on
Danish foreign policy tends to reify the tradition by reproducing distinct moments
and symbols – and in turn explains why Denmark or at least Danish governments
and segments of the attentive public at times have certain problems with European
foreign policy. Though the specifics are presumably different, other countries also
have their fabric of symbols and mythologies.
At the third level, the European, we find expressions such as ‘Europe as a
model’, ‘European values’ (Lucarelli and Manners 2006), ‘civilian/normative

power’, ‘a global front-runner’ (not so often ‘leader’!), ‘beyond power politics’
(although slippages into the language of power politics also occur, cf. the Laeken
Declaration referring to a multipolar world), ‘responsibility’ and, in a bygone
world, Europe providing a ‘standard of civilisation’ (cf. Gong 1984). Each of these
concepts plays a role in and is connected to the public philosophies characterising
foreign policy traditions. For representatives of foreign policy traditions, the
usefulness of these concepts varies (precisely because discourses are essentially
contested, cf. arguments by Thomas Diez in this volume). ‘Europe as a model’ is
useful for both conservative internationalists and isolationists who prefer Europe
not to do too much of anything in foreign affairs. For them it is sufficient to be
(a model). Moreover, the concept is compatible with a liberal mindset because
Europe is constructed as a (liberal) vanguard, characterised by (liberal) European
values which liberals are bound to project worldwide.
At the fourth level, the global, the United Nations is an arena for norm
production and the EU tends foremost to be a norm taker (e.g., human rights, R2P,
the Millennium Development Goals, alliance of civilisations concept, etc.) (see
Barnett and Finnemore 2004; Costa and Jørgensen 2012; Wessel and Blockmans
2013). Additionally, agencies other than the UN provide norms and principles for the
EU to download. Within the field of development policy, the OECD Development
Assistance Committee and the World Bank perform a similar function (Carroll and
Kellow 2013). Within the field of non-proliferation, the EU has proved to be very
active in downloading norms and principles, yet demonstrated limited capacity
to make and implement policies (van Ham 2011; Kienzle and Vestergaard 2013).
These examples illustrate the significance of discourses in international affairs,
but also the fact that the EU does not always speak. Sometimes, the EU listens
and adopts or adapts to global norms. Institutions at the sub-global level also play
a role, cf. NATO’s role as a model for the EU in defence matters and the role
of the United States in triggering the rationale for the 2003 European Security
Strategy (Biscop 2005), including its emphasis on weapons of mass destruction
and terrorism as main threats to European security. Indeed, the very notion of
having a strategy to guide policymaking was subsequently copied by some EU
member states, especially France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
In the context of this distinction between four levels, three issues merit closer
attention. The first concerns the relationship between POE and AP. In Europe,
the AP seems to be rather compartmentalised, partly because each level has its
distinct constituencies, partly because communication tends to take place in
different languages and, finally, because the European foreign policy tradition
has been cultivated at a certain distance from both the general and the attentive
public. Notably, the tradition in question is different from what is otherwise
referred to as tradition in this chapter.11 However, compartmentalisation can
also be exaggerated. Differences between globalisation, mondialisation and
globalisierung do not seem that impressive, even if connotations can be
significantly different. Moreover, it is not that different from the US case, where
interplays between different levels also occur. Finally, even if the European
AP does exist, it might be that it is not fully conscious of its own existence –
though in February 2003, when a considerable segment of the AP demonstrated
throughout Europe against the Iraq War, it demonstrated its presence (Habermas
and Derrida 2003).
The second issue concerns the relationship between public philosophy and
foreign policy. Whether they contribute to uploading or downloading, public
philosophies do not explain foreign policy as such, i.e., as policy. However, they
do help us to better understand reasons for action, i.e., the process of legitimising
European foreign policy. They help us understand how the politics of foreign
policy is organised.
The third issue concerns the increased public philosophy activity at the
global or international (or rather, transnational) level, not least the increasing
number and multiple kinds of actors involved. The emergence and importance
of transnational actors have been demonstrated in, e.g., the processes leading
to the establishment of the International Criminal Court, the adoption of the
R2P, the formulation of the Millennium Development Goals, the treaty ban on
anti-personnel landmines and the treaty on small firearms (Krause 2002; Long
2002; Groenleer and Rijks 2009). The increased activity and the emergence
of new kinds of actors might imply that representatives of traditional foreign
policy traditions feel challenged, not least because they no longer seem to enjoy
a monopoly on defining directions and means or controlling communication.
There might occasionally have been certain tensions between representatives of
foreign policy traditions and professional diplomats, but the new challenge is
very different. Parts of the European attentive public subscribe to international
actors and communicators, and sometimes the EU chooses to do the same. Hence,
the EU is not only a nation writ large. It is also a micro-cosmos of world politics,
perhaps the region in the world that most consistently contributes to, subscribes
to, and seeks to promote global norms. This makes European exceptionalism
genuinely exceptional.
11 The European foreign policy tradition refers here to foreign policy separate from
democratic institutions, foreign policy being the prerogative of the government.
Analytical Potentials and Limits
In general, the attentive public employs public philosophy concepts and is

sufficiently attentive to understand the significance of the concepts employed by
the policy and opinion elite. Almond did not use the notion of public philosophy,
and he did not write about Europe. However, the employment of public philosophy
does not seem to cause serious problems, as it is merely a question of providing
more refinement and nuance. By contrast, the application of his ideas to the case
of Europe does provide some serious challenges.
The attentive public, to the degree it makes sense to keep the notion in the
singular form, does not know where, exactly, to look for the policy and opinion
elite’s discursive communication. Subscription to the EEAS’ statements does
not do the trick. According to Stefan Lehne (2011), these statements sometimes
happen to be mere empty words, issued in order to appear as a significant player
but without the substance necessary, to issue statements of consequence. The
same applies to the minutes of European Parliament debates, in part because
European parliamentarians have limited interest in or responsibility for European
foreign policy. Academic books and articles are generally too academic and do not
necessarily contribute to legitimising European foreign policy. European media
tend to either believe that there is nothing of significance to report, or to make
the EEAS as such (or other institutions) the theme of their stories, not the politics
or specific policies (for academic studies of the EEAS, see Barber 2010; Duke
2010; Vanhoonacker and Reslow 2010; Carta, this volume). While the media find
member states’ criticisms of the EEAS worthy to report, they find considerably
less ‘news quality’ in policy reviews of, e.g., the European Neighbourhood Policy.
Importantly, the policy and opinion elite is a composite entity. Its policy segment
is collective in decision-making (when decisions are possible), yet often separate
when legitimising political positions and actions. Legitimising is not often, ‘Why
did we decide to take European foreign policy in direction X’, but rather, ‘How
I managed to safeguard aspect Y, precious to all of us, the people of country Z’.
Despite the fact that the policy and opinion elite is a composite entity and that
national representatives typically do not contribute to European discourse, and
that European media are not a channel for communication, some exceptions do
exist. Books by David Owen, Chris Patten, Robert Cooper, David Spence, Joschka
Fischer, Simon Nuttall and many others contribute to the genesis of a European
public sphere in the field of foreign affairs. Likewise, it would be possible to
analyse the changing discourses over time of, e.g., RELEX Commissioners,
Development or Trade Commissioners and High Representatives. Similarly, all
EPC, CFSP and E/CSDP statements and declarations are available, though never
systematically analysed (whether by means of content analysis or discourse
analysis). For some reason, analysts have either avoided analysing political
discourse or have uncritically reproduced it, e.g., writing about the EU’s strategies
vis-à-vis country X, Y or Z without even attempting to use the term ‘strategy’
analytically, or writing about policies A, B or C without examining which kind of
policy, if any, the declared policies represent. As previously demonstrated, there

are significant gaps between practitioners’ and analysts’ discourses: the former
refers to median line politics (e.g., Nuttall 1992, 2000); the latter refers endlessly
to lowest common denominator politics (Jørgensen 1997).
In the European context, the policy and opinion elite is to a considerable degree
an abstraction, not least because the policy and opinion elites seem to live in worlds
apart. Concerning European foreign policy, some media editors and commentators
subscribe to two doctrines of European foreign policy: ‘Does not exist’ and ‘Does
exist but is bound to fail’, i.e., distinct discourses in their own right (see Jørgensen
2004). Other segments of the media tend to follow national politicians’ example
and, perhaps with a view to segments of media markets, tell their readers ‘the
national story’, the story from the perspective of country X or the ‘what’s in it for
us’ story. Some academics tend to summarise media coverage (especially in the
English language), not regarded as a discourse to be analysed, but as a shortcut to
sources of the true state of affairs. Thus, their studies become merely a concentrate
of media coverage, especially coverage by English-language media.
Sometimes the policy elite seems to believe that it is sufficient to download
global principles and add declaratory policies and some administrative programmes
to constitute a world-class international player. No wonder they are less than keen
to legitimise their political actions, leading us to a state of affairs in which there is
limited policy discourse to analyse.
Conclusion
The processes of constructing European diplomacy have evolved since the early
1970s and, if we include trade, development and enlargement of dimensions, ever
since the Rome treaty was signed. Over time, ever more policy areas have been
included in the politics of European diplomacy and ever more dense discursive
fabrics have been woven by the policy and opinion elite. In other words, ever
more impressive datasets are available for analysis, including studies informed by
constructivist theories. However, relatively few analysts have engaged in this field
of research. While the dynamics of legal-institutional matters and policymaking
have been analysed in numerous studies, the equally important dynamics of the
politics of European diplomacy have attracted limited interest.
This chapter pointed to promising points of departure, including a focus on
foreign policy traditions and the public philosophies, mythologies and policy
paradigms they represent and make use of. In this fashion, the analytical perspective
was changed from one characterising the predominant (vertical) mode of analysis
to a horizontal, transnational perspective on the politics of European diplomacy.
Such a change is not suggested because vertical relations between member states
and European institutions are unimportant or unworthy of analysis. They are
clearly very important, yet represent nonetheless only one among several aspects.
Moreover, the chapter outlined analytical potentials; that is, reflections on the
feasibility of a number of avenues of research. Drawing on Almond’s classic study,
a distinction was made between, on the one hand, the policy and opinion elite and,
on the other hand, the public (divided into the attentive and the general public).
While not underestimating the degree to which the policy and opinion elite as
well as the attentive public in Europe are compartmentalised, it was argued that
Almond’s concept is applicable in studies of the politics of European diplomacy.
While the applicability as such is most interesting (the distinction was, after all,
introduced in studies of American foreign policy), it is even more important that
it opens three new major avenues of inquiry. The first avenue leads to studies
of the degree to which Europeans share understandings of foreign affairs, for
instance studies drawing on public opinion surveys. Do Europeans share horizons
or world views? Do they accept both cooperative and military internationalism?
The second avenue explores the degree to which we can identify congruence
between discourses at elite and public levels, i.e., studies exploring whether the
political elite, media and European citizens ‘speak the same language’ concerning
foreign affairs. The third avenue introduces a dynamic perspective, asking whether
patterns and trends have changed over time, including the identification of factors
that might help explain change and continuity. In short, the chapter points to some
of the promises of engaging analytically with the discursive practices of the EEAS
and other European institutions.
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Chapter 5
‘A Boost to our Economies that
Doesn’t Cost a Cent’:
EU Trade Policy Discourse since the Crisis
Jan Orbie and Ferdi De Ville
Trade liberalisation is a major structural reform in itself.

—European Commission (2013: 1)
Introduction
This chapter shows how a discursive approach can improve our understanding
of the surprising resilience of neoliberalism in Europe.1 More specifically, we
demonstrate how subtly adapting elements of a discourse to a changing context
contributes to perpetuating the status quo. Our underlying puzzle dovetails
with the paradox posited by Colin Crouch (2011) of ‘the strange non-death of
neoliberalism’ since the crisis. As elsewhere, in the European Union (EU) the
crisis has not led to a contestation of the capitalist system, as some expected.
This is also true for EU trade policy, which has been more free trade-oriented
than ever. We focus on how the European Commission’s trade policy discourse
since the outbreak of the financial-economic crisis in September 2008 has resulted
from and contributed to the endurance of neoliberal approaches to the crisis in
the EU. Although this discourse has been subtly adapted to a fluctuating context
over recent years, it has consistently legitimised the continuation of the neoliberal
agenda that has characterised EU trade policy since the mid-1990s.
The EU has probably more than any other actor embraced neoliberal trade
options since the mid-1990s (see also Hanson 1998; Young 2004; De Ville and
Orbie 2013). Despite continuing instances of protectionism, it has enthusiastically
embraced global trade liberalisation. Sensitive sectors such as textile and clothing
have been opened to international competition and even the EU’s agricultural
markets have been gradually liberalised over the past two decades. All EU Trade
Commissioners since Sir Leon Brittan (1995–1999) were staunch supporters of
trade liberalisation. Even the French Commissioner Pascal Lamy (1999–2004),
1 The authors wish to thank all the participants to the GR:EEN/WIRE Workshop,
held in Brussels on 14–15 February 2012, and in particular Caterina Carta, Jean-Frédéric
Morin and Eleni Xiarchogiannopoulou, for their invaluable feedback on earlier versions.
All remaining errors remain the sole responsibility of the authors.
who under the banner of ‘harnessing globalisation’ stressed more the social,
environmental and developmental dimensions of trade policy, largely subscribed
to the neoliberal paradigm that trade liberalisation is ultimately efficient. The 2006
Global Europe ‘competitiveness’ discourse developed under Peter Mandelson
(2004–2008) is therefore a continuation and concretisation of a free trade
orthodoxy established in the mid-1990s. The strategy is neoliberal in its belief
in and absolute prioritisation of efficiency gains arising from trade liberalisation
externally and internally. It emphasises the need to open markets in order to
stimulate competitiveness within the EU, even if this hurts vulnerable European
industries (Kerremans and Adriaensen 2011). As will become clear in this chapter,
subsequent Commissioners Ashton (2008–2009) and De Gucht (2010–2014) have
continued this neoliberal trade (dis)course.
A similar neoliberal evolution took place in internal market integration. Also
within the EU, neoliberal policies have been strengthened since the crisis. This
chapter shows how the EU’s external trade policy discourse has contributed
to enabling a neoliberal approach to the internal crisis, while constraining
alternative policy options. In doing so, the trade policy discourse has been subtly
re-articulated from (i) defensive, towards (ii) an offensive discourse which (iii)
sees liberalisation not merely as desirable but also as necessary, and finally (iv)
a slightly more nuanced discourse whereby liberalisation is still necessary but
no longer sufficient. The internal and external neoliberal agendas are consistently
presented as logically coherent, but, as we will make clear, they can be challenged
and problematised.
Critical Approaches to EU Trade Policy Discourse
As the introduction to this volume makes clear, there is a great diversity of

approaches to discourse analysis. In addition, it is often difficult to situate authors
within a single category. This also applies to the position of our study in the
structure of this book. While we basically agree with the label of ‘constructivism’,
we would argue that this does not exclude a critical analysis which also incorporates
elements of poststructuralist thinking. In our view ‘constructivism’ relates to the
ontological perspective that structure and agency are mutually constitutive. While
all constructivists share this basic meta-theoretical perspective, they hold different
epistemological views on whether the social world can be studied in a positivist
way (see e.g., Christiansen et al. 1999; Risse 2009: 145). Most critical theories
including neo-Gramscian, Foucauldian and feminist perspectives would agree with
such a constructivist ontology. Critical scholars have often criticised constructivists,
arguing that in emphasising the normative dimension of international relations,
they are neglecting issues of power and reverting back to idealist thinking (e.g.,
Van Apeldoorn et al. 2002: 30; for a discussion of how ‘modern constructivism’ can
and must be distinguished from ‘liberal-idealism’ see Steele 2007). That said, as
recognised in the introduction of this book, apart from mainstream constructivism
‘A Boost to our Economies that Doesn’t Cost a Cent’ 97
there is also a radical and critical strand which emphasises the power dimension of
discourse and language (cf. Checkel 2007: 58–9).
Our perspective coincides more with the latter. We also hold a dialectical
approach to the agency-structure debate, implying that structures of intersubjective
meaning do not simply provide the context within which agents operate, but that
the latter are also continuously (re)constructing the discursive environment through
‘speech acts’ (Diez 1999) or ‘text’ (Fairclough 1995). This also corresponds with
a discursive institutionalist approach which pays more attention to discursive
interaction than sociological institutionalism (Schmidt 2010: 5). Although we
are aware of the structural constraints in the discursive environment (e.g., global
neoliberal hegemony), we also assume that agents can be creative in and with
this context. This may be all the more true for the European Commission and its
Trade Commissioner in particular. However, this does not mean that the agent’s
creativity is unlimited (Diez 1999: 611, referring to Laclau and Mouffe 1985).
In our analysis, we find that the Commission has been flexible in continuously
adapting its discourse on the link between external trade and the economic crisis,
in such a way that the hegemonic neoliberal discourse which sees trade as a major
source of growth and leverage for structural reforms remains undisputed.
To be sure, we do not attribute causal effects to discourse. In line with
poststructuralist thinking, we assume that discourse should not be seen in terms of
causal effects, i.e., in terms of explaining policy change or continuity. Rather than
seeking causal relations in the positivist sense, we believe that discourse (i.e., the
construction of meaning) cannot be considered in isolation from the articulation of
policies, and both are mutually constitutive. Discourse has enabling or disabling
ramifications, while a dissection of cause and effects is impossible (see Diez
1999, 2013). In the case under review, subtle re-articulations of EU trade policy
discourse in the context of the crisis will legitimise neoliberal options (and de-
legitimise others). From this perspective, discourse is considered to be always
relevant irrespective of the question whether it has been ‘used instrumentally’
and ‘disingenuously’ or not. Thus, we challenge the usefulness of the distinction
between normative and strategic motivations. We are interested in the construction
of meaning through social interaction, not in ‘what is in people’s minds’ and
‘whether they really mean what they say’. While more positivist-oriented
constructivists (or ‘soft rationalists’) would argue that discourse is being used
instrumentally by actors in order to maximise their preferences (e.g., Goldstein and
Keohane 1993; Rosamond 1999; Schimmelfennig 2002; and van den Hoven 2004
and Siles-Brugge 2011 in relation to EU trade policy), we would be more oriented
towards the reflectivist pole of the continuum of constructivist epistemologies (see
Christiansen et al. 1999: 543, and Figure 5.1). Agents are important, not so much
in terms of their cognitive beliefs but rather in relation to their social environment
(or ‘intersubjective structure’). While some would argue that politicians can just
say anything, our analysis of EU (trade) policy discourse during the crisis confirms
Wæver’s (2009: 165) point that political language is not just about short-term
justification and that it is surprisingly coherent and systematic over time.
Given this epistemological position, it will not be surprising that our discourse
analysis also situates itself within the critical school. Although some critical
perspectives such as historical materialism are more positivist, most critical
scholars tend to position themselves against positivist thinking (Manners 2007:
78). In line with Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approaches (see Carta and
Morin in the introduction), being critical implies that our analysis is explicitly
normative and aimed at criticising and changing society. Thus, we do not only
describe EU trade policy discourse, but we also look for potential challenges to
what is depicted as ‘natural’ or ‘logical’. By pointing at these challenges, we do not
aim to demonstrate that there are more truthful interpretations of ‘reality’, but rather
that hegemonic understandings can be challenged and alternative conceptions are
thinkable. Our critical perspective involves criticising neoliberal hegemony and
insisting that another Europe is possible. Even if the possibilities for change are
often limited by hegemonic power relations and ideas (cf. Fairclough 1995: 137),
discursive challenges may potentially contribute to opening up the discursive space
and allowing for counter-hegemonic discourses (e.g., by new social movements
such as the indignados or the Occupy movement as well as more traditional
actors such as trade unions and political parties). However, our approach is not
entirely commensurate with CDA. For example, we do not scrutinise the linguistic
dimension of discourse. We also choose not to apply the detailed methodology of
CDA that is only practicable for a single or a small number of texts, whereas we
are interested in dynamic discursive practices over the period of the crisis.
Given the outspokenly neoliberal tendencies of EU trade policy over the past 15
years and the important position of the EU Trade Commissioner in EU (external)
policies, it is surprising that critical analyses of EU trade policy discourse have
been lacking in the literature. The field is still largely dominated by rational choice
institutionalist scholars that have failed to problematise the neoliberal (dis)course
and substantive content of the European Commission’s trade policy, thereby at
least implicitly acknowledging that trade openness is inevitable (cf. Schmidt
2010: 19) and perhaps even desirable (cf. Siles-Brügge 2011: 634), but in any
case the ‘natural’ state of affairs. Notable exceptions are van den Hoven’s (2004)
‘soft rationalist’ account of DG Trade’s discourse in the run-up to the 2001 WTO
Summit, Siles-Brügge’s (2011) study of the Commission’s strategic economic
discourse legitimising the EU-South Korea free trade agreement, Bailey and
Bossuyt’s (2013) critical social science perspective on the EU as a so-called ‘force
for the good’ through trade, and Ford’s (2013) combination of Gramscian analysis
and global political ecology. Critical approaches have been more common in the
study of the EU’s relations with developing countries (e.g., Hurt 2003; Langan
2009; Holden 2013).
Finally, our discourse analysis follows poststructuralist scholars who have
emphasised the importance of identity construction and ‘othering’ practices.
As emphasised by Diez (building on Laclau and Mouffe), discourse constructs
meaning through difference. Practices of ‘othering’ include both a temporal
dimension – relating the present to the past and future – and a geographical
Fig. 5.1 Constructivism and (meta)theoretical perspectives
element – relating to other political constructs (Diez 2004). For the purpose of this
research, this means that we are also interested in what the EU’s crisis discourse can
show us about the construction of an EU identity in relation to time (e.g., previous
protectionist policies) and space (e.g., emerging markets). However, contrary to
(some) poststructuralists, we do not see social reality as fictitious. We believe, in
line with constructivism and CDA, that discourse is not only constitutive but also
socially constituted. Based on the well-known visualisations of Wæver (1996) and
Christiansen et al. (1999), Figure 5.1 illustrates our argument that constructivist
perspectives can coincide with reflectivist epistemologies (on the dotted line) and
radical theories (on the triangle).
A final note on our discursive approach is that we aim to understand continuity,
namely the surprisingly resilient free trade agenda, rather than change. Many
contributions to the field tend to use discourse analysis in order to explain
political change. However, political discourse may also delimitate the range
of political options (see Diez 1999). In our case, the Commission’s discourse
implies that options beyond neoliberal free trade become unthinkable – except
for the protectionist option which explicitly serves as the ‘temporal other’ of the
EU’s approach. Our research problematique concerns the absence of change.
Interestingly, it will become clear that the discourse itself has been subtly changing
over time against a fluctuating context. Despite continuity in the legitimisation of
neoliberal free trade through the internal-external nexus, the Commission has re-
articulated its message at different points between 2008 and 2012. Thus, while
most analyses would focus on a certain discourse for the explanation of change, we
will argue that continuity can be related to the subtle adaptation of EU discourse.
As such this is not remarkable, since discourse analyses have always emphasised
that the fixation of meaning is partial and that a full closure is impossible (e.g.,
Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 113–14; Diez 1999: 602). What is notable however is
the Commission’s creativity in subtly rearticulating the role of EU trade policy in
the context of the crisis.
The EU’s Crisis Trade Discourse: From Defensive to Offensive
Beware of Protectionism, Remember the 1930s!

As noted in the introduction, the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the panic that
followed led established observers of the global economy to forecast nothing
less than the end of globalisation. This led to nervousness among open market
advocates and representatives of the international trading system around the world.
For example, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy warned that an important
lesson of the Great Depression ‘is that protectionism and economic isolationism
do not work’ (Lamy 2008).
This defensive message of warning against protectionism would also be the
main refrain of the EU’s trade policymakers in the first months after September
2008, including the standard references to the catastrophic mistakes of the 1930s,
in spite of historical economic research (e.g., Eichengreen 1988) which has
seriously questioned the interpretation of the Great Depression as being caused by
beggar-thy-neighbour protectionism. One of the first interventions commenting
on the crisis written by then Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson was entitled
‘In defence of globalisation’ (2008). This point was taken up by his successor
Catherine Ashton in her first public intervention (2008a): ‘The economic crisis
we face underlines, not undermines this case [for open economies at home and
abroad]’, again with the defensive warning that ‘[w]e all know that protectionism
makes recovery harder. But sometimes in the face of crisis, we risk throwing away
what we know’.
This warning against protectionism continued through most of 2009. For
example, in a speech in Montreal Ashton repeated that ‘[a] protectionist backlash,
as part of a rescue package or otherwise, could potentially worsen this downturn … .
As the world’s largest trading block, the EU has a responsibility to take a stance
against the temptations of protectionism’ (2009a). As such, this practice of temporal
othering can contribute to the construction of an open, peaceful and liberal EU
identity, in contrast to all the deficiencies that are associated with the 1930s and
that are considered to be the raison d’être of the European project.
In the same speech, the Baroness argued for opening trade more forcefully: ‘it is
not enough to simply resist protectionism: we must also continue to open up markets
to trade and investment.’ Therefore, she and her Canadian colleague announced the
start of bilateral free trade agreement negotiations to send ‘a clear signal that open
trade and investment are drivers of economic recovery’ (2009a).
The Role of Trade Policy in Fostering Economic Growth
Indeed, whereas in the speeches of EU trade commissioners during the first

weeks and months after the crisis the dangers of protectionism were especially
emphasised ‘in defence of globalisation’, from the middle of 2009 the discourse
became less defensive against protectionism. Henceforth the stress was laid on the
positive role trade and trade policy could play in ‘fostering economic growth’ –
the title of a speech by Ashton in London (2009b). Again, this discourse may be
challenged: even the most optimistic calculation of the benefits to be expected
from full liberalisation (a very unlikely scenario) of global merchandise trade

offers a percentage gain of income for the world in the mid-term of only 0.7% (in
Pauwelyn 2008: 571), and an ambitious Doha deal would give the EU a GDP gain
of no more than 0.3% (ICTSD, World Bank and WTO 2010: 21).
The re-articulation of the Commission’s discourse corresponded with
a (perceived) new phase in the crisis. By the summer of 2009, it seemed that
policymakers had succeeded in keeping the global economy from falling off the
cliff. While speeches would keep warning against the threat of protectionism,
more and more stress was laid on the positive role trade liberalisation could play
to ‘favour a quick and smooth recovery’ (Ashton 2009c).
When Karel De Gucht became Trade Commissioner, this discourse continued.
One of his first interventions in the European Parliament plenary was on the
effects of the economic crisis on world trade. He started by expressing his relief
that ‘world trade only decreased by 10% … [and] the international community
thus avoided a protectionist downward spiral of the kind witnessed at the time
of the Great Depression’ (2010a). According to De Gucht, this had been avoided
thanks to the strong political will of the EU and other G-20 members. After having
thus expressed his happiness that the defence of globalisation had succeeded, he
stressed the importance of offensive trade policy: ‘external sources of growth
will be crucial to EU economic recovery … . [We] should target the new and
fast-growing emerging markets.’ A month later, the Commissioner forcefully
summarised the core of the discourse in this phase as follows: ‘at a time when
many people – mistakenly – see free trade as one of the factors that got us into
the crisis, how do we use trade to get us out of it’ (2010b). Although it is unclear
who these ‘many people’ are – contestation against free trade remains surprisingly
limited, even among trade unions and social movements who primarily focus on
the financial sector (De Ville and Orbie 2011) or specific, public services sectors
(Crespy, this volume) – this discourse clearly reaffirms the EU’s identity (or the
‘European model’) against the imaginary protectionist enemies.
Indeed, since the end of 2009, we clearly notice this shift in discourse from
the defensive towards the offensive, largely because ‘between October 2008 and
October 2009 0.8% of world trade suffered from protectionist barriers in some
form or another. Between September 2009 and last month [February 2010] that
was the case for only 0.4%. So protectionism has so far been rather limited in time
and scope’ (De Gucht 2010b), thus allowing for more attention to the potential
of trade to contribute to (further) economic recovery. As, after the first weeks
and months when globalisation came under fierce criticism, the discourse had
succeeded in clearing open world markets from any complicity in the crisis, it
could now be reframed the other way around: ‘the collapse of trade may have
helped us into the crisis, but in Europe it also has the potential to help pull us back
to prosperity’ (De Gucht 2010c).
Enter the Euro Crisis: Trade from a Potential to a Necessary Recovery

Instrument
In the spring of 2010, the refinancing problems of Greece worsened, and

Greece was finally bailed out in the second weekend of May. In this context
the discourse about the crisis within Europe changed again. Whereas before
the labels employed were ‘financial’ or ‘economic’ crisis, soon everyone was
talking about the ‘euro’ or ‘sovereign debt’ crisis. This is not a trivial change of
wording: the blame was thereby shifted from the market to the state, something
that a number of observers and politicians were already trying to achieve from
the very first weeks after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. It didn’t take long
before this internal economic crisis re-articulation was also reflected in the
European Commission’s trade policy discourse. In July 2011, when the Greek
crisis reached a new boiling point, De Gucht confessed: ‘the feeling of crisis was
as strong as ever. Turning it into an opportunity is what we need to do next … .
Far from breaking up our social model at the hands of global economic forces,
we have to tap into global economic flows to protect our social model. That is to
me what trade is all about’ (2011b, emphasis added). This new articulation gives
rise to new prescriptions: further trade liberalisation will be needed in order to
preserve the social model.
This is indeed the core rationale that will become the backbone of the new trade
strategy presented later in 2010. Subsequent to having defended globalisation by
warning against the detrimental risks of protectionism, and offensively promoting
further trade liberalisation as a contribution to recovery, after the Greek tragedy
further liberalisation is presented as the necessary solution for future growth. There
is no alternative, according to the discourse, as fiscal policy is no longer available.
We also detect an ingenious (but contestable and tautological, see Hay 2007)
argument: to safeguard the welfare state, stronger growth is needed; for stronger
growth, under fiscal constraints and in a situation of private deleveraging, more
exports are necessary; boosting exports requires stronger competitiveness; trade
policy is a driver for economic reforms to enhance the EU’s economic efficiency,
and thus competitiveness. Neoliberal trade policy, understood as stimulating further
internal and external liberalisation (see above), is thus articulated as the panacea
for further economic growth, which in theory perfectly links external objectives
and policies with internal constraints and policies. Indeed, this is summarised by
De Gucht himself:
Brought down to its essentials, we are confronted in the EU with a double

economic challenge, which we need to tackle simultaneously. We have, on the
one hand, to address our structural weaknesses on the supply side in order to
increase our growth potential and, on the other hand … to consolidate our public
finances … . That is where trade and trade policy come in because trade is an
engine of efficiency, and hence prosperity. (2010f)
Thus, although its assumptions and logic can be challenged, this discourse also
forms the backbone of the ‘Trade, Growth and World Affairs’ Communication
(European Commission 2010b), where it is also argued that future growth in the
EU will have to come from exports to East and South Asia. In this way, the link
between internal policies (and the crisis) and external trade policy is made again
explicitly. However, in reality, it does not follow automatically that future dynamic
growth in emerging economies (especially as compared to the assumed miserable
outlook for the EU, given fiscal constraints, private deleveraging and demographic
pressure) will lead to more demand for European exports. Moreover, the American
government has also declared its ambition of doubling its exports in five years’
time! Thus, a world where the two largest economies are pursuing a growth
strategy based on exports, while the emerging economies are only beginning to
rebalance their economies and are far from ready to become the new motors of
global demand, seems to be falling into a classic fallacy of composition. In the
meantime the two biggest economies in the world have agreed to start negotiations
among themselves on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Barroso,
as quoted in our title, illustratively declared this would be ‘a boost to our economies
that doesn’t cost a cent of tax payers’ money’ (2013).
This fallacy can be explained by a neomercantilist element that has been
introduced into the Commission’s discourse, which puts particular emphasis on
the importance of exports to third markets (and implicitly, trade surpluses) as the
sine qua non for future growth. However, as we will show in the next section, the
discourse is still firmly neoliberal in that it is not at all contemplating bringing
down imports, only using market access leverage more strategically to open up
third markets.
Towards a Tentative Moderation?
This becomes particularly apparent in the new trade strategy’s stress on reciprocity.
Indeed, at the same time as saying that the EU needs to ‘import to export’,2 the
Commission stresses that the Union should not be ‘naïve’, and the emphasis on
‘reciprocity’ in the Trade, Growth and World Affairs Communication has been
noted by some observers (e.g., The Economist 2012) as a deviation from Global
2 This refers both to the claim that the EU needs to be able to import intermediary
goods at competitive prices for its exports to be competitive, as well as to the neoliberal
rationale described above that import competition an sich makes the EU economy as a
whole more competitive.
Europe. However, it in effect constitutes another subtle re-articulation of neoliberal

trade discourse. It is surely not the desirability of the EU’s openness as such that is
put into question. It is rather the lack of equivalent liberalisation by third countries,
especially in the area of public procurement, that is more forcefully denounced:
The EU openness in public procurement gives EU taxpayers more value for their
tax money, but it also reduces EU leverage in trade negotiations on access for EU
exporters to public procurement in other countries. This is why Commissioner
Barnier and I will table a legislative proposal to set up an instrument to encourage
our partners to be as open as we are. (De Gucht 2011a)
The objective is thus to use the leverage of the EU market, not to persuade third
countries such as China, Brazil and India to install strict market-correcting social
standards as in some EU member states, but to liberalise their public procurement
markets to the same extent as the EU. The threat of temporary and limited closure
of EU (public procurement) markets is thus simply used to carry liberalisation in
third countries forward.
However … . We believe this growing emphasis on reciprocity in external
trade policy coincides again not merely coincidentally with growing dissatisfaction
with and dissent from the EU’s internal crisis policies. Again, it seems that the
Commission has tailored its discourse in line with the changing context with a
view to legitimising its neoliberal trade agenda. Especially from the late summer
of 2011, it became apparent that the euro crisis policies were only worsening the
situation, resulting in rising interest rates on Spanish and Italian, and to a minor
extent French and Belgian, bonds and exploding unemployment figures in some
peripheral countries. This led to increasing demand for looser monetary policies by
the ECB and fiscal policies by countries with the fiscal space to do so (especially
Germany). In the run-up to the presidential elections in France, with the exception
of François Bayrou all candidates made proposals involving a certain degree of
protectionism. However, a certain anti-globalisation rhetoric is a constant refrain
in French politics, while the French state and economy have adapted much more to
globalisation than is generally acknowledged (cf. Gordon and Meunier 2001). Also,
the influence of this stance on EU trade policy is more symbolic than real. Indeed, in a
similar fashion, Trade Commissioner De Gucht and Internal Market Commissioner
Barnier proposed a ‘new international public procurement instrument’ at the end of
March 2012. It may not have been inconvenient that European policymakers such as
the then French President Sarkozy could refer to this initiative to counter criticisms
that they were focusing too much on open markets. However, the instrument was
devised in such a way that its protectionist use is hardly possible, while further
liberalisation of third markets may well be achieved.
In conclusion, the new emphasis on reciprocity should not be seen as an
ideological U-turn, but as a strategic instrument for opening third markets
on the one hand and as a legitimacy-enhancing device on the other. In an op-
ed, the Commissioners De Gucht and Barnier confirmed that the government
procurement initiative is meant to incentivise countries that do not follow the EU’s
example in openness. The new instrument is necessary, they claim, because the
lack of reciprocity ‘undermines the legitimacy of our open markets. It hampers
the pro-active trade policy we want to pursue’ (2012). Thus, this discourse further
legitimises the EU’s neoliberal trade agenda. What is new in the emphasis on
reciprocity, however, is that a ‘geographical other’ is now explicitly constructed
as opposed to the EU. The narrative suggests that, since emerging powers such
as China are less liberal than ‘us Europeans’, ‘we’ should not be naïve and insist
on reciprocity. Thus, even if this re-articulation could be challenged,3 it further
legitimates the expansion of the EU’s international trade and investment agenda,
while also confirming the EU’s identity as an open trading power.

Between June and August 2012, the euro crisis intensified with the threat of a
‘Grexit’ and the collapse of the Spanish banking sector. This coincided with the
victory of the Socialist François Hollande in the French elections. For some time,
this seemed to lead to a change in the euro crisis approach towards a stronger
focus on (demand-led) growth. However, a business-as-usual approach to the crisis
quickly returned after the ECB restored calm by declaring its readiness to buy
unlimited amounts of government bonds and when Hollande’s impact turned out to
be limited because of German hegemony at the European level and competitiveness
problems at home. That is why we put a question mark after this fourth stage.
Thus, a revealing Commission Staff Working Document again clearly stated
that ‘[b]oosting trade is one of the few means to bolster economic growth without
drawing on severely constrained public finances’ (2012: 4), by ‘securing a dynamic
external demand pillar for the EU economy and fostering competitiveness-
enhancing structural reforms’ (2012: 3). To achieve this, virtually all speeches in
the second half of 2012 stressed that besides the rapid conclusion of negotiations
with Canada and Singapore, new trade agreements should also be pursued with
the US and Japan (e.g., De Gucht 2012b, 2012c). These negotiations have been
launched in 2013.
Conclusion
Theoretically, this chapter started from the assumption that discourse analysis can be
both constructivist and critical, while also incorporating poststructuralist insights.
Following the two dimensions outlined by Carta and Morin in the introduction
of this volume, a) we see discourse as constitutive as well as socially constituted,
and b) we give ideational and material elements equal weight. It is in this middle
ground on the constitutive-constituted, structure-agency and ideational-material
3 While the EU’s inward investment to China constituted €4.9 billion in 2010,
China’s inward investment to the EU only amounted to €0.9 billion. Moreover, China has
drastically liberalised several parts of its economy as part of accession negotiations with
the WTO, making commitments that in some cases went even further than those of existing
WTO members. Thus, although the increased importance of Chinese investment in Europe
cannot be denied, a different and less dramatic story could be told here.
axes that we would position ourselves. We agree that this is also where ‘modern’
constructivism fits best, but discourse analytical approaches being non-exclusive,
we also feel very connected with CDA, and even borrow from poststructuralism.
Empirically, our chapter contributes to the EU studies and discourse analytical
literature by studying a field that has hitherto escaped the attention of discourse
analysts, namely EU trade policy.
We also show how discourse through subtle re-articulations in a fluctuating
context may lead to the conservation through legitimisation of existing views and
strategies. At the same time, we find a clear consistency between the EU’s external
trade policy and internal economic crisis discourses. In each case ‘dynamic changes
at the superficial level’ go together with ‘stabilising forces of the fundamental
level’, which flow from the same neoliberal core. By demonstrating the European
Commission’s successful and subtly re-articulated neoliberal discourse after the
crisis, we do not suggest that this is proof of a consciously, craftily designed
strategy to use the crisis as an opportunity to further neoliberalise the EU. Nor
do we put forward that this discourse is the causal determinant of the EU’s crisis
approach. The purpose of this chapter was more modest, namely to use discourse
analysis for a better understanding of the resilience of neoliberal thinking in the
context of the crisis. In this respect, our analysis has attempted to show how the
legitimisation of free trade has been enabled by the flexibility of the Commission’s
discourse and by the discursive appeal to the EU’s identity as an open trading
power, both through temporal othering (against the mistakes of the 1930s) and
geographical othering (against less open economies).
Relying on critical discourse analysis, this chapter has also laid bare some
serious challenges in the ostensibly coherent discourse of the European
Commission in the internal-external economic policy nexus. By exposing how
the Commission articulates the ‘there is no alternative’ discourse and pointing at
the frailties of this discourse’s assumptions, we hope to contribute to opening the
space for alternative, counter-hegemonic discourses.
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Chapter 6
Model, Player or Instrument
for Global Governance:
Metaphors in the Discourse and Practice
of EU Foreign Policy
Esther Barbé, Anna Herranz-Surrallés and Michal Natorski
Introduction1
Throughout the last decade, the European Union (EU) has made visible efforts to
confer a more strategic and hands-on orientation on its foreign policy. EU officials
and representatives have moved from a policy discourse that mainly focused on
defining and justifying the existence of the EU as an international actor to one
that progressively attempts to address the question of ‘Europe, to do what in the
world?’ (Krotz 2009: 568). In the scholarly context, there is a widespread view that
the EU’s answer to this question has increasingly focused on the aim of promoting
EU norms and rules as a model for other countries and global governance (e.g.,
Jørgensen and Rosamond 2002; Manners 2002; Laïdi 2008; Spence 2010). At the
same time, however, the EU’s perceived ambitions of playing role model have
been regarded with significant scepticism. For some, in light of changing power
balances in the international system, the EU should act less as a ‘normative power’
and more as a traditional power, one that can strive, at best, to negotiate the rules
of the multilateral system with other global players (e.g., Vasconcelos 2008;
Howorth 2010; Whitman 2010). For others, the problem lies more with the fine
line between the EU’s normative ambitions and a civilising or imperialistic foreign
policy (e.g., Sjursen 2006; Linklater 2011). For this reason, there are also views
maintaining that the EU should focus less on promoting its own norms by default,
and more on facilitating the spread of international norms in a way that supports
the inclusiveness and empowerment of other actors and societies (e.g., Diez 2005;
Richmond et al. 2011; Cebeci 2012).
1 The authors are grateful to the editors of this volume as well as the participants
of the ‘Speaking Europe Abroad: Institutional Cooperation and the Making of the EU’s
Discourse’ workshop (Brussels, 14–15 February 2012), especially to its convenors, Caterina
Carta and Jean-Frédéric Morin, and our discussant, Christian Olsson, for their detailed
comments on earlier versions of this chapter. Our chapter has also benefited from the
support of the project EU-IANUS (‘The EU In an Unsettled International System’), which
is a research project funded by National R+D Plan of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and
Competiveness (CSO2012-33361).
In view of this emerging scholarly cleavage, the aim of this chapter is to examine
how much of a role these debates play when defining the EU’s foreign policy
‘doctrine’ and practice. Specifically, we enquire into the following questions: is
the EU actually aiming to ‘export’ its norms as a model for global governance?
Is this foreign policy aim contested or challenged by other ideas and practices of
norm promotion? And what are the practical and normative consequences of these
different approaches? To do this, we devise an analytical framework for the study
of the metaphors of the EU’s role in global governance. Following the scholarly
divide briefly sketched above, we identify three conceptual metaphors: the EU
as MODEL (or rule-setter); the EU as PLAYER (or rule-negotiator); and the EU
as INSTRUMENT (or rule-facilitator) for global governance.2 Drawing on the

premises of a constructivist discourse analysis (DA), we examine the performative
character of language, namely how discourse constructs subjects and objects, thus
enabling certain paths of action while excluding others (see Carta and Morin
in this volume). Through examining the EU’s foreign policy discourse both in
general affairs and in the context of specific international processes, this chapter
concludes that the most sedimented metaphor is indeed the EU as MODEL – a
metaphor that predisposes the EU to adopt a proactive international role, but that
also entails a high risk of excluding voices and policy options.
The remainder of the chapter is divided in four sections. The first section
outlines our theoretical and methodological set-up for the analysis of metaphors.
The second and third sections contain the analysis. The former examines political
representatives’ speeches addressing the topic of the EU’s role in global governance
by analysing the discursive order and level of conventionalisation of each of
the three above-mentioned metaphors. The latter concentrates on two empirical
cases of the EU’s action in multilateral settings: (1) small arms and light weapons
(SALW), in particular the process related to the UN Program of Action to Prevent,
Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its
Aspects adopted in 2001; and (2) the rights of women in conflicts; specifically, the
process related to the UN Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and
security adopted in 2000. The chapter concludes with a fourth section, in which we
spell out the wider theoretical and practical implications of this study.
Norms, Metaphors and the Performativity of Discourse
Constructivist approaches to DA are placed strategically between poststructuralism

and critical discourse analysis (CDA) in this volume. This location suits the
theoretical/methodological approach of the present chapter very well: while being
concerned with a crucial aspect of the constructivist research agenda (i.e., the
relation between norms and social action), it establishes also a close dialogue with
the preceding and following strands of DA in this book (see Orbie and De Ville in
2 For the purpose of clarity, this chapter follows the convention of referring to these
metaphors in capital letters.
Model, Player or Instrument for Global Governance 113
this volume for a similar approach). Concerning the ontological dimension, this
chapter shares with poststructuralism and CDA the focus on the performativity of
discourse: language is not taken as a mere indicator of shared norms and rules,
but also a practice constituting and delimiting both objects and subjects (see Diez
in this volume). As put by Fierke (2009: 188), ‘language use is part of acting
in the world’. In epistemological terms, this piece largely confines itself to the
constructivist aim of understanding social reality. However, by emphasising
the constraining effect of discourse (and hence, its potential for exclusion) we
also establish dialogue with the normative critique that characterises CDA and
poststructuralism (for a full account see Barbé et al. 2015, forthcoming).
The methodological basis for our analysis is the study of metaphors; in this
case, metaphors on the EU’s role in global governance. Metaphors are discursive
devices allowing for understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of
another (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 5). They order and simplify complex phenomena
by relating them to other phenomena, and make them more understandable by
arranging certain facts, objects and ideas (Ghafele 2004: 442–3). We therefore
approach metaphor analysis, first of all, as a tool for mapping and disentangling
different world views and potential cleavages in the making of EU foreign policy.
At the same time, this chapter also analyses metaphors from the perspective of
their performative effect. Beyond an identity-building function (Straehle et al.
1999: 68), metaphors can also be interpreted as speech acts, committing the
speaker to some future action. As Drulak (2006: 508) states, ‘the identification of
the metaphors contributing to common sense helps us identify the patterns which
guide the practice of the members of the speech community’. In other words, the
EU’s self-representation as an international actor bears with it certain prescriptions
of what is to be done on the world stage.
Following Drulak (2006), we can distinguish between conceptual metaphors
(abstract general notions structuring discourse) and metaphorical expressions
(defined as specific statements exemplifying a conceptual metaphor). The
selection or identification of the conceptual metaphors to be examined can be
made in a variety of ways. For example, Carta (in this volume) proposes three
conceptual metaphors of the EU as an international actor by relating academic
definitions with archetypical figures from European literature. Differently, the
conceptual metaphors we examine in this chapter draw more directly from the
emerging cleavages observed in the academic and policy discourse of EU foreign
policy, which can be seen as contending preferred avenues through which the EU
can engage in global governance: (1) the EU as MODEL (or rule-setter) that sets
its own norms as the standard for global governance; (2) the EU as PLAYER (or
rule-negotiator) that co-develops international rules with the other main global
powers; and (3) the EU as INSTRUMENT (or rule-facilitator) which supports the
creation and implementation of international norms set by broad constellations of
actors in international institutions. These conceptual metaphors can be identified
in political speeches through several metaphorical expressions that represent the
EU as a rule-setter, rule-negotiator or rule-facilitator respectively.
The first part of our analysis is concerned with the EU’s discourse on global
governance in ‘abstract’ situations. Specifically, we examine a sample of 35
speeches by the main representatives of EU external action covering the period
2004–2011.3 We scrutinise the discursive order embedded in each metaphor
following CDA’s analytical concepts of nomination/predication, prescription and
argumentation.4 Our analysis of the nomination/predication, which is defined as
‘discursive qualification of social actors, objects, phenomena, events/processes
and actions’ (Reisigl and Wodak 2009: 94), allows for interpreting how the EU is
represented in relation to other actors in the system. The prescription for action
focuses on statements made by EU representatives about whose rules should
be promoted as a benchmark for global governance. Finally, the analysis of

discursive argumentation focuses on the assumptions or warrants (also referred
to as topoi) justifying the EU’s self-representation and implied prescriptions.5 The
chapter also assesses the relative degree of conventionalisation or sedimentation
of the metaphors (Drulak 2006), providing both quantitative measure (frequency
of appearance in discourse) and qualitative assessment of their taken-for-granted
character in the discourse.
The second part of the chapter addresses discourse in ‘practice’ by looking at
how the EU’s specific policy proposals in matters of global governance stem from
its self-representation as MODEL, PLAYER or INSTRUMENT. We have selected
two multilateral processes – UN action on SALW and on the rights of women in
conflict – that fall mainly within the EU’s intergovernmental security domain as
hard cases for the EU as MODEL metaphor. That is, we should expect the EU’s
3 In total, the sample consists of 12 speeches for the European Commission President
(Romano Prodi and José Manuel Barroso); 13 speeches for the High Representative (Javier
Solana and Catherine Ashton); and 10 for the Commissioner for External Relations (Chris
Patten and Benita Ferrero-Waldner). The sample was retrieved from the Commission
and Council’s online archives using the following keywords in the title or text: ‘global’;
‘international’; ‘world’; and ‘multilateral’ or ‘multilateralism’. The selection was then
refined according to relevance and representativeness criteria. To minimise differences in
the audience, the vast majority of selected speeches were given inside the EU, and they are
distributed evenly across time and actors analysed.
4 These analytical dimensions are inspired by the Discourse-Historical Approach
(DHA) to CDA (see e.g., Reisigl and Wodak 2009), but adapted for the purpose of our
research aims. For example, nomination and predication are considered in the DHA as
separate discursive strategies, but given the closeness of the two concepts, we bundle them
together under a single analytical category. Another adaptation is that prescription as such
is not conceptualised as a separate discursive strategy in DHA, but implicitly considered
within the argumentation strategy, which includes the analysis of the normative proposals
or claims. For the purpose of our analysis, we refer to prescription separately and reserve
argumentation for the analysis of justifications and topoi.
5 Topoi are defined as often implicit ‘warrants or “conclusion rules” which connect
the argument(s) with the conclusion, the claim’ (Reisigl and Wodak 2009: 110). Given the
topic under examination in this chapter, many of the relevant arguments and topoi have to
do with assumptions about the opportunities and constraints offered by the international
system as well as with standards of legitimacy.
attempt to play role model to be most common in communitarised areas of EU

activity than in less integrated policy domains, where the internal model is likely to
be less specific and institutionalised. Through a comparison of the EU’s proposals
and the wider approaches adopted by other actors involved in these processes, we
will focus our analysis on the enabling/delimiting effects of following a particular
metaphor’s path of action.
Metaphors of the EU’s Role in Global Governance

This section presents our analysis of the use of metaphors on the EU’s role in global
governance by EU representatives, their discursive orders and their relative level

of sedimentation. Taking our three analytical dimensions together (nomination/
predication, prescription and argumentation), the analysis below indicates that
the metaphor of the EU as MODEL is comparatively the most common in EU
representatives’ speeches (see Table 6.1). Although this metaphor appears to be
reproduced a disproportionate amount of times by the President of the European
Commission, the other two institutional actors analysed here also share it to a great
extent, making extensive use of the same nomination/predication strategies and,
in the case of the External Relations Commissioner, often alluding to the same
prescriptions and topoi in their arguments. Therefore, in many senses this represents
a sedimented type of metaphor, which is so deeply internalised by speakers that it
appears as natural and common sense within the speech community (Drulak 2006:
507–8). The section presents these findings by addressing each metaphor in turn
(for a summary, see Table 6.3).
Table 6.1 Frequency of discursive elements conceptualised as MODEL,

PLAYER or INSTRUMENT (per cent of speeches containing at
least one unambiguous reference)
European External
Commission High Relations
President Representative Commissioner
Nom./Pred. 92 69 44
MODEL Prescription 58 23 56
Argumentation 50 38 67
Nom./Pred. 25 69 67
PLAYER Prescription 42 77 56
Nom./Pred. 25 38 67
INSTRUMENT Prescription 50 62 56
Source: Own elaboration on the basis of a sample of 35 speeches (see note 2).
The EU as MODEL for Global Governance (Rule-Setter)
The conceptual metaphor of the EU as MODEL for other actors and for global
governance is the most explicitly and frequently reproduced in the speeches of EU
representatives. Consider, for example, the following statement by the President
of the European Commission, containing the three elements of nomination/
predication, prescription and argumentation:
We can help to create a more just globalisation if we spread our norms and
rules to regulate global interactions [argumentation]. Europe is already one of
the leading international norm-setters [nomination/predication] … the European

Union is a true school for global governance [nomination/predication]. Our main
task for the next decades is to make the world understand this [prescription].
(Barroso 2008: 5)6
As seen in Table 6.1, the EU as MODEL metaphor is particularly salient in the

dimension of nomination/predication. The list of metaphorical expressions used
by EU representatives in depicting the EU as MODEL is long and diverse (see
Table 6.2).
Table 6.2 Examples of metaphorical expressions of the EU as MODEL
Model for other regions of the world; Pole of attraction and positive
Suggesting
reference for many people around the world; Anchor of stability in
the
its neighbourhood and far beyond; Gravitational pull; Example for
attractiveness
the world; Magnet; Model of international governance; Beacon of the
of the EU
world; A source of inspiration; Transformative power; Force for good
model
around the world.
Suggesting
One of the leading international norm-setters; Laboratory for
the ability,
globalisation; Successful case of setting transnational rules and
and the
standards; True school for global governance; Rule generator;
legitimacy,
[European way] as the most realistic way to organise an interdependent
of the EU
world; Smart power; Soft power with a hard edge.
to lead
Source: Own elaboration on the basis of a sample of 35 speeches (see note 2).
Although the logical consequence of describing the EU as MODEL is to

prescribe that the EU should promote its rules as the standard for other actors
and for global governance, explicit mentions of this prescription are relatively
less frequent than its predicative expressions. Yet, clear references to this policy
aim are found in more than half of the examined speeches by the members of
the Commission; for example, identifying a main task of the EU as the ‘external
projection of EU policies globally’ (Barroso 2009: 4). Moreover, a closer look
into the argumentation or justifications given for why the EU should perform
6 All emphases in quotations are added by the authors of this chapter.

certain international roles or tasks reveals again that the metaphor of the EU as
MODEL takes centre stage. Justifications are often discursively rooted in internal
factors, i.e., it is the uniqueness of the EU (e.g., its universalistic constitutive
values, unprecedented experience of economic and political integration, and social
progress) that entitles or even obliges it to project its own model onto other actors,
regions or international institutions. Its ambition to upload its internal arrangements
and approaches to the solution of global problems is, therefore, frequently justified
in terms of the rightness of its values and success of its policies. This is shown in
the following statement: ‘The European Union is at the forefront of progress to
bring international relations to the realm of lawful order. It represents the triumph
of reconciliation over revenge; of cooperation over chaos; of law over violence. It

is the natural starting point for any effort to improve global governance’ (Barroso
2009: 5). However, besides the topoi related to rightness, progress or uniqueness,
European leaders do not hide the instrumental or protective logic behind the idea
of acting as a model. To put it bluntly:
It is in our interest to spread our norms and to extend our influence. Let me
tell you in a very frank way: if we do not persuade other great powers that
our norms are beneficial for world order, it will be very difficult to keep our
social, environmental standards, and at the same time our economic growth.
(Barroso 2008: 4)
The EU as PLAYER in Global Governance (Rule-Negotiator)
The metaphor of the EU as PLAYER is the second most commonly reproduced

overall, sometimes taking precedence over that of MODEL in the speeches of
the High Representative. In this metaphor, the EU does not appear as the rule-
setter, but as an actor that must negotiate the rules and co-shape the international
system with other global players. In its predicative dimension, this metaphor
emphasises the EU’s attributes and resources as a power equal to those of a
selected group of first-order world powers. This characterisation of the EU is often
discursively reinforced by comparing the EU with the United States and China,
and quantifying the relative weight of the EU in the world (cf. Solana 2004: 1).
Even at the height of the Euro crisis in 2011, the President of the Commission
contended that the EU ‘is also a very strong emerging power’ (Barroso 2011:
2). This affirmation of the EU as PLAYER is also frequently reflected in the
EU’s claims of being recognised as an equal partner in transatlantic relations
(cf. Solana 2004: 5). Since the EU and the United States share many comparable
attributes and resources of power, both are seen as ‘natural partners to take the
lead’ (Barroso 2006: 2).
The metaphor of the EU as PLAYER appears particularly salient in the
prescriptive dimension. Specifically, the EU is called to establish full-partnership
relations with the United States and other emerging powers, and to take account
of their views in the process of rule-making in global politics. As argued by Javier
Solana, the task faced by the EU is to ‘not resist globalisation, but perhaps negotiate
its terms. Not [to] impose our views but get hearing for them: in Washington
today and Beijing tomorrow’ (Solana 2006: 3). Emphasis is thus placed on the
need to recognise the diversity of world politics, and to take this into account
when reforming institutions. In this sense, the High Representative asked ‘not
[to] see this as the Western powers inviting the others after our discussions’ but
as the relevant players being ‘present at the creation of the new system’ (Solana
2008a: 2).
The justification for the EU as PLAYER appears to be only dominant in the
speeches of the High Representative. The arguments provided do not seem to
arise from internal factors, but from a more conscious awareness of the constraints
imposed by the international system, and the EU’s difficult place in a world order
made by and for big powers. In many passages, it is suggested that EU is compelled
to include the views of others mainly as a result of power shifts. In the words of
the former External Relations Commissioner: ‘a multi-polar world also means
we will have to engage increasingly with other world views and philosophies’
(Ferrero-Waldner 2009b: 4). This and many other similar arguments seem to be
based on the topos (or, perhaps, fallacy) that the EU was once able to lead the
world. This is what Ashton seems to imply when she states that ‘this is no longer
“our” world’ (Ashton 2010a: 3); also when Barroso affirms that ‘Europe cannot
pretend to run the world forever’ (Barroso 2011: 3); or when Solana calls for
‘[sharing] the leadership of the world with others’ (Solana 2009: 2).
The EU as INSTRUMENT for Global Governance (Rule-Facilitator)
The metaphor of the EU as INSTRUMENT is the least commonly reproduced by

the EU actors analysed. On the predicative dimension, this metaphor only finds
significant resonance in the speeches of the External Relations Commissioner,
for whom the use of metaphorical expressions of the EU as the UN’s ‘most ardent
supporter’, ‘instinctive [ally]’, or ‘firmest friend’ (Ferrero-Waldner 2009a: 3–4)
are common. In this sense, different to the representations of the EU as a power
or a leader, predicative elements within the metaphor of EU as INSTRUMENT
emphasise the EU’s role as a receiver and transmitter of international norms
and obligations, as a mediator or facilitator of international consensus. Take
for example the following statement by Catherine Ashton: ‘[The] strength of
the EU lies, paradoxically, in its ability to throw its weight around … . It can
be an honest broker’ (Ashton 2011: 4–5). Or, in the words of Ferrero-Waldner,
‘[our] credibility is accepted by all sides because we are objective and always
place people at the centre of our policy’ (Ferrero-Waldner 2006: 5). This
characterisation also appears connected to an emphasis on equality among
different international actors, and not just in comparison to a selected group of
world powers. Regarding this, Ashton claims that the EU thinks of ‘all partners
[as] equal partners’ (Ashton 2011: 4).
To be sure, prescriptions associated with characterising the EU as

INSTRUMENT are more frequent than what the analysis of nomination/
predication would suggest. The following quote by the President of the European
Commission is exemplary of what this metaphor entails in practical terms:
‘effective multilateralism means … having strong political will to implement
the international consensus; it means taking global rules, instruments and
commitments seriously; it also means helping other countries to implement
and abide by these rules’ (Barroso 2005: 4). Promoting inclusiveness and
participation in the making of global rules is another recurrent aim mentioned by
EU representatives. In the words of the Commissioner for External Relations, ‘the

EU supports a greater voice and influence for developing countries, including the
poorest, in the international financial institutions. And a similar issue applies to
the UN’ (Ferrero-Waldner 2009a: 3). Also, the former High Representative often
called for systematically involving ‘non-state actors’ (Solana 2007: 2), ‘broad
constellations of international actors’ (Solana 2008b: 1) and ‘wider sets of people’
in the planning and execution of foreign policies (Solana 2008b: 6).
However, justifications supporting the EU as INSTRUMENT metaphor are
by contrast scant and tenuous. Even if we categorised topoi related to equality,
inclusion, ownership or empowerment as falling within the argumentation of
the EU as INSTRUMENT metaphor, these often appear as complementary to
the ultimate justification of the metaphors of the EU as MODEL and PLAYER,
i.e., more as a necessity to avoid criticisms of ‘political imperialism’ (cf. Ashton
2011: 4) than for the intrinsic value of supporting broad and inclusive international
processes. In this sense, EU representatives sometimes admit that ‘we cannot take
it for granted that the rest of the world, that is to say the greater part of humanity,
regards our values as theirs too. We have to uphold our values and project them,
while remaining aware of the existence and perceptions of “the other”’ (Solana
2007: 4).
In sum, the three metaphors of the EU’s role in global governance find some
resonance in the discourse of EU representatives, yet with a clear dominance of
the EU as MODEL, and some important differences between the members of the
Commission and the High Representatives. While this diversity is hardly surprising
coming from a highly compound polity, the fact that the metaphors simultaneously
reproduced by those entitled to speak for the EU are conceptually and normatively
quite conflicting – even incompatible – suggests a latent tension in EU foreign
policy. As Table 6.3 summarises, each metaphor establishes different relations of
hierarchy between the EU and other actors, prescribes a different set of practices,
and hence implies a different vision of how the multilateral order that the EU
preaches should be organised. The following section turns to an analysis of how
these metaphors and tensions translate into policy practice.
Table 6.3 Summary of the analysis of the metaphors of the EU’s global
role
Model Player Instrument

(rule-setter) (rule-negotiator) (rule-facilitator)
EU as unique and EU as equal in power EU as equal to other
more advanced, to other key global international actors
Nomination/
experienced and players and a subsidiary to
Predication
successful than other global institutions
international actors
Promoting EU rules Developing strategic Empowering

as a model for global partnerships with others to contribute
governance key global powers to to multilateral
tackle global issues processes;
Prescription
implementing
international norms
and encouraging
others to do so
– Rightness of own – Power and ability – Justice
values to act – Inclusiveness
Argumentation – Success of own – Multipolarity – Respect for
policies – Effectiveness difference
– EU/global progress
Multilateralism Multilateralism Multilateralism
premised on premised on higher premised on equal
Resulting
a generalised responsibility and rights among peoples
image of
acquiescence of EU/ decision-taking rights and individuals
multilateralism
Western-inspired by the big powers
institutions
Metaphors of the EU’s Global Governance in Practice
This section examines the EU’s policy in two UN processes situated in the
complex interface between security, development and human rights. The first
process relates to the problematic of SALW, which became an issue on the
international agenda in the mid-1990s when some actors undertook the initiative
of reconsidering the question of conventional arms beyond the traditional realm
of security and associated them to broader social and developmental problems.
This led eventually to the adoption in 2001 of the Program of Action to Prevent,
Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its
Aspects (PoA). The second process, the issue of the rights of women in conflict,
also appeared at the highest level of the international agenda around the turn of the
millennium, when the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 on Women
and Peace and Security in 2000. This resolution provided a political and legal
framework for the increased participation of women in peace processes, as well as
the protection of women as victims of armed conflicts. Contrary to our expectations,
both cases exemplify the power of the EU as MODEL metaphor. From a low-
profile role of the EU, mainly along the lines of the EU as INSTRUMENT, the two
case studies reflect how the conceptual metaphor of the EU as MODEL for global
governance has progressively informed EU policies, with important consequences
for the definition of the problem to be addressed, and the ways in which to tackle
it. We illustrate this in turn.
EU and SALW: Combating or Normalising Small Arms and Light Weapons?

The impulse for the 1994 resolution of the UN General Assembly on SALW
came from West African countries. This resolution called for comprehensive
control measures in order to check the illicit transfer of small arms, and to support
countries affected by the problem of the circulation of small arms hampering their
development. The contribution of the EU to this international process was initially
rather cautious. The EU claimed that the question of the acquisition of small arms
depended ‘to a large extent, on responsible national legislative measures ensuring
proper control on civilian and military use’ (UN General Assembly 1996: 2), and
that ‘it will be important to remain focused on the real problems and not to allow
duplication of efforts already under way elsewhere’ (UN General Assembly 1996:
4). However, after the adoption of the politically binding EU Code of Conduct
on Arms Export in 1998, the EU started to progressively promote its approach to
SALW as a model for an international regime on this topic.
The EU’s assumption of the MODEL discourse represented a turning point
towards a more active involvement in the international process. Already with a
view to the 2001 UN conference on SALW, the EU tried to actively shape the UN
process with numerous proposals which directly or indirectly referred to the content
of the EU’s own internal measures on SALW and the arms trade. These measures
consisted of eight criteria to be taken into account by the national authorities when
accepting arms contracts (UN General Assembly 2000: 3, 2001: 4). The EU failed
to include many of its priorities in the 2001 PoA, but continued pursuing the aim of
promoting its own approaches dealing with SALW (Fehl 2012: 141–5). It insisted
that the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports ‘represents a model toward which
other legislations could converge’ (Trezza 2003), and favoured the idea of leading
by example: ‘if we act as a good example, then other states in similar situations
will view our code of conduct as a guide’ (Winkler, in European Parliament 2006).
Similarly, the bilateral frameworks of political dialogue with third countries and
international organisations for dealing with the SALW gained increasing relevance
in the EU’s approach (Council of the European Union 2006a: 12–13), and they
served also as a way of promoting the application of the EU Code of Conduct
and exchange of information on export policies. Likewise, the EU funded many
projects (some of them actually implemented by the UN bodies) which aimed
at the promotion of broad participation of other countries in international efforts
implementing the PoA, but including also the EU model of dealing with some
aspects of SALW. For example, in export control components, the EU promoted
the Code of Conduct among neighbouring countries and Latin America through
technical assistance.
However, the EU’s aim to become a role model for SALW also implied setting
the limits to the range of policy options and possible framings of the issue of small
arms. In particular, it has meant confining the problematic of small arms to a more
restrictive framing, compared to the potentially comprehensive formulation that
the UN process initiated in the mid-1990s. The EU’s approach, encapsulated in
the EU Code of Conduct, has tended to frame the problem of SALW around trade-
related notions (e.g., criteria for export, legitimate clients, supply chains, etc.).
The construction of the subject of international debate and the EU’s proposals for
international regulation have increasingly emanated from this internal approach,
and moved towards the question of arms as a matter of trade and export regulation,
as exemplified by the EU’s adamant promotion of new initiatives and measures
such as the Arms Trade Treaty, or international regulation of brokering beyond the
mainstream PoA process. Therefore, the EU’s framing could be seen as resonating
with the already dominant approach that considered small arms problems as a
consequence of uncontrolled trade flows (Garcia 2006; Bourne 2007), rather
than furthering the new and broader understanding of the use of small arms as
a problem of violence and its sociocultural underpinnings in the contemporary
world (Krause 2010).
Admittedly, the EU has also sometimes approached SALW from two other
perspectives more connected to the metaphor of EU as INSTRUMENT. On the
one hand, the EU has undertaken practical project-like measures combating
uncontrolled spread, destabilising the accumulation of SALW and promoting the
destruction of stockpiles (OJEC 1999). Through these practical assistance projects
dealing mainly with the destruction of stockpiles, the EU presented itself as
willing to ‘help [other countries] put in place a framework of appropriate measures
in keeping with needs, circumstances and priorities specific to each State, region
or sub-region’ (Michel 2001). On the other hand, the EU also made attempts to
address the broader ramifications of SALW, emphasising that its approach to tackle
the small arms problem was part of a comprehensive strategy addressing post-
conflict circumstances, including disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration
projects, and wider development strategies (Freeman 2005; Auer 2006; Winkler
2006). For example, in the framework of the EU-ECOWAS relations, a Joint
Declaration on Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons announced the
establishment of a structured dialogue that ‘allows for the coordination and
enhanced coherence of initiatives in the areas of transfer controls, marking and
tracing, brokering, stockpile management and the integration of SALW issues into
broader development policies’ (Council of the European Union 2007: 2). However,
the promotion of a more comprehensive approach was severely compromised
after the famous Commission–Council conflict in the case of ECOWAS
memorandum and the subsequent ruling by the European Court of Justice, which
precisely disputed the Commission’s competence for addressing actions related
to SALW within the EU’s development policy. Therefore, despite the fact that
discursively the EU bodies and representatives recalled that these weapons cause
victims, perpetrate conflicts, inflict human suffering, limit economic development
possibilities, undermine political legitimacy and deteriorate social structures, the
focus on the promotion of the EU Code of Conduct and the Joint Action on SALW
in fact marginalises these concerns, reducing the problem to either a matter of
trade (normalising the circulation of SALW) or a matter of security (physical
destruction of stockpiles in order to avoid an uncontrolled spread of arms).
UN Resolution 1325: Empowering Women in Peacebuilding or for

Peacekeeping?
The EU’s position on the adoption of the first significant international norm for
the protection and empowerment of women in conflict situations seems to emerge
from an EU as INSTRUMENT metaphor. During the debate in the Security
Council in 2000, the EU (represented by France) emphasised three elements of
the role of women in conflict: women as victims; women’s participation as active
actors in the peace processes both in decision-making posts in the UN and in
their countries; and ensuring the equality between men and women as a part of
post-conflict processes (UN Security Council 2000: 26–7). In November 2000, the
European Parliament also adopted a resolution on the role of women in the peaceful
resolution of conflicts, which emphasised local ownership and a community-based
approach to peacebuilding (Barnes 2010: 76). Overall, gender issues were framed
within the broader context of EU development and humanitarian aid policies.
This approach coincided with successive elaborations of the international norm,
framing the issue in a comprehensive manner. Resolution 1325 can be seen as an
outgrowth of rising global awareness concerning the role of women in societies,
and issues of violence, inequality and discrimination in global human rights
policies (visualised in Beijing’s World Conference on Women in 1995). Later, in
2008, the UNSC adopted resolution 1820, which reinforced the commitment of
incorporating the gender perspective in the considerations on peace and security,
recognising sexual violence as a crime against humanity and a constitutive act with
respect to genocide. The following year, two UNSC resolutions (1888 and 1889)
provided further strengthening of the operational dimension of implementing
commitments, stressing the need for improved monitoring and reporting, as well
as stronger empowerment of women and their active participation in peacebuilding
and post-conflict situations. This emphasis on the gender dimension in the context
of conflicts and peacebuilding efforts addressed the different roles of women in
peace processes, which can be systematised along the roles of victims, combatants,
activists, negotiators, surviving actors, household heads and workforce (Bouta and
Frerks 2002).
Until 2004, the EU followed rather passively the UN agenda, limiting itself to
declarations of general support for the implementation of resolution 1325 during
debates within the framework of the UNSC. However, a major shift began in
2005 when the EU started to develop its own approach to the question of women
and conflict, including a perspective on practices related to conflict and peace

operations. Since then, the EU approach to the implementation of these resolutions
has consisted of mainstreaming the gender perspective in the ESDP missions
(Council of the European Union 2005, 2006b). This process was significantly
enhanced in 2008 when the EU adopted the Comprehensive Approach to the EU
implementation of UNSCR 1325 and 1820 on Women, Peace and Security (Council
of the European Union 2008), and started to develop indicators measuring their
implementation (Council of the European Union 2010). These included activities
such as training on gender and human rights in EU crisis management operations,
inclusion in the EU development policy of local strategies for the implementation

of resolution 1325, and capacity-building projects within the priority of
implementing the UNSC resolutions.
From 2008, one can also observe a shift towards discourse and policy
positions echoing the EU as MODEL metaphor. The EU started to emphasise
its own experiences and practices as a way of promoting the implementation of
resolution 1325 (cf. UN Security Council 2005: 24–6, 2006: 26) by mainstreaming
gender issues in peace operations, e.g., women’s participation, gender equality
and methodology of implementation, in particular the adoption of a checklist for
gender in ESDP operations (UN Security Council 2006: 28). After five years of
implementing UNSCR 1325 by the EU, its representatives were able to present the
achievements of the implementation of the EU Comprehensive Approach through
which the EU and its member states supported women, peace and security-related
programmes in more than 70 countries (Council of the European Union 2011).
This EU policy of implementing UNSCR 1325 led Catherine Ashton (2010b:
2) to claim that ‘the EU should lead by example’, bearing in mind the practical
experience of its implementation.
Although the implementation of these projects is still in its preliminary phase,
we observe again that the EU tendency to emphasise its role as MODEL has
enabled it to undertake a more proactive stance on the world stage. At the same
time, this has implied considerably limiting its scope of action. If the EU’s general
focus on gender issues was initially comprehensive and essentially focused on
empowering women in society, the implementation of UNSCR 1325 through
the framework of the ESDP – and in particular military missions – imposes a
rather narrow security-oriented approach to the issue of the role of women in
peace processes. The metaphor of EU as MODEL contributes to a particular
construction of the problematic of women’s rights in conflict as a matter of
women’s participation in peace operations, and hence neglecting broader cultural
and social aspects of gender violence (Shepherd 2010). Therefore, the method of
developing a set of universal standardised checklists, templates and criteria, with
the aim of incorporating gender perspectives into the EU’s and other countries’
security-military practices, may eventually limit the scope of empowerment of
women in conflict situations.
Conclusion
Through a metaphor analysis, this chapter has examined what we may see as a
new kind of cleavage in EU foreign policy – one that develops independently from
most traditional ones, such as those of ‘Europeanism vs. Atlanticism’, ‘community
method vs. intergovernmentalism’ or ‘military vs. civilian power’. This cleavage is
over the feasibility and desirability of structuring the EU’s international discourse
and policies around the aim of promoting EU norms and rules as a model for
other countries and international institutions. While some generally favour this
role (e.g., Manners 2008: 37; Telò 2009: 30; Smith 2011), others consider the
EU’s ambition to play role model a futile strategy of self-aggrandisement, and

urge the creation of ‘a new narrative for EU external affairs in the twenty-first
century which does not see Europe as the anchor of the world’ (Mayer 2008: 7; see
also Zielonka 2008; Howorth 2010: 469). Some would even raise the question of
whether the ‘EU’s efforts to “clone itself” [are] truly compatible with its mission
to promote “effective multilateralism”’ (Peterson et al. 2008: 14).
This chapter was an attempt to examine the extent to which this emerging
cleavage is reflected in the EU’s policy discourse and practice. The analysis
has shown that the EU’s general foreign policy discourse reproduces all three
conceptual metaphors addressed in this chapter (the EU as MODEL; the EU as
PLAYER; the EU as INSTRUMENT). In light of the sample material analysed,
however, we can safely argue that the most conventionalised metaphor is that of
the EU as MODEL. The two empirical cases analysed (the EU’s involvement in
the UN processes on small arms and light weapons, and on the rights of women
in conflicts) have also found that the metaphor of EU as MODEL has taken
precedence in determining EU policy practice. This is a quite counterintuitive
finding given that the cases addressed are not typical ‘first pillar’ issues where the
EU institutions have extensive competence, and hence also a more consolidated
internal policy. This finding is also intriguing given that, as discussed in the first
part of the chapter, the subsequent High Representatives have tended to reproduce
the metaphor of the EU as MODEL less often than the Commission. The findings
are therefore an indication of the ingrained discursive connection that exists in
the EU speech community between assuming the role of MODEL and being a
proactive player on the world stage.
Although this chapter has not explicitly provided criteria for a normative or
practical assessment of the different metaphors identified and their associated
policy practice (but see Barbé et al. 2015, forthcoming), it has pointed to some
in-built tensions. At the level of the EU’s general foreign policy discourse, the
metaphors and their discursive orders reflect different relations of hierarchy
between the EU and other actors of the system and degrees of inclusiveness in
global rule-making processes. In particular, the most sedimented metaphor – the
EU as a MODEL – is also the one that establishes more hierarchical relations
vis-à-vis the other actors of the system, and the one that allows less room for
including others’ views. As discussed in the empirical part, the EU as MODEL
metaphor may be seen as a welcome driving force for the EU’s proactive stance
in promoting its more sophisticated rules on crucial issues affecting conflicts and
development. At the same time, however, this metaphor also has strong delimiting
effects, as it imposes significant constraints on the definition of policy problems
and their ways to reach a solution. The scrutiny of EU foreign policy discourse
and practice through the lens of metaphor analysis may help to expose that the
EU’s recurrent aim of playing role model is only one among other possible self-
representations and policy options. Further study in this direction could contribute
to assess the practical (dis)advantages and normative consequences of the EU
acting as a model, a player or an instrument in global governance.
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Part III
Approaches
Critical Discourse Analytical

Chapter 7
Unravelling European Union Foreign Policy
through Critical Discourse Analysis:
Guidelines for Research
Senem Aydın-Düzgit
Introduction
Critical theorising in International Relations that assumes a role for language in the
construction of social reality has had varying views on the types of methodology
to be employed in the study of foreign policy. Some approaches, mostly among
poststructuralists, have rejected the employment of a rigorous and systemic
methodology on the grounds that it would run contrary to challenging rationalist and
positivist approaches to International Relations that are perceived to be obsessed
with methodology (Milliken 1999: 26–7). Others have argued that attention to
method is both possible and crucial for critical approaches and that it would
not necessarily imply the sharing of common ontological and epistemological
grounds with rationalist studies (Hansen 2006; Laffey and Weldes 2004: 28–30).
This chapter takes the second road and argues that a discursive approach to social
reality does not necessarily require the refutation of methodological tools. In fact,
this study embraces the understanding of discourse analysis as ‘the retroduction
of a discourse through the empirical analysis of its realisation in practices’ (Laffey
and Weldes 2004: 28). In turn, specific methods of discourse analysis offer key
analytical tools in making this retroduction possible.
At a general level, studies employing discourse analysis in foreign policy have
opted for the Foucault- and Derrida-inspired poststructuralist tradition, adopting
genealogy, deconstruction or analyses of the articulation of key foreign policy
notions such as the ‘state’ and the ‘nation’ as macro methods of approaching texts,
or have focused on the systems of signification (i.e., predicates, metaphors) that
are utilised in texts in referring to key selected subjects. This has also largely
been the case for discursive studies of EU foreign policy. For instance, Neumann
(1998, 1999) has employed the genealogical method in analysing representations
of Europe in its historicity with respect to its constituting Others such as Russia
and Turkey. In a similar vein, Rogers (2009) has taken up the analytical tools of
discourse theory to explicate the shifting discourse in EU foreign policy from
representing Europe as a ‘civilian power’ since the 1970s to its representation as a
‘global power’ from the end of the 1990s onwards. The Copenhagen School (albeit
differing from poststructuralism in its intention to explain foreign policy actions)
has analysed the articulations of the concepts of ‘state’, ‘nation’ and ‘Europe’ to
explain nation-state policies towards Europe as well as how they can shape EU
foreign policy (Larsen 1997a, 1997b; Wæver 2005).
Among other approaches that rest more on the operational tools of linguistics
in EU foreign policy, Hülsse (2006) for example has chosen to focus on a specific
type of signification, namely metaphors, used in EU enlargement discourse in
constructing European identity (see also Barbé, Herranz-Surrallés and Natorski
in this volume). This was in the tradition of earlier works such as that of Chilton
and Ilyin (1993), who used metaphor analysis in studying the articulation of the
concept of the ‘common European house’ in several European states towards the
end of the Cold War. Much of the aforementioned work has been grounded in
the poststructuralist theorising of International Relations in which discourse is
conceptualised as constitutive of social reality where there exists no separation
between the discursive and the non-discursive realms. Thus, the major goal (with
the exception of the Copenhagen School) is not to explain EU foreign policy,
but to demonstrate the means through which it is being discursively constructed.
Other than these, there have also been studies branded as discursive in EU foreign
policy where speech act theory has been used to explain the causes behind EU
decisions from a social constructivist framework. These works have largely
studied EU enlargement, with a focus on the driving factors of enlargement policy
(Schimmelfennig 2003).
Discourse analytical approaches to EU foreign policy have been particularly
valuable in shedding light on the identities and subjects constructed through EU
foreign policy discourse, albeit with certain shortcomings. For instance, while
discursive methods focusing on systems of signification are particularly useful
especially in tracing how subject identities are constructed through discourse,
they do not sufficiently address the question of how discourses are naturalised in
texts by marginalisation of alternative interpretations, or for that reason, have a
substantial impact on the general debates on EU foreign policy (Wæver 2009: 167).
Poststructuralist discourse theory is especially useful in showing the dominant
representations of the social world as well as its alternative interpretations.
However, in studies employing this method, there is often very little attention paid
to the ‘linguistic’ dimension through which subject identities are created. Hence an
analysis of systems of signification such as predicates and metaphors is sidelined
to focus on broader representational practices consisting mainly of ‘events’ and
‘actions’. One may be inclined to argue that a combination of these approaches with
systematic analyses of systems of signification such as predications and metaphors
may remedy this lack of focus on the ‘linguistic’. However, there are multiple
linguistic mechanisms through which one can have an improved understanding of
the means used in discourse to create subject identities as well as a more in-depth
view of the types of subject identities constructed.
This chapter suggests that Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) could provide a
valuable approach that would combine the macro and micro analyses of texts in the
context of EU foreign policy by resorting to refined linguistic and argumentative
Unravelling European Union Foreign Policy 135
tools (Wæver 2009: 167). In doing that, it takes a broader methodological view
than some of the other chapters of the volume (see Carta and Morin in this volume)
by presenting an approach that can be utilised in both the EU’s institutionalist
foreign policy discourse and member states’ foreign policy discourses as well
as incorporating various discursive strategies and linguistic tools that can also
be separately taken up in discursive studies of EU foreign policy (see Larsen in
this volume). It first outlines the main theoretical premises of CDA and its one
particular variant, the discourse-historical approach, followed by a discussion on its
analytical and methodological toolkit and its potential for the study of EU foreign
policy. It then provides a brief exemplary application of CDA to foreign policy

texts and concludes with the theoretical challenges posed by CDA approaches.
Critical Discourse Analysis
CDA provides both theories and methods for the empirical study of the relations
between discourse and social and cultural developments in different social
domains (see Carta and Morin in this volume). The influence of the Frankfurt
School is particularly significant in the way in which the analysis has adopted
Habermas’ notion that critical science has to be self-reflective. Such a theoretical
stance leads to a focus on the role of language in power relations, processes of
exclusion, inequality and identity-building in works that place themselves under
the CDA umbrella. CDA approaches in general view discursive practices as an
important form of social practice which contributes to the constitution of the social
world including social identities and social relations (see also Wodak and Boukala
in this volume; Kutter in this volume).
Within this framework, CDA seeks to investigate ‘opaque relationships
of causality and determination between discursive practices, events and texts
and broader social and cultural structures’ with the aim of disclosing the role
of discursive practice in the maintenance of the social world, specifically with
respect to power relations (Fairclough 1995: 132). This leads to the emergence
of an ‘emancipatory’ mission in CDA for radical social change geared towards
empowering oppressed groups. Hence it is common for CDA researchers to make
their own positions on a certain subject explicit while also trying to retain self-
reflectivity during the course of the research.
These theoretical assumptions behind much of CDA work immediately point
to certain divergences with the poststructuralist notion of discourse. CDA’s
theoretical premises render it closer to social constructivism in the sense that CDA
views language as more than just a mirror of reality, by also accounting for non-
discursive practices that help constitute social reality. Poststructuralist discourse
analyses do not conceptualise such a distinction between the discursive and non-
discursive realms of social life. Hence they do not share the goal of emancipatory
critique in CDA which involves the comparison of various representations with
an implicit version of the way things really are (or should be). Nonetheless, there
is also important common ground that both approaches occupy. For instance,
poststructuralist discourse analysis broadly shares CDA’s concerns for a critical
approach to taken-for-granted knowledge, the historical and cultural specificity
of discourse and the role of social interaction in the construction of the world.
It also acknowledges that no social scientific work can aspire to a fully bias-
free analysis. In the words of Hansen, ‘post-structuralism’s critical political
understanding of discourse implies, first, that as there is no place outside of
language, there is no analytical place that does not make a political incision, and,
second, that as there is no place outside of language, there is no analysis that
can completely dispense with the vocabulary already in place’ (Hansen 2006:
213). Although rigid emancipatory foundations are not established as bases in
the interpretation of discourses, this should not come to mean that – as in the
well-known phrase utilised in the critique of poststructuralism – ‘anything goes’
in poststructuralist interpretation of texts. It has for example been argued that a
commitment to heterogeneity, plural and non-nationalist conceptions of political
community or the principle of not inducing harm in foreign policy can serve as
yardsticks in the interpretations of texts upon the condition that self-reflexivity (of
the researcher’s own normative assumptions) is constantly present throughout the
analysis (Campbell 1998; Diez in this volume).
Methodologically speaking, it can be argued that certain variants of CDA,
particularly regarding the linguistic and argumentative tools that they employ,
can also be utilised in poststructuralist studies. For instance Torfing (2005: 9)
has argued that many of CDA’s ‘analytical notions and categories for analysing
concrete discourse and distinguishing between different types and genres of
discourse can be used in conjunction with concepts from poststructuralist discourse
theories’. Larsen (in this volume) for instance demonstrates how a specific
linguistic tool of CDA (namely the use of the ‘we’ pronoun) can be employed
in a poststructuralist study of nation-state foreign policies. This chapter focuses
on a major variant of CDA, namely the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA)
as a wider methodological tool that can be utilised in both social constructivist
and poststructuralist works of EU foreign policy, particularly in studies that aim
to explore the various constructions of European identity through EU foreign
policy and/or the EU foreign policy implications of the articulations of different
Europe(s) in discourse at the level of the member states or the EU (see also Wodak
and Boukala in this volume).
DHA is a type of CDA that is particularly distinguishable by its specific
emphasis on identity construction, where the discursive construction of ‘us’ and
‘them’ is viewed as the basic fundament of discourses of identity and difference
(Wodak 2001: 73). This approach has been used in the analysis of national
identities (Wodak et al. 2009), and has more recently been utilised in analysing
the construction of European identities (Krzyżanowski 2010; Krzyżanowski and
Oberhuber 2007; Krzyżanowski et al. 2009; Wodak 2009). In fact, DHA is the
only strand of CDA that has so far, albeit on a limited scale, been used in European
integration studies.
This research tradition employs the principle of triangulation, which refers

to the endeavour to work interdisciplinarily, multi-methodically and on the
basis of a variety of different empirical data as well as background information
(Reisigl and Wodak 2001: 35). In addition to providing an analytical toolkit in the
analysis of texts, DHA incorporates the central concept of intertextuality in the
analysis. However, it does not treat intertextuality in the broader sense of the term
as observed in some poststructuralist analyses in which the concept accounts for
the linkage between texts as well as between discourses (Hansen 2006). Instead,
it differentiates between intertextuality and interdiscursivity. In more concrete
terms, intertextuality is used to refer to the ways in which a text draws explicitly
or implicitly from other texts in the past or present ‘through continued reference to
a topic or main actors; through reference to the same events; or by the transfer of
main arguments from one text into the next’, while interdiscursivity accounts for
the ways in which discourses are connected to and draw from one another (Wodak
2007: 206). This is based on the conceptualisation of discourse as ‘patterns and
commonalities of knowledge and structures’ where a text refers to a ‘specific and
unique realisation of discourse’ through various genres (Wodak 2007: 207).
The analytical apparatus of DHA consists of three main steps. The first step
involves outlining the main content of the themes and discourses, namely the
discourse topics in the narrative on a given subject (Van Dijk 1984: 56). The second
step involves the exploration of discursive strategies deployed in the narrative to
answer the following empirical questions directed at the texts (Reisigl and Wodak
2001: 44): how are the chosen subjects named and referred to linguistically?
What traits, characteristics, qualities and features are attributed to them? By
means of what arguments and argumentation schemes are certain representations
of the subjects justified, legitimised and naturalised in discourse? From what
perspective are these nominations, attributions and arguments expressed? Are the
respective utterances intensified or mitigated? These questions all relate closely
to how various ‘we’s are constructed and naturalised in discourse. In discourse-
historical works of CDA, the totality of discursive practices that undergo analysis
to answer these empirical questions are referred to as discursive strategies. This
step requires a particular emphasis primarily on referential/nomination strategies
and predication in responding to the first two empirical questions, a closer look at
argumentation strategies in the case of the third empirical question and a focus on
strategies of perspectivation and intensification/mitigation in the case of the fourth
and fifth questions respectively. The third step of analysis explores the linguistic
means that are used to realise these discursive strategies.
Referential/nomination strategies can use various linguistic means, such as
tropes, substitutions, certain metaphors and metonymies, with the effect of creating
ingroups and outgroups in discourse. For example the uses of ‘we’ and ‘they’, and
metaphors such as ‘family’ or ‘home’ can be cited among the many linguistic
means that involve referencing. They are very closely linked with the strategy of
predication, which is the process and result of linguistically assigning qualities
to subjects. It can be realised through attributes, collocations, predicative nouns/
adjectives and various other rhetorical figures. For example, rhetorical devices
such as flag words and stigma words can be considered as implicit predicates in
discourse. While flag words such as multiculturalism, integration, freedom and
democracy have positive connotations, stigma words such as racism and anti-
semitism carry negative associations. Argumentation strategies that are used in
justifying attributions can take various forms. Among the most common is the
employment of topoi, defined as ‘parts of argumentation which belong to the
obligatory, either explicit or inferable premises in the shape of content-related
warrants that connect the arguments with the conclusion’ (Reisigl and Wodak
2001: 74). For example in the discursive construction of national identities, one
often encounters the topos of culture and history.
The major strength of DHA is the way in which this three-step analysis allows
for the integration of both macro and micro analysis of texts into a discursive
study. While the identification of discourse topics provides an overview of the
main patterns and structures of discourses on a given topic, the focus on discursive
strategies and linguistic devices entails the use of rigorous discursive/linguistic
tools in displaying the ways in which certain representations of the social
world including its constituent subjects, acts, events, policies and processes are
naturalised and justified through discourses. The next section will attempt to
explore the potentials of this approach for the study of EU foreign policy.
DHA and EU Foreign Policy
EU foreign policy is often taken to denote the foreign policy of the EU as a whole
rather than the separate foreign policies of the EU member states. Nonetheless,
member states’ policies towards Europe are also relevant insofar as they have
repercussions on the formulation of foreign policy at the EU level (Larsen 2004:
63). Debates on EU foreign policy intensified after the signing of the Lisbon
Treaty, upon which the EU established an External Action Service and appointed
a High Representative for EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy as well as a
President of the European Council. Furthermore, the rising challenges in its
Southern neighbourhood with the Arab Spring movements have brought the issue
of the EU’s external power further into the spotlight.
Texts on EU foreign policy that can be subject to DHA can be drawn from
a variety of genres such as parliamentary debates (pertaining to the European
Parliament or the national parliaments of EU member states), official declarations/
foreign policy documents (i.e., Declarations by the High Representative, European
Council decisions, EU Presidency reports), political speeches (i.e., by EU leaders,
Commission officials, the High Representative) and interviews (i.e., with the
Commission’s civil servants in the European External Action Service, member
state bureaucrats). In Hansen’s (2006: 85) typology of genre in discourse analysis,
based on the three criteria of articulation of identity/policy, the degree of formal
authority and the extent to which the text is read and attended to, parliamentary
debates are classified as a type of genre that articulates both identities and
policies and that carries high formal authority due to the elected nature of the
politicians, and the existence of an electoral platform and a constituency. Although
parliamentary debates are not widely read and attended to, it is in fact the case
that politicians are in constant interaction with society via various means such
as the media and pressure groups, leading to the constant (re)articulation of their
discourses in various settings where exposure to a wider audience is possible.
Official declarations/foreign policy documents carry high formal authority and
can be widely read and attended to, yet they can also score low in articulating
identity since they are the end products of negotiations involving various actors
(particularly so in the case of the EU), and thus need to be combined with other
genres to give a better sense of the ‘full discourse’.
Unlike parliamentary debates and official declarations/foreign policy
documents, political speeches meet all three of Hansen’s criteria by entailing
high political authority, articulating both identities and policies, and reaching a
wide audience (Hansen 2006: 82–7). In the case of the European Commission,
the speeches can also be characterised as a specific type of a new sub-genre of
political speech, what Wodak and Weiss (2004: 235–42) refer to as ‘visionary/
speculative speeches’ on Europe. In line with the distinguishing features of
this genre, they are in general consensus-oriented, with a high reliance on
argumentative strategies geared towards ‘making meaning of Europe’ (‘idea,
essence, substance’), ‘organising Europe’ (‘institutional forms of decision making
and political framework’) and ‘drawing borders’ (inside/outside distinction),
where the interaction of these three dimensions forms the basis of the talk.
While qualitative interviews are rare in discursive works (particularly of the
poststructuralist type), they are widely employed in DHA and pose particular
advantages in discourse research that are not made available by other genres. The
narratives and orientations of speakers are most often best revealed in interview
data (Howarth 2005: 338). This is largely due to two main factors. Firstly,
interviewees often enact their identities through recounting their experiences to
the interviewer (Wagner and Wodak 2006). Secondly, the genre’s dialogic nature
allows moving beyond a specific utterance of the respondent towards an extended
narrative that sheds light on patterns of (constructed) identities. Nonetheless,
it is also this dialogical nature that endows the interviewee with the role of
producing the discourse through interaction with the respondent. The principle
of triangulation in DHA, by requiring the combination of different genres in the
analysis, thus aids in countering the subjectivity of the interviews with the higher
degree of formality in debates, speeches and/or official legal/policy texts. This
also provides for double-checking the (ir)regularities across discourses in a way
in which one can see whether or not similar discursive patterns can be discerned
across different realms through which discourses are (re)produced or whether
alternative constructions occur in more unofficial, private and flexible settings.
In terms of the three-step methodological toolkit of DHA, after specific
discourse topics on selected texts pertaining to EU foreign policy are identified,
undertaking an analysis of the discursive strategies that utilise specific linguistic

devices can provide substantial insight in responding to the following three key
questions on EU foreign policy identified by Larsen (2004: 68) as among the main
empirical questions on EU foreign policy from a discursive perspective: is the EU
constructed as an international actor? If it is, what kind of an actor is constructed?
What kind of values is this actor based on? The empirical questions above relate
closely to the discursive construction of European identity – through EU foreign
policy – which overlaps with the central concern of identity construction in most
studies that employ DHA. In a similar vein, these questions also entail responding
primarily to the first three empirical questions identified earlier by DHA on the
nomination and the predication of chosen subjects; the traits, characteristics,
qualities and features that are attributed to them; and the argumentation schemes
through which representations of the subjects are justified and naturalised in
discourse.
An analysis of nomination and referential strategies in texts can prove
specifically useful in observing whether the EU is discursively constructed as an
international actor. For instance, the various instances of the deictic expression
‘we’ that is used to indicate sameness can give insight regarding the actor-based
content of a discursively constructed Europe. The use of the ‘we’ in EU foreign
policy texts can show where Europe stands with respect to individual member
state(s), and can point at the boundaries of the discursively articulated Europe in
relation to its various geographic Others as well as to other discursively constructed
international entities such as the ‘West’. Similarly, the referential strategy of
anthropomorphisation (personification), which entails the attribution of human
qualities to the entity in question, can play a decisive role in animating imagined
‘collective subjects’ such as Europe, the frequent usage of which can signify a
strong international actorness on the part of the EU. Other metaphoric expressions
that are used in denoting Europe can also be illustrative of the actorness that is
ascribed to the EU. For example, the use of the ‘magnet’ metaphor in situating
Europe vis-à-vis its wider neighbourhood can construct it as a civilian/normative
international actor with the capacity to impact on the domestic governance of non-
member countries through civilian/normative means.
An analysis of predication and argumentation strategies, however, is better
suited in identifying the ‘type’ of foreign policy actor that the EU is as well as
the values that it is based on. For instance, the repeated predication of the EU
as an upholder of democratic values, principles and standards found in textual
collocation with other predicates of mild mechanisms of change such as
‘influence’, ‘propagate’, ‘pass on’ and/or ‘peaceful means’ can be considered to
help constitute the Normative Power Europe discourse through which Europe is
constructed as a normative power that is capable of attaining democratic change in
countries through the spread of the European democratic norms (Manners 2002).
As opposed to this, one might possibly find in texts predications of Europe as a
more interventionist ‘global power’ or a ‘global player’ on a par with its global
competitors such as the USA and Russia, the rising frequency of which could then
lend support to the argument that the discourse on Europe as a ‘global power’ is
replacing the one on Europe as a civilian/normative power (Rogers 2009).
Argumentation strategies (in terms of the justifications of positive and negative
attributions) used in DHA could hereby prove useful in the further scrutiny of
such predications. Diez (2005) for instance had warned that the danger inherent
in the Normative Power Europe discourse is a potential lack of self-reflexivity
whose presence or absence can only be substantiated through systematic discourse
analysis. A closer look at the argumentation strategies of DHA can provide insight
into the presence of claims to universality – whereby democratic values that are
defined as particular to the EU are also branded as universal – which would in

turn discursively reinforce the superiority of Europe/the West against the rest of
the world and fortify the borders between the two. Chouliaraki (2005: 6) defines
this argumentation strategy as the ‘topos of orientalisation’ where the equation
of European/Western values with universal values leads to the ‘annihilation of
the cultural weight of Other(s)’, reproducing the Eurocentric manner in which
the superior European Self relates to its Others. Similarly, identifying the use of
the topos of history, geography and culture in establishing essentialist boundaries
between ‘Europe’ and its outside in texts would also imply that the self-reflexivity
required by the Normative Power Europe discourse is being undermined.
In a related fashion, the argumentation strategy of securitisation, if found
regularly in texts, can also be used to argue for the erosion of the (discursively
constructed) normative bases of the EU. Securitisation refers to the ways in which
security discourse utilised in justifying actions contributes to the naturalisation
of a given community by constructing threats to its existence. For example,
construction of migration and human trafficking as security threats emanating
from the EU’s Southern neighbourhood can aid in construing Europe as a ‘deeper
and more tightly unified geopolitical space’ (Rogers 2009: 846). Yet, boundary
drawing as such does not just contribute to the construction of Europe as a
geopolitical space that is securely protected from violence; it in fact constructs
a form of violence itself via the ascription of a homogenous identity with respect
to both the stable and peaceful inside and the crisis-ridden outside of Europe.
Securitisation need not necessarily be confined to the EU’s outside, but can also
concern its inside regarding, for instance, migrant populations living in the EU.
It needs to be highlighted that this is an area in which DHA probably offers the
most advanced analytical toolkit in discourse studies, where a wide range of
discursive strategies can be learned from an ample number of works that deal
with the othering of migrants in EU countries (see for instance Reisigl and Wodak
2001) and can be sought in EU texts that may not per se be on EU foreign policy,
but that can have significant implications for the construction of an international
identity for the EU.
This brings us to the use of the notions of interdiscursivity and intertextuality
in the application of DHA to the study of EU foreign policy. Following from the
last point made above, it can be argued that using DHA in works of EU foreign
policy also requires a focus on the interdiscursive and intertextual links between
different texts on the object of study. For instance, a declaration on EU foreign

policy can draw elements from, for example, a speech by the High Representative
in an act of intertextuality. As for interdiscursivity, a discourse on EU foreign
policy can also refer to topics or sub-topics of other discourses such as EU justice
and home affairs.
Interdiscursivity is not only confined to the same genres of texts or texts
pertaining to a single institution. An official declaration, a political speech or
a parliamentary debate on EU foreign policy can also be discursively linked
to academic/policy texts such as Cooper’s (2004) book on liberal imperialism
and Manners’ (2002) articles on Normative Power Europe through the way in
which Europe is accorded the role of a more interventionist global power or is
construed as a foreign policy actor that functions through the spread of norms
and values. In a similar vein, even in situations where explicit references to
Huntington (1994) or his views on the clash of civilisations are not encountered,
the underlying ‘patterns of knowledge and structures’ of his arguments could
be visible. Such interdiscursivity might be discerned in cases where Islam and/
or the Muslim world is juxtaposed against Europe and the West, in the over-
encompassing role attributed to Islam in determining political and social life in
Europe’s Southern neighbourhood or in the presumed incompatibility between
Islam and democracy.
At a broader level, interdiscursivity can be discerned with national identity
constructs whereby (discursively constructed) national identities can infiltrate
into, for example, EU leaders’ discourses on EU foreign policy. One could also
possibly discern interdiscursivity with constructed institutional identities, such
as that of the European Commission which, through its discourse on EU foreign
policy, could reproduce its role as a key player in managing Europe’s relations
with the outside world or as a vanguard of its democratic identity. Interdiscursivity
can also be found with respect to the linkages with conceptual histories or certain
identified discourses that extend beyond the confines of a given text, such as the
neo-orientalist discourse or the modernisation paradigm.
Analysis of Excerpts from Post-Lisbon British Discourse on EU Foreign

Policy
As highlighted earlier, EU member states’ foreign policy discourses are relevant

for understanding EU foreign policy due to the constituent involvement of
the member states in EU foreign policy structures. This section will provide a
brief exemplary analysis of segments from selected post-Lisbon foreign policy
speeches by the British Foreign Minister, William Hague, and the Minister for
Europe, David Lidington. Nonetheless, it needs to be underlined that the analysis
is mainly conducted to provide a brief demonstration of the way in which excerpts
from EU foreign policy texts can be subject to CDA and how the main analytical
tools of the discourse-historical approach identified in the earlier sections can be
put to use, with no larger goal of making representative claims in regard to current
British political discourse on EU foreign policy.
The selected genre is political speeches and the discourse topic is British
foreign policy’s take on EU foreign policy. The main empirical questions directed
at the texts regard the construction of the EU as an international actor, the kind of
actor that is constructed and the values on which it is based. Consider, for instance,
the following excerpt from the speech delivered by the Foreign Minister Hague
(2010) in the aftermath of the 2010 general elections on the direction of British
foreign policy under the new coalition government:
The EU is at its best as a changing network where its members can make the most
of what each country brings to the table. We are already seeking to work with
many of the smaller member states in new and more flexible ways, recognising
where individual countries or groupings within the EU add particular value … .
We are determined as a Government to give due weight to Britain’s membership
of the EU and other multilateral institutions. It is mystifying to us that the
previous Government failed to give due weight to the development of British
influence in the EU … . Consoling themselves with the illusion that agreeing to
institutional changes desired by others gave an appearance of British centrality
in the EU, they neglected to launch any new initiative to work with smaller
nations … . As a new Government we are determined to put this right.
Before engaging in an analysis of the excerpt above, the discursive context within
which it is situated needs to be explained. The speech is mainly focused on the
foreign policy challenges facing Britain and the approach that will be taken by
the new government in tackling them. In CDA, the absence of a discourse may
be just as meaningful as its presence. Thus, CDA looks for the silences in texts
as well as identifying present discourses. Against this background, it needs to be
noted that there are no references to the EU until the mid-sections of the speech,
from which this excerpt is taken. Furthermore, the deictic ‘we’ that is articulated
throughout the text refers exclusively to Britain or the new British government,
and is not in any instance co-articulated with the EU (see Larsen, this volume).
Relations and partnerships with individual countries, most notably the United
States, are highlighted in the previous sections after which the EU is predicated as
a ‘grouping’ of nation-states.
The excerpt above, delivered against this background, provides further insight
into the way in which the EU is (or is not) constructed as an international actor.
The use of metaphors as well as predicational/referential strategies is illustrative
in this context. As highlighted in the earlier sections, metaphors and metaphoric
expressions carry high significance in studies that employ CDA. This stems from
the conceptualisation of metaphor as not an ‘objective mediator’ between two pre-
established entities, but as a key discursive tool in constructing our knowledge
of the common world by becoming sedimented in discourse as ‘common sense’
(Drulak 2006: 503). Thus, in the excerpt above it may be observed that the metaphor
of ‘network’ (of members), which is common to students of European integration,
is used in referring to the EU. Nonetheless, the ‘network’ metaphor is not hereby
utilised to entail an integrative logic that suggests close interconnectedness between
different levels of governance in the EU, as is commonly seen particularly in the
academic discourse on the EU. The constituent units of the network are hereby
the member states that are anthropomorphised (attributed human qualities, and
thus actorness by the referential strategy of anthropomorphisation) through the
metaphoric expressions of ‘make[ing] the most of what each country brings to
the table’, ‘working with’ smaller member states and ‘add[ing] particular value’.
Hence international actorness is bestowed on the member states of the EU that are
also predicated to work ‘flexibly’ with one another rather than with the EU itself.
These metaphoric expressions all belong to what is referred to as conventional
metaphors of ‘equilibrium’ whereby they construct an understanding of the EU
as ‘interaction between fixed units which continuously seek mutual trade-offs’
(Drulak 2006: 512). The nation-states are the prime foreign policy actors with little
independent agency bestowed onto the EU, which is also referred to elsewhere as
the topos of the nation-state (Krzyżanowski and Oberhuber 2007: 176).
In line with this, the EU is predicated as a ‘multilateral institution’ among others,
within which British ‘influence’ and ‘centrality’ should be ensured. Hence the EU is
construed as an instrument through which Britain as an international actor furthers
its powers. The strategies of positive self and negative other representation are
meaningful in this context. While the previous Labour government is negatively
predicated as ‘failing to give weight to the development of British influence in the
EU’ or ‘consoling themselves with the illusion’ of gaining centrality in the EU,
the pro-integrationist voices in the EU are also negatively predicated through the
use of the distancing pronoun ‘others’ who promote institutional (and integrative)
changes which the previous government agreed to. The new government is in turn
positively represented as the actor that will reverse this.
The excerpt above demonstrates three cases of interdiscursivity that need
to be underlined. One concerns the interdiscursivity with the discourse on
‘pragmatism’ which is considered as a cornerstone of the (constructed) British
national identity regarding its relations with the outside world including the
EU (Larsen 1997a: 55–62; Mautner 2001: 13–15). The second one entails the
interdiscursivity with the realist paradigm that is found to be present in broader
British political discourse on International Relations where international politics
is conceptualised as the interaction of self-interested states seeking to maximise
their interests (Larsen 1997a: 73–7). The third one relates to the emphasis on the
agency of the nation-states and hence on the sovereignty discourse as ‘a well-
established ingredient of the [British] national myth and a powerful symbol of
[constructed] national identity’ (Mautner 2001: 10–11).
Let us now turn to another speech, delivered by the Minister for Europe, David
Lidington (2011), where more explicit articulations of the EU’s actorness (or non-
actorness) can be expected due to the presence of a specially designated heading
on EU foreign policy in the speech:
First, we should be honest about the fact that the foreign policy of the European
Union remains a matter for inter-governmental debate and agreement. Henry
Kissinger will still need more than one number for Europe, as we sometimes do
for the United States … . I would like to finish by discussing two areas in which
the EU can make a particular difference: enlargement, and its neighbourhood.
Enlargement has been a success story for the EU. It has entrenched the rule of
law, democracy, human rights and the free market in parts of Europe where these
traditions were crushed for much of the 20th century … . The EU’s impact on
its neighbourhood, those countries on the periphery of Europe, but without any
immediate prospects of beginning accession negotiations, has been less marked,
and needs to improve.
The excerpt above resorts to the topos of facticity and the topos of honesty,
both used commonly in political discourse to signal truth and precision as well
as competence and credibility (Van Dijk 2005), in construing EU foreign policy
as mainly an inter-governmental matter where states are the supreme actors.
Intertextuality is then incurred with Henry Kissinger’s well-known quote (‘If I
want to call Europe, who do I call?’) to strengthen the claim that the EU does
not (and cannot) act as a singular actor on the world stage. Nonetheless, the EU
as primarily an inter-governmental organisation also bears some agency on the
international level (realised by the referential strategy of anthropomorphisation:
‘the EU can make’, ‘the EU’s impact’), mainly through enlargement and the
neighbourhood policy.
Through references to the entrenchment of ‘human rights’, ‘democracy’, ‘rule
of law’ and the ‘free market’ (flag words that convey a positive ‘deontic-evaluative
meaning’), the normative bases of the enlargement policy are highlighted.
However, a fuller analysis would be required to assess whether enlargement and the
neighbourhood policy are the only EU foreign policies where the EU is bestowed
international actorness or whether the articulation of Europe as a normative power
is commonly observed in British political discourse and if so, the ways in which
this is realised and/or is contradicted.
It needs to be underlined that the brief analysis of the excerpts above is far
from constituting a full analysis of the post-Lisbon British discourse on EU
foreign policy and thus it cannot be used in making representative claims. While
the analysis above should be considered as a demonstration of how selected
excerpts can be made subject to CDA, a full analysis of the discourse would have
to incorporate texts from different discursive sites and cover extensive data. For
instance, the discourses present in more than one configuration of the British
government would have to be taken into consideration in the interpretation of
the key discourses relating to Britain and European foreign policy. A full analysis
would also have to take into account certain key developments such as who enters
office and the nature of the EU Treaty cycle in the interpretation of discourses.
Such an analysis would also have to closely relate to the wider literature on Britain
and the EU with a focus on the historical background, particularly if a discourse-
historical approach is adopted in the analysis of texts. This would also imply
including in the analysis certain key historical texts on the British take on the EU
such as the 1988 Bruges Speech of Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair’s Warsaw
Speech, which could be useful in comparing cases of present-day intertextuality
and interdiscursivity with past texts and discourses.
Conclusion
This chapter began with a brief introduction to discursive approaches to EU

foreign policy, followed by the presentation of DHA as a discursive approach that
can be utilised in rigorous discourse analyses in this field. It has outlined the main
contours of DHA as a main variant of CDA, and discussed how the main analytical
tools of DHA can be put to work in studying EU foreign policy with exemplary
analyses of selected excerpts from post-Lisbon British discourse on EU foreign
policy. Although the focus of the chapter is mainly on the opportunities that DHA
offers in a field where it has been employed on a very limited scale, the challenges
that it poses also need to be taken into consideration.
Probably the most important challenge in this endeavour is a theoretical one.
CDA approaches (including DHA) generally have a theoretical standpoint that
acknowledges the existence of other social phenomena alongside discursive
phenomena, which places them in a theoretically compatible position with
social constructivist approaches, yet on incompatible theoretical terms with
poststructuralist perspectives. Although this chapter has argued that it is possible
to employ DHA as a methodological toolkit also in poststructuralist studies, this
requires an analyst to make certain qualifications at the outset of the research.
One such qualification concerns the notion of ‘history’ in the analysis of
texts. DHA argues that ‘the background of the social and political fields in which
discursive “events” are embedded’ needs to be integrated in the analysis. This rests
on CDA’s theoretical underpinnings that conceptualise a ‘dialectical relationship
between particular discursive practices and the specific fields of action (including
situations, institutional frames and social structures)’ (Wodak 2001: 66). Since
poststructuralist approaches deny the existence of such a distinction between
discourse and social/institutional structures, while they can present background
information such as the timing and place of discourses, discursive participants
and the actual material ‘events’ such as the signing of treaties, they require the
contextual narratives of events to be presented in a critical light.
A second point that requires an analyst’s attention regarding DHA’s theoretical
compatibility with poststructuralist approaches concerns the treatment of the
linguistic tools that the approach uses. CDA in general has been subject to
criticism regarding its Habermasian underpinnings that are argued to lead to a
conceptualisation of discourses as distortions from the way things really exist as
‘truths’, where the analyst enters the picture with the mission of revealing the
manipulative goals of actors (Blommaert 2005: 32–3). This is a point that is
particularly relevant for the interpretation of discourses where the poststructuralist
is required to commit to self-reflexivity in studying discourse as a subject in

its own right (see also Diez in this volume). For instance, the term ‘discursive
strategy’ utilised in CDA can be criticised from a poststructuralist point of view
for possibly denoting a deliberate ‘intentionality’ or ‘instrumentality’ since from
a poststructuralist standpoint, it is not possible to reveal the ‘true’ motives of
the actors concerned. However, the discursive tools utilised by these actors, at
whichever level of cognition or with whichever aim that is impossible for the
analyst to discern truly, help construct a discursive space that enables certain
actions. In turn, identifying discursive strategies can in fact correspond to the
exploration of historically contingent discursive practices through which policies

are formulated. Thus the methodological tools as such can also be adopted by
poststructuralist studies as long as they are used to discern broader discursive
structures and properties of discourse, the organisations of discourse that make
particular talk or writing seem plausible and natural, rather than to search for the
intentions, beliefs and perceptions of individual speakers and authors.
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Chapter 8
(De-)Constructing the EU
as a Civilising Power:
CFSP/CSDP and the Constitutional
Debate in Poland and France
Amelie Kutter
Introduction
From their beginnings in the 1950s, initiatives for joint European action in the field
of diplomacy, security and defence have sought to set an example of a globally
visible civilising project. However, only after the end of the Cold War order when
the EU expanded into territories of the former Soviet bloc and was urged to take
on peace-keeping responsibility, did the EU push the aim to ‘assert one’s identity
internationally’ (Maastricht Treaty, Article B). The adoption of the European
Security Strategy (2003) and the Lisbon Treaty (2009) marked important steps in
this regard. The agreements specified the EU’s external mission and considerably
centralised the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy and Common Security
and Defence Policy (henceforth CFSP/CSDP).1 Importantly, they portrayed the EU
as a benign power within an emerging multipolar setting. Such construction could
rely upon formulations already laid down in documents on accession conditionality
(Copenhagen Criteria 1993), development aid (Contonou Agreement 2000) and
peace-keeping (Petersberg Tasks 1992). Academic contributions, too, have sought
to detail the EU’s international roles and potential as ‘normative power’ during
that time (Manners 2010; Bengtsson and Elgström 2011).
However, constructions of the EU as civilising power have been contradicted
by national foreign and security policy priorities mobilised by representatives of
national governments (Devine 2011). In addition, the more the EU has exposed
itself as a (would-be) international actor, the more it has received criticism from
various quarters, including security partners, groups affected by conditionality
and peace-keeping, and, last but not least, national constituencies, whose control
1 The Lisbon Treaty assigns legal personality to the EU, merges foreign policy
competencies of the Commission and the Council as well as diplomatic services under
the head of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
and establishes a longer-term council presidency in charge of external representation. The
treaty provides for joint military-civilian capabilities and reinforced cooperation for those
countries that opt for joint defence.
over CFSP/CSDP is in doubt. The various bodies involved in EU decision-making

on CFSP/CSDP continue to block each other and complicate implementation.
Commentators suggest that many provisions on CFSP/CDSP remain symbolic due
to this lack of ‘coherence’ and geostrategic vision (Howorth 2011).
This chapter suggests another reading. It promotes the argument that the
construction of the European Union as a civilising power was, above all, an inward-
looking persuasive strategy. Rather than re-positioning the EU strategically, it
helped to imagine the European project beyond the Cold War order to which it was
formerly bound. The many controversies on CFSP/CSDP and the Constitutional
Process leading to the Lisbon Treaty, in particular, should be seen as instances

of ‘recontextualising polity-construction’ (Kutter 2014, forthcoming). They were
linked to struggles over the definition of the EU polity, i.e., the EU’s institutional
design, and foundations and boundaries of political association (polity-
construction); but these definitions diversified in the course of being relocated
between different audiences and contexts of multilevel political communication
typical of the EU setting (recontextualisation).
The following sections will elaborate this argument, drawing on the example
of references to CFSP/CSDP during the debate on the drafting and negotiation of
the EU Constitutional Treaty (2002–2004). In that period, most of the currently
effective provisions on CFSP/CSDP were adopted, and the construction of the
EU as civilising power was turned into a rationale of (further) EU polity-building.
However, intra-European conflict on the US-led Iraq intervention, which emerged
in parallel, revealed fundamental divisions among EU representatives concerning
that objective. Polarisation was particularly strong between the Polish and French
governments. Not only did they take opposite sides in the Iraq conflict, with the
French government (FR) opposing and the Polish government (PL) supporting
the US-led intervention, but they were also divided on issues of the Constitutional
Treaty such as the reference to God or Christianity in the preamble (PL: pro;
FR: against) and the weighting of votes in the European Council (PL: against a
double qualified majority principle; FR: pro). While both governments welcomed
CFSP/CSDP as a means of augmenting national influence in matters of security,
they took contrary positions as to whether this was to be achieved in competition
with NATO (FR) or by subscribing to NATO in the first place (PL).2 Confrontation
was fuelled by calculated provocations such as Jacques Chirac telling off the EU
newcomers who supported the Iraq intervention or the hoax launched by a Polish
government official that French missiles had been found in Iraq. These events
fed into national media panics on ‘the French’ allegedly imposing their militant
laicism, and on ‘the Poles’ allegedly flooding the French economy with cheap
labour, and made large parts of the respective populations rally around the flag.3
2 Note that this constellation has changed since France resumed full NATO
membership in 2009.
3 However, public opinion polls suggested that the majority in both France and
Poland rejected intervention in Iraq.
(De-)Constructing the EU as a Civilising Power 153
The chapter takes this mutually referential debate as the setting for investigating
‘recontextualising polity-construction’. It uses critical discourse analysis to
examine constructions of the EU as civilising power in two major speech acts that
triggered constitutionalisation: the Laeken Declaration and the inaugural speech
by the president of the Convention, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. It assesses how these
were taken up and modified (recontextualised) in commentaries published by the
broadsheets Gazeta Wyborcza, Rzeczpospolita, Le Monde and Le Figaro between
January 2002 and July 2004, which qualify by pro-EU orientation and strong
partisan alignment (Gazeta Wyborcza and Le Monde: liberal-leftist; Rzeczpospolita
and Le Figaro: conservative). The commentaries were selected on the basis of

various layers of qualitative-quantifying content analysis of a total of 4,526
articles that discussed the EU constitution in some detail. The section following
the introduction will explicate the discourse-theoretical framework guiding the
investigation. In sections three and four, the process of recontextualising polity-
construction will be traced. The fifth section concludes with a discussion of the
findings.
Polity-Construction and CDA: Framework of Analysis
After two decades of investigation into the ‘social construction’ of European

integration, the claim that discourse and communication matter for the formation
of the EU’s policies and organisation can be considered a truism. Researchers of
diverse theoretical provenance have shown how discourse, communicative action,
or ‘ideas’ shape legislation, institutional engineering and community-building
within the EU context (Schmidt 2010; Christiansen, Jørgensen and Wiener
2001). This also holds for investigations of the construction of the EU’s external
policies in European Integration Studies. Those employing poststructuralist
notions of discourse, mostly following Laclau and Mouffe, have focused on what
representations or ‘securitisation speech acts’ (declaring a problem as security-
relevant) yield further competence-delegation to the EU level, legitimising
emergency action, new institutional mechanisms and re-definitions of identities
(Buzan, Wæver and de Wilde 1998; see also Isleyen in this volume). Others have
analysed discourse in EU foreign policy bodies (Carta 2011). With reference to
either political rhetoric or Habermas’ communicative action, scholars have also
explained why certain external policy decisions were made at EU level (Fierke
and Wiener 2001; Schimmelfennig 2001), or have analysed what notions of
community such decision-making could rely upon (Kantner 2009; Kantner, Kutter
and Renfordt 2008). In addition, the juxtaposition of the EU to geopolitical or
cultural ‘others’ has been studied as a move of identity-building, from the angle of
either poststructuralist or linguistic discourse analysis (Diez 2004; Triandafyllidou,
Wodak and Krzyżanowski 2009).
Investigations of discourse and communication in EU external policies thus
divide into two major fields: in studies of institution-building and decision-making
located in the EU political sphere narrowly understood; and in studies of identity-

building situated in the (national-transnational) public sphere. If connections
between the two are made, they are seen as following bottom-up logics: as will
formation, policy formulation, and legitimacy attribution that emerges from social
and political groups at the national level and feeds into institution-building at the
supranational level. What has been underexposed is the extent to which identity-
construction is triggered top-down, by the institutional and discursive engineering
of EU representatives and experts.
In part, this blind spot may be related to the label ‘identity’ itself. It disregards
institution-building and connotes bottom-up community-building. The oversight

is also due to the heuristic tools applied. In European Integration Studies,
the linguistic turn has been appropriated at the ontological level (‘discourse
matters’) and linked to one or another social theory of discourse. But middle-
range theorising clings to categories of interpretative social research (concepts,
ideas, frames, narratives, paradigms) and hermeneutics as a prime methodology.
Scholars focus on deductively-inductively identifying concepts in artefacts of
communication that matter from a particular theoretical perspective, and tend to
overlook meaning-constitution implied in linguistic features of an utterance and
its context of expression. The present contribution seeks to remove this blind
spot by introducing the perspective of linguistic Critical Discourse Analysis
(CDA) as well as the concepts ‘polity-construction’, ‘discursive legitimation’
and ‘recontextualisation’. Together, they establish a framework for grasping the
construction of the EU polity and its external dimension.
Discourse as Context-Dependent Linguistic Interaction
In linguistic CDA, the primary moment of discursive construction is seen in

context-dependent linguistic interaction. From this perspective, intersubjective
meaning is constituted through the correspondence between linguistic features
of an utterance, such as textual, grammatical or syntactical characteristics, and
the context of expression and comprehension (Wodak 2008: 7–10). The context,
in turn, has its own semiotic-discursive features: the pragmatic and cognitive
underpinnings of the interactional setting, the generic discursive practice of
the social-institutional field in question – intertexts and voices included – or
the discursive events indicating the broader historic or spatio-temporal setting
(Wodak 2008: 11–14). By invoking these contextual dimensions, a single
utterance becomes meaningful to the participants. The social relevance of
linguistic interaction is threefold: it generates an act of signification which in itself
may be socially efficacious; it produces a linguistic artifice which enacts social
relations and specialised-institutionalised knowledge (recontextualisation, see
below); and it may open up further moves of reflexivisation (van Leeuwen 1993).
To disentangle these effects, however, close examination of textual structure and
context is necessary (Fairclough 2004: 13).
Polity-Construction
From the perspective of CDA, the imagination of a polity, including its external
mission and borders, should show in linguistic interaction that renders a political
order and community intelligible. ‘Polity’ denotes a political association based on
a set of institutions and convictions which consolidate power relations among a
particular collective within a given territory or realm of social activity. It relates
to the simultaneous effort of political institution- and community-building in
societies. Historically, the institutional design, foundational principles, and
boundaries of political association have been imagined along the following lines
of political thought (Horn 2003: 22–31):
1. anthropological: a politically constituted community is a necessary
condition of satisfactory individual life;
2. utilitarian: state-like political orders are indispensable for provision and
distribution of public goods;
3. strategic contractualist: state-like political orders follow from enlightened
cost-benefit calculation, which suggests that a government be entrusted
with power consolidation against the background of threatening violence
or property loss;
4. moral contractualist: state-like political orders are an instrument for the
enforcement of public will and fundamental rights derived from natural
law and human reason;
5. communitarian and/or intersubjective: political orders are constitutive
for the emergence of collective identity and tradition, be those related to
entrenched values or pragmatic problem-solving.
These ‘rationales of polity-building’ emerged from experiences of state-building

and encroached upon our commonsensical understanding of polities and the
legitimate exercise of power. They also form part of theories that explain the
emergence of European integration. These theories and their popular labels (e.g.,
‘Europe of the nations’, ‘Europe of the citizens’) employ selected polity-rationales
to construct and deconstruct a polity beyond the state (Kutter 2007).
Discursive Legitimation
Existing political discourse studies pin such construction to the mention of certain
polity models or notions of community and legitimacy known in political science
literature (Nullmeier et al. 2010). A CDA perspective suggests, instead, that we look
into how such concepts and polity-rationales are generated in context-dependent
linguistic interaction (Kutter and Nonhoff 2014, forthcoming). More particularly,
those ‘discourse strategies’ are relevant that suggest that a certain policy proposal,
political order or community is legitimate. Discourse strategies are linguistic micro
and macro structures that further the communicative-pragmatic plan of a single
text in correspondence with a historic-specific context of expression (drawing on
Wodak 2001, 73). Strategies of discursive legitimation are, then, linguistic-textual

structures that substantiate a certain conception of polity or claim regarding its
legitimacy, whether on grounds of reason (rationalisation), authority of experience
and convention (authorisation), reference to values (moral evaluation), or by more
implicit means such as narration, illustration and allusion (plausibilisation) (van
Leeuwen and Wodak 1999; Kutter 2014, forthcoming: Ch. 3). Table 8.1 shows
discourse strategies defined in CDA and examples from the EU constitutional
debate that are discussed in more detail in sections three and four.
Table 8.1 Strategies of legitimation

Communicative Plan Some Devices and Examples

Rationalisation Legitimacy of the claim Definition: ‘The European Union’s one
(on the EU as civilising boundary is democracy and human rights’
power) Consequentiality: ‘If we were to fail,
… follows from reason each country would return to the free
trade system’
Threat: ‘racism and terrorism are on the
increase’
Authorisation … follows from Personal: ‘as Vaclav Havel said’
experience or convention Impersonal: ‘it is required’
Moral … follows from values Explicit evaluation: ‘a stable world order,
Evaluation free from conflict, founded upon human
rights’
Plausibilisation … suggested implicitly Narration and illustrating iconic event:
‘Just a few years later, however … the
eleventh of September has brought a rude
awakening’
Allusion: e.g., to the memory of the
historic unreliability of the great powers,
in the image of the broken promise
Representation … follows from Predication: ‘a cacophonic and
portrayal quarrelling community’
Referencing: e.g., qua merism: ‘Europe
as the continent of human values, the
Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights …’
Recontextualisation
The premise of context-dependency implies that as the context of expression

changes, the meaning of legitimising discourse strategies will change too. The
transformation of meaning through de- and relocation from one context to another
has been labelled ‘recontextualisation’ (Bernstein 1990). It can be studied in the
selection, fore- or back-grounding, re-arrangement or addition of content, textual
elements and linguistic structure (van Leeuwen 1993). Here, the focus will be
on context as specialised social practice constituted through specific ways of
classifying and processing knowledge (what Bernstein called ‘code’, e.g., of

pedagogy). Accordingly, meaning generated in the originating context changes due
to it being subsumed under the ‘code’ of the receiving context. When combined
with Bourdieu’s concept of ‘fields’ as realms of social practice constituted through
distinct knowledge and actors’ drawing on it for relational positioning (Bourdieu
2005), and with ‘genre’ for linguistic ways of enacting a specialised social practice
(Fairclough 2004: 59–86), Bernstein’s conception of ‘code’ helps to identify the
‘discourse fields’ that mattered as contexts during the public-political debate on
the EU constitution and CFSP/CSDP (Kutter 2014, forthcoming: Ch. 3).
EU Polity-Construction in the Discourse Field of Multilateral Negotiation
In the multilevel context of the EU, two discourse fields are particularly relevant
for political communication on EU affairs: that of multilateral negotiation (here
as originating context) and that of Europeanised national mass media (here as
receiving context). The discourse field of multilateral negotiation is part of
the political field where participants struggle to have their principles of vision
and division recognised as dominant and legitimate (Bourdieu 2005: 39).
Their relational positioning relies upon professional knowledge that classifies
opportunities of collective action in a specific political system. It is processed in
action fields of different generic features and political language, such as public
self-representation, organisation-internal opinion formation, parliamentary debate,
or diplomacy (Wodak 2008: 16). Within the EU’s multilevel system, fields of
political action are linked through procedures of multilateral negotiation that both
‘domesticise’ and ‘supranationalise’ politics. As opinion formation, ratification
and implementation are mainly driven by political competition and institutions at
the national scale, EU decision-making always reflects national representatives’
two-level games. In turn, the EU’s legal provisions, decision-making procedures
and rhetoric bring about communicative dynamics that entangle and transform
domestic politics (Kutter 2014, forthcoming: Ch. 4).
The ‘domesticisation’ of the Constitutional Process is probably more vividly
recalled, notably the impact of Polish domestic politics on the first constitutional
IGC in December 2003 – negotiations were suspended in anticipation of the Polish
and Spanish veto – and the impact of French domestic politics on ratification –
which failed in the French and Dutch referendums in May 2005 (Gaisbauer
2005; Taggart 2006). Initially however, the Constitutional Process was driven
supranationally. Faced with criticism of the EU’s democratic deficit and the
looming 2004 expansion, the Belgian Council President made his colleagues agree
to substantial institutional reform at the Laeken summit on 15 December 2001.
The resulting Laeken Declaration stipulated that the EU had to become more
democratic, transparent, efficient, closer to EU citizens, and should develop into ‘a
stabilising factor and model in the new, multipolar world’ (Council of the European
Union 2001: 21). Treaty revision was thus framed as constitutional agenda, a
foundational document scheduled as possible outcome, and the Convention

installed as quasi-constitutional assembly.4 The speech by Giscard d’Estaing, the
president of the Convention, on the occasion of the inauguration of the Convention
on 28 February 2002, additionally portrayed the Convention as a constitutional
moment heralding a new era of European integration. Empowered in that manner,
the Convention managed to transform the EU’s complex legal material into one
single document. This outcome was facilitated, among other things, by a common
language embraced by the Conventioneers (Krzyżanowski and Oberhuber 2007).
Problems of institutional reform were spelt out in terms of constitutional law.
This ‘constitutional speak’ streamlined discussion, referring to the maxim of the

‘simplification’ of legal texts (Magnette 2005). It also invoked the EU as civilising
international power, as will be shown below in an analysis of examples from the
Laeken Declaration and Giscard d’Estaing’s introductory speech.
Legitimising the EU as Civilising Power
The texts mainly employed two rationales of polity-building. The first, a strategic-
contractualist rationale, suggests that pooling power at EU level in foreign and
security policies is a necessary response to new threats and UN peace-keeping
obligations. Sharing sovereignty in a realm that is traditionally reserved to the
member states flows from rational consideration and the agreement of a power-
delegating collective. The second rationale for building the EU as a globally
influential political association is moral-contractualist. Accordingly, the
institutionalisation of CFSP/CSDP results from commitment to liberal values
endorsed by member states and EU citizens. EU external action is a warrant
for the broader objective of enhancing the EU as promoter of liberal values.
Below, the legitimation strategies will be presented on which the construction of
the EU polity was based, drawing on an excerpt from the Laeken Declaration
(Example 1).
Example 1: Laeken Declaration
Beyond its borders, in turn, the European Union is confronted with a fast-
changing, globalised world. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, it looked briefly
as though we would for a long while be living in a stable world order, free from
conflict, founded upon human rights. Just a few years later, however, there is no
such certainty. The eleventh of September has brought a rude awakening. The
opposing forces have not gone away: religious fanaticism, ethnic nationalism,
racism and terrorism are on the increase, and regional conflicts, poverty and
underdevelopment still provide a constant seedbed for them.
4 The Convention on the Future of Europe gathered representatives from supranational

bodies, national governments and parliaments and was coordinated by the Presidium and
the Secretariat.
What is Europe’s role in this changed world? Does Europe not, now that
it is finally unified, have a leading role to play in a new world order, that of
a power able both to play a stabilising role worldwide and to point the way
ahead for many countries and peoples? Europe as the continent of human values,
the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the French Revolution and the fall of the
Berlin Wall; the continent of liberty, solidarity and above all diversity, meaning
respect for others’ languages, cultures and traditions. The European Union’s
one boundary is democracy and human rights. (Council of the European Union
2001: 20, emphasis added)
The role of the EU as civilising power is rationalised with reference to increased

threats of globalisation and the uncertainty they bring about. But rationalisation
also follows from a causal problem-solution pattern tacitly introduced by the
conjunction ‘however’: as we were wrong to think our civilisation safe (problem),
we now need to protect it at global scale (solution). The illustration that renders
this rationalisation palpable is the iconic event of 11 September 2001 (see
Example 1, §1). The conclusion that ‘Europe has a leading role to play’ is authorised
with reference to the historical record that ‘Europe’ supposedly showed in forging
liberal values. This is suggested by a merism, in which single instances of modern
constitutionalism (Magna Carta, Bill of Rights) and democratic revolutions (French
Revolution and 1989 revolutions) stand for the community of liberal values; and
through referencing that takes ‘continent’, ‘Europe’, ‘European Union’ as pars
pro toto, i.e., as interchangeable units of the same liberal political association (see
Example 1, §2). The larger international community is omitted at that point, and
achievements formerly attributed to the West are exclusively assigned to ‘Europe’.5
The construction of the EU as guarantor of liberal values within and beyond
its borders is also underlined by moral evaluation – by contrasting nationalism,
racism, terrorism and poverty as antagonistic to the principles of liberty, solidarity
and diversity as positive. This moralising contrast draws a boundary between
the EU and its ‘other’. This is done, however, in the form of a frontier: as a
civilising mission that embraces the not-yet civilised (Example 1, §1 and §2).
The prominence of a further, narrative, legitimation strategy suggests that this
contrast is meant to enhance the foundational myth of European integration,
rather than geopolitical ‘othering’. The story, which is placed in the beginning
of the Declaration, recounts the past 50 years of integration. All the steps of
integration are mentioned chronologically, thus implying progress and maturing; a
rising from fanaticism and nationalism. The phrase ‘now that it is finally unified’
(Example 1, §2) takes up this narrative, implying that the process has come to
completion with the entry of countries from the former Soviet bloc. However,
the phrase ‘the opposing forces have not gone away’ (Example 1, §1) creates an
analogy between European past and global present. It suggests that the initial
motive for integration is still valid – valid for external action. The accustomed
5 The UN features prominently as superordinate source of law in the Constitutional

Treaty.
internal ‘other’ (nationalism, fanaticism) is externalised and the civilising project

of European integration projected onto the world.
Giscard d’Estaing’s speech adds a communitarian polity rationale, pledging
to ‘ensure that governments and citizens develop a strong, recognised, European
“affection societatis”, while retaining their natural attachment to their national
identity’ (Council of the European Union 2002: 7). Moreover, he urges the
Conventioneers into a geopolitical imagination of the EU polity. The analysis
of examples below looks into the moves of representation through which this
conception is rendered plausible across longer stretches of text (see the second
and third examples).
Example 2: Giscard d’Estaing’s Introductory Speech
If we succeed, in 25 years or 50 years – the distance separating us from the

Treaty of Rome – Europe’s role in the world will have changed.
It will be respected and listened to, not only as the economic power it
already is, but as a political power which will talk on equal terms to the greatest
powers on our planet, either existing or future, and will have the means to act
to affirm its values, ensure its security and play an active role in international
peace-keeping. (Council of the European Union 2002: 6)
Example 3: Giscard d’Estaing’s Introductory Speech
If we were to fail, each country would return to the free trade system [to the logic
of free trade]. None of us – not even the largest of us – would have the power to
take on the giants of this world [would have enough weight to take on …]. We
would then remain locked in on ourselves, grimly analysing the causes of our
decline and fall [Each of us would remain alone with himself, grimly analysing
the causes of our decline and of the situation of being dominated]. (Council of
the European Union 2002: 16)6
Giscard d’Estaing develops a vision of the present EU (‘the economic power it

already is’, Example 2, §2) to sketch two scenarios for future development: a
scenario of progression and success is contrasted with a scenario of regression
and failure. The first is associated with further integration into a great power that
is recognised as an international player among other existing or emerging powers
(Example 2, §2). The other scenario is associated with regression to free trade,
geopolitical insignificance, isolation, even subjection (Example 3). The implied
conclusion is that Conventioneers must develop the EU into a global power to
avoid decline. This conclusion is underscored by conditional modality (‘if’,
6 The translation in brackets better reflects the French original than the quoted
official EU translation. The original is: ‘Si nous échouions, chaque pays retournerait à une
logique de libre échange. Aucun de nous, même les plus grands, n’aurait un poids suffisant
vis-à-vis des géants du monde. Nous resterions alors chacun face à nous-mêmes, dans une
interrogation morose sur les causes de notre déclin, et de notre situation de dominés.’
‘were’, ‘would’). It also taps into the proverbial portrayal of the EU as economic
giant and political dwarf, suggesting that economic and political-military power
must become equal for the EU to become a full player.
Apart from the mention of Japan and the US, there is no specification of the
proclaimed multipolar setting, however. The need for a global civilising power is
constructed as emanating from the EU itself: from its civilisational potential and
history, from its success story of unification and democratisation, from partners’
expectations, popular will and constitutional movement, all embodying a set of
liberal-constitutional values. This moral-contractualist conception legitimises the
project of European integration across the rupture in time (pre- vs. post-expansion;
Cold War order vs. post-Cold War order) and generation (old vs. young Europeans)
ascribing it validity and legitimacy as political association. The following section
will look at how this construction was recontextualised in the discourse field of
national media in Poland and France.
Recontextualising EU Constitutional Speak in National Media Debates
In the absence of pan-European equivalents, national mass media are the primary
forum of public-political communication on EU negotiations. However, coverage
and debate in the discourse field of national media follows its own logics. News
organisations and individual journalists compete with each other, employing
professional knowledge which classifies news value (such as controversy, celebrity,
proximity) as well as ‘objectivity’; knowledge which is processed in generic forms
of text composition such as the ‘inverted pyramid’ of a news report or the formal
separation between ‘news’ and ‘opinion’. Broadsheets seek acknowledgement by
securing a share of the bestselling news and adhering to these textbook codes,
launching in-depth report and debate (Kutter 2014, forthcoming: Ch. 4). In the
context of the EU multilevel system, such a profile requires that broadsheets
also attribute news value to the EU power centre in Brussels and to events and
controversies emerging from other EU national publics (Koopmans and Erbe
2004).
Debates on the EU constitution in the four selected broadsheets, indeed,
revealed such positioning. The newspapers attributed similar salience to major
institutional events of EU constitution-drafting. They shared a set of frequently
discussed topics, most of them reflecting controversies that arose in the course
of intergovernmental negotiations: the substitution of unanimity by Qualified
Majority Voting in the European Council in further policy realms (QMV); the
principle of vote weighting during QMV in the Council – whether it should follow
a ‘double majority’ principle or the quotas set by the Nice Treaty (Vote Weighting);
institutional reform in the realm of common foreign, security and defence
policies (CFSP/CSDP), the Single Market and monetary union (Economy); and
social policies (Social Policy); reference to God or Christianity in the preamble
(Reference to God/Christianity) and many more (see Table 8.2 below).
Table 8.2 Salient topics of EU reform in opinion articles 2002–2004

(in % of N)7
Gazeta
Le Monde Le Figaro Wyborcza Rzeczpospolita
(N=474) (N=483) (N=395) (N=511)
CFSP/CSDP * 17.09 27.54 16.46 8.22
Charter* 5.91 4.55 7.09 7.44
Cohesion* 3.59 2.48 8.35 4.70
Commissioners 4.22 5.59 8.35 4.11

Economy* 11.18 9.73 7.09 4.31
European Parliament* 6.33 6.42 3.80 4.11
Foreign Minister 7.17 8.28 6.08 2.74
Presidency* 10.55 11.80 8.61 4.31
Reference to God/ 6.75 8.49 26.08 26.22
Christianity
Social Policy* 14.35 13.25 4.05 2.15
QMV 11.18 17.18 6.84 4.89
Vote Weighting 6.75 6.83 32.15 24.46
At the same time, the newspapers put varying emphasis on these topics:
Le Monde highlighted CFSP/CSDP followed by Social Policy; Le Figaro fore-
grounded CFSP/CSDP and QMV; while Gazeta Wyborcza focused on Vote
Weighting followed by Reference to God/Christianity; and Rzeczpospolita on
Reference to God/Christianity followed by Vote Weighting (see figures in italics in
Table 8.2). As suggested by ‘domesticisation’ research in communication studies,
national variance resulted mainly from the fact that newspapers gave most voice
to compatriots who addressed the national governments’ negotiation priorities.8
But differences in emphasis also related to accumulated debates arranged by
individual newspapers at different points in time: Le Figaro activated the debate
dividing the French right on whether or not national sovereignty has to be given
up, ‘federalised’ and ‘Germanified’, for the sake of political integration, notably in
7 Topics marked by an asterisk comprise several subordinate topics. Topics are listed
that appeared at least ten times in the total of opinion articles of Le Monde and Le Figaro
and at least five times in those of Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita, whose articles were
more monothematic.
8 In news articles, politicians were the most frequently quoted; with representatives
of the respective national governments outweighing everybody else. Opinion articles were
mostly authored by nationals: only 10% of all authors of opinion articles in Le Monde and
Le Figaro were non-French nationals; whereas 32.60% in Gazeta Wyborcza and 18.78% in
Rzeczpospolita were non-Polish (members of Polish Diaspora not included).
CFSP/CSDP and defence (mainly January 2003). In Le Monde, the overcoming of

the neoliberal bias in European integration was raised, a major concern among the
French left (mainly September–October 2003). And the two Polish newspapers,
while debating equal representation at intergovernmental level (the vote weighting
issue), nurtured the divide between the liberal and the national-conservative wing
of the post-Solidarność camp at that time: Gazeta Wyborcza discussed Poland’s
constructive solidarity-minded contribution to the EU and Rzeczpospolita gave
voice to fears over the domination of Poland by EU powers and ideologies
(October–December 2003). The four broadsheets thus selected and weighed EU
constitutional affairs according to the distinction they sought to create between

one another. Below, an analysis of examples of front-page news reports and
editorials on Giscard d’Estaing’s speech provided by the four broadsheets on
1 March 2002 will show what recontextualising polity-construction was involved
in this positioning.
Unpacking Constructions of the EU as Civilising Power
With the exception of Gazeta Wyborcza, all the newspapers picked quotes from the
two future scenarios given in the second and third examples above. But they re-
arranged, re-emphasised and complemented these quotes in ways that suggested
very different conclusions. Le Monde and Le Figaro both emphasised the contrast
of political power and free trade logic. However, Le Figaro highlighted the
Convention as facilitating the hoped-for political-military power and called for
abandoning intergovernmentalism in CFSP/CSDP (Rousselin 2002). Le Monde
focused rather on overcoming market-driven integration, which will be presented
here in more detail.
In its front-page report, Le Monde dramatised the regression to logics of free
trade as the primary threat, by substituting ‘logics of free trade’ with ‘free trade
zone’ and deleting Giscard d’Estaing’s mention of the more general threat of
the powerlessness of isolated EU states (Le Monde 2002). The editorial further
increased this narrowing of emphasis by means of predication. A future for the
EU was conjured up that resembled a ‘cacophonic and quarrelling community,
which is essentially occupied with the reduction of its customs tariffs. An issue
for accountants, rather than a civilisational project’ (Le Monde 2002). Only if
‘regressionists’ were prevented from dragging back the more ambitious could such
decay be avoided (see Example 4).
Example 4: Editorial: ‘The Conventioneers’
Finally, this text [the Constitutional Treaty] should be ambitious: it should make
sure that those who cling to a Europe-espace (a vast successful free trade zone)
don’t hinder the progress of those among them who want to build a Europe-
puissance whose political personality would equal the economic weight of the
Union. (Le Monde 2002a)9
By introducing the negatively predicated term Europe-espace and the positively

connoted term Europe-puissance in this final passage of the editorial, Le Monde
further linked up to well-established criticism of the economism of European
integration. It evoked the idea of politically driven integration (Europe-puissance,
gouvernance économique, Europe sociale) which has been constitutive for self-
conceptions of the French left since the failure of Keynesian policies in the 1980s
and the ensuing conditional consent to a market-driven regional integration. Thus,
Le Monde pushed the conclusion that political integration was the only road to
take.
Rzeczpospolita used the same quotes from Giscard d’Estaing’s speech
as Le Monde, arranging them with quotes from a press conference that Polish
delegates to the Convention gave on the same day. They had made the criticism
that accession states were neither represented in the Praesidium nor included in
consultations on nominations (see Example 5).
Example 5: Front-Page Report: ‘What Union, What Europe?’
The decision which Europe makes now will determine whether, in fifty years,
Europe will be a power which forms the destinies of the world, or just a
free trade zone that submits itself to the will of others – said Valéry Giscard
d’Estaing yesterday in his new function as president of the Convention, which
was launched to tackle the Union’s reform. Meanwhile, Polish delegates fear
that decisions will be made without the participation of our country. (Bielecki
2002a)10
Bielecki sharpens Giscard d’Estaing’s scenario, portraying the EU as either

shaping global destinies or submitting to the will of others. The focus is on the
gaining of power, as opposed to subjection. The aspect of disintegration that
resounds in the referred-to quote is lost, as is the differentiation of EU members.
In Bielecki’s encapsulation, the EU is a monolith, juxtaposed with the sceptical
Polish delegates that are associated with the national ‘we’. The remaining report
and the related in-depth analysis predict a strictly intergovernmental future driven
by a directorate of big and medium-sized EU powers. The threat of marginalisation,
9 The French original is: ‘Ce texte devra être ambitieux, enfin: faire que les tenants
d’une Europe-espace (vaste zone réussie de libre-échange) n’empêchent pas d’aller de
l’avant ceux qui, parmi eux, ont aussi le projet de faire une Europe-puissance dont la
personnalité politique soit à la mesure du poids économique de l’Union.’
10 The Polish original is: ‘Od decyzji, które teraz podejmie Europa, zależy, czy za 50
lat będzie potęgą kształtującą losy świata, czy tylko strefą wolnego handlu, poddającą się
woli innych – powiedział wczoraj przed Konwentem powołanym do spraw reformy Unii
Europejskiej jej przewodniczący, Valery Giscard d’Estaing. Polscy delegaci obawiają się
tymczasem, że rozstrzygnięcia zapadną bez udziału naszego kraju.’
introduced for the EU in the beginning and then applied to Poland in terms of
denied co-determination, continuously re-occurs, most vividly in the image of the
broken promise. In the in-depth analysis, Bielecki portrays Polish delegates to
the Convention as those who were invited as promised, but were then not given
what was promised to them (Bielecki 2002b). The connotations of betrayal and
arbitrariness allude to Polish collective memory of great-power abuse; they are
also highly plausible against the context of enlargement when conditions of entry
shifted frequently, to the detriment of the accession states. In Gazeta Wyborcza,
the threat of exclusion is neutralised in a positive story about Poland’s contribution
and belonging to a joint project. Polish delegates are represented as both caring
for Polish concerns and adhering to EU principles in that they act as ‘watchmen
of solidarity’ with smaller and less prosperous members and neighbours (Pawlicki
2002). The EU appears as an in-group to which Poland belongs, among other
things thanks to the experience of Solidarność.
Through the rearrangement of quotes, but in particular through addition of
plausibilising connotations, the journalists translated EU constitutional speak
directly into the terms that habitually raise controversy in the political camp the
newspapers associate with. Polity-construction was transformed correspondingly.
While the strategic-contractualist rationale was employed in Le Monde and
Le Figaro when they referred to threats of geopolitical decline to conclude that
political integration had to be advanced, this primarily served to then address the
internal workings of the EU – whether in terms of QMV (Le Figaro) or economic
governance (Le Monde). Rzeczpospolita shifted the threat of marginalisation
from the EU to Poland, and thereby enhanced a negative conception of the EU as
an alliance of powers as opposed to a positive conception of a broader cultural-
Christian community. Gazeta Wyborcza highlighted only those fragments of EU
speak that underlined a community of solidarity. In short, the construction of
the EU as civilising power became selectively integrated into diverse introvert
imaginations of the EU. Against this background, the discussion of CFSP/CSDP
remained largely technical, focused on institutional reform that would enhance
more coherence. External boundaries of the EU were exclusively drawn when
the EU’s neighbourhood and further expansion was at stake: in Gazeta Wyborcza,
the idea of the civilisation frontier sounded in pleas for Ukraine’s EU entry; in
Le Monde (and to slighter extent in Le Figaro) Turkey’s entry was discussed on
communitarian grounds, questioning its secular political culture after the Islamist
party AKP (Justice and Development Party) had won the elections.
Only with escalating bilateral conflict on the Iraq intervention did geopolitical
imagination gain relevance. The US became the major reference point for
liberalism or military alliance against which intra-EU ‘othering’ made sense.
Commentators in Rzeczpospolita aligned themselves with the US embodiment of
liberalism, defined as market liberalism, heroism and religiosity, from which they
detached the French. In Gazeta Wyborcza, commentators subscribed to a similar
civic-communitarist universalism compared to their French interlocutors, but
stressed that such a project was larger than the EU, evolutionary, pluralist, and
included Christianity as its historical-spiritual source. In the French newspapers,

delimitation against the US was related to reflection on the feasibility of Europe
puissance. The Iraq conflict was seen as revealing the limits of French ambition
to establish a competitive relationship with the USA (or with NATO) within the
frame of the EU. Conclusions ranged between radical sovereigntists’ demands to
withdraw from CFSP/CSDP (in Philippe de Villiers’ words: to avoid becoming
hostage of America’s vassals) and concessions in federalisation to secure
the Germans’ support for common defence (in Le Figaro), to reflections on
what kind of alliance Europeans should subscribe to (Le Monde). In short, the
communicative plan of EU constitutional speak – the legitimation of European

integration across a rupture in time and generation – was selectively appropriated
and transformed according to dichotomous lines of polarisation that allowed for
shaping newsworthy controversy. At the same time, this appropriation triggered
re-assessment of national EU policies regarding, among other things, the Atlantic
component in CFSP/CSDP.
Conclusion
Observers of the EU’s common foreign and security policies point to a lack of
geopolitical vision, including a lack of clear targets in its power aspirations, as a
major reason why the EU has not become the international player envisaged in the
Constitutional Treaty, aka Lisbon Treaty. This chapter suggested another reading.
Drawing on the example of CFSP/CSDP in the EU constitutional debate in the
years 2002–2004, the chapter showed that the construction of the EU as a civilising
power was, above all, an inward-looking persuasive strategy. It helped EU players
in the discourse field of multilateral negotiation to push the institutionalisation of
CFSP/CSDP and to imagine the European project beyond the Cold-War order to
which it was formerly bound.
Recontextualised in the discourse field of national media in Poland and
France, the construction of the EU as civilising power turned into something
else. It was subsumed to habitual controversies on national EU policy within
specific intellectual-political camps in the domestic arena, reassuring them in their
orientation towards European integration and corresponding conceptions of the
EU polity. Moreover, against the backdrop of diplomatic conflict on the 2003 Iraq
intervention, the ambiguity in EU constitutional speak about the EU’s external
‘other’ spurred polarisation. The US filled the vacuum as temporary external
reference against which the real ‘other’ inside the EU was defined, whether in
the form of an indignant pro-US periphery (Poland) or paternalist anti-US centre
(France).
However, the chapter has shown that national phobia and polarisation alongside
dichotomous conceptions of EU integration are above all generic patterns of
mediatised political communication. Rather than indicating re-nationalisation,
such polarisation transforms the way EU integration is legitimised at national
scale, notably by integrating EU speak. The EU constitutional debate made French

commentators move from a stress on national sovereignty towards a stress on
shared or popular-European sovereignty and a more nuanced understanding of EU-
US relations. In Poland, the consensual pre-accession legitimation had suggested
EU-entry would augment sovereignty in terms of international recognition and
catch-up development; it gave way to varying positions between isolationist
power politics and democratic-internationalist engagement within the EU context.
Such transformative appropriation generates discursive practices suited to
address multilevel politics and to imagine a polity beyond the nation state. The
concept of ‘recontextualising polity-construction’ proved helpful to grasp that

process conceptually, whereas the framework of political discourse analysis helped
to trace it. Drawing on linguistic CDA, the framework remedied blind spots of
established interpretative approaches, notably the neglect of textual structure and
context of expression in conceptions of meaning-constitution.
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Chapter 9
Talking about Solidarity and Security
in the Age of Crisis:
The Revival of Nationalism and
Protectionism in the European Union –
A Discourse-Historical Approach
Ruth Wodak and Salomi Boukala
The EU’s Nobel Peace Prize – A Controversial Award
In 2012 the Nobel Committee decided to award that year’s peace prize to the
European Union; at a time when the EU was facing the gravest financial and
socio-political crisis of its 50-year history. Speaking at the award ceremony, the
Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Thobjorn Jagland, praised the EU’s
role in promoting stability and peace in Europe, and emphasised the importance of
cooperation among the member states of the European Union. He noted:
For Europe, where both world wars had broken out, the new internationalism
had to be a binding commitment. It had to build on human rights, democracy,
and enforceable principles of the rule of law. And on economic cooperation
aimed at making the countries equal partners in the European marketplace. By
these means the countries would be bound together so as to make new wars
impossible.
In the light of the financial crisis that is affecting so many innocent
people, we can see that the political framework in which the Union is rooted
is more important now than ever. We must stand together. We have collective
responsibility. Without this European cooperation, the result might easily have
been new protectionism, new nationalism, with the risk that the ground gained
would be lost.
We know from the inter-war years that this is what can happen when
ordinary people pay the bills for a financial crisis triggered by others. But the
solution now as then is not for the countries to act on their own at the expense of
others. Nor for vulnerable minorities to be given the blame.
That would lead us into yesterday’s traps. Europe needs to move forward.
Safeguard what has been gained. And improve what has been created, enabling
us to solve the problems threatening the European community today. (Jagland
2012)
In a continent divided between the ‘rich North’ and ‘poor South’, and at a time
when many European member states were facing an increase in nationalist and far-
right political power, a speech about peace, democracy, cooperation and justice was
greeted with disbelief and bewilderment. The chairman of the Nobel Committee
used the metaphor of ‘binding commitment’ for the necessity of cooperation
among European states, and then proceeded to personify the European Union, ‘it
had to build on human rights, democracy and enforceable principles of the rule
of law’, i.e., European values, and continued the conceptual metaphor, claiming
that ‘the countries would be bound together’. Moreover, he repeated the personal
pronoun ‘we’ over and over, and in this way revealed his intention to highlight the
necessary solidarity among all European people in order to ‘solve the problems
threatening the European community today’. Indeed, he claimed that ‘the solution
now is not for the countries to act on their own … nor for vulnerable minorities
to be given the blame’. In this way, the mixed Eurosceptic and pro-European
reactions to the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize award to the European
Union and the emphasis on solidarity among Europeans led to a reintroduction of
the concept of European identity.
According to Triandafyllidou and Wodak (2003), the term ‘identity’ has
two basic meanings. The first implies sameness and the second distinctiveness,
which differentiates the members of a group that are distinct from ‘others’, the
non-members, and presumes consistency and continuity over time (2003: 210).
However, neither individual nor collective identities are stable or unique; there is
not a single form of identity but multiple identities. Thus one of the most common
distinctions is that between individual and collective identity. As Triandafyllidou
and Wodak argue, some scholars emphasise that identity is embodied in the
person, and they assume that individual identity is the only form of identity that
can be taken as real and studied in depth. However, other scholars claim that
collective identities lend themselves better to sociological analysis because they
are historically and socially situated and shape the life of individuals as these
draw on such identities, consciously and subconsciously; i.e., everybody is
socialised into (cultural, historical, gender, class, ethnic, national, regional, local,
etc.) identities, their meanings and related social and discursive practices (2003:
211–13). As Wodak et al. (2009) further explain, identity is a relational term that
is based on sameness and otherness and never signifies anything static or material;
rather it is always something that is involved in a process (e.g., Wodak 2011a;
Krzyżanowski 2010).
Many studies on European identity seem to agree on one aspect: that a
‘democracy deficit’ is apparent, and thus the communication between EU
institutions and decision-makers on the one hand, and EU citizens on the other, does
not function well (Triandafyllidou et al. 2009). Various measures, policy papers,
discussion forums and so forth have been created to counter the emerging and
growing democracy deficit (Wodak and Wright 2006, 2007); moreover, in recent
months, due to the so-called Euro-crisis and the various measures to counteract
this, national politicians and parliaments have started to warn that democracy
Talking about Solidarity and Security in the Age of Crisis 173
could be at risk more than ever before (cf. Der Standard, 14 July 2012: 2). These
recent developments have, of course, also supported the growth of EU-sceptic
movements: such parties blame the EU, the German or French governments, the
bankers or the migrants, in most simplistic ways, for the crisis (Boukala 2012;
Boréus and Hübinette 2012; Wodak 2012); they demand more security against
‘outsiders’ and also a return to forms of traditional nativist nationalism/chauvinism
(Harrison and Bruter 2011; Richardson and Wodak 2009; Wodak 2011b).
The results of the most recent national elections in Greece (6 May and 17 June
2012) and the presidential election in France (22 April 2012, first round) provide
evidence for the above-mentioned phenomena: they manifest a significant growth

in right-wing extremist (and right-wing populist) parties, and thus of right-wing
populist MPs in the respective national parliaments; in particular, the entry of
the ultranationalist party Golden Dawn into the Greek Parliament and Marine Le
Pen’s National Front’s increasing electoral success (17.9%) in France challenge
the values of a ‘modern democratic Europe’ and emphasise the issue of national
security. Indeed, these election campaigns were accompanied by – sometimes
indirectly, usually quite explicitly – xenophobic and racist propaganda in the
respective nation-states.
The rhetoric of exclusion has thus become part and parcel of a discourse about
Europe and European identities and, much more generally, of a global discourse
about migrants and migration with the overall motto: ‘we’ (i.e., the Occident or
Europe) have to defend ‘ourselves’ against ‘them’ (i.e., the ‘Orient’: Roma, Jews,
Muslims). It has also been adopted by EU papers (see Schmidt, and Carta in this
volume who discuss discursive institutionalism) and has implicitly legitimised the
dichotomy between ‘us’ and ‘them’.
In the following, we first briefly review and systematise important sociological,
historical, political science and discourse analytical studies. In a second step, we
present the Discourse-Historical Approach to Critical Discourse Studies as an
adequate theory and methodology to analyse, understand and explain the intricate
complexities of identity constructions (cf. Wodak 2011a; Wodak et al. 2009).
We claim that since the financial crisis (after 2008), European identities have
been challenged and increasingly accompanied by debates about protectionism
and security measures. To put it even more succinctly: alleged or real threats to
European security are functionalised more and more as legitimisation for drawing
new borders between ‘us’ and ‘them’, the ‘real Europeans’ and ‘others’, and for
deciding on more restrictive measures to keep ‘others’, that could even be members
of the European Union, out. Finally, we illustrate our approach to the constructions
of European identities and ‘otherness’ with some recent examples of European and
national debates on migration, austerity policies and European solidarity.
Investigating ‘European Identity’
European Identity as National Identity
The evidence from survey data, and especially Eurobarometer polls, has revealed
that the majority of Europeans express some kind of identification with Europe:
national and European identities seem to co-exist. Risse (2010) analysed these
data and criticised scholars who claim that a collective European identity does
not exist. Moreover, he argues that the identification with Europe varies among
member states of the EU and their populations. Hence, he maintains that the
majority of Europeans recognise the nation first and then Europe – a phenomenon
which he labels ‘inclusive nationalism’.
There seems to be a secondary form of identification with Europe among
Europeans which recognises a sense of belonging to the ‘nation only’. He
labels this kind of non-identification ‘exclusive nationalism’ (2010: 40–44) and
concludes that the main cleavage between various kinds of identification is the one
between Europeans holding onto exclusive national identities and those Europeans
who identify with their nation-state first and then Europe, i.e., inclusive national
identities (2010: 43–5). However, evidence of Eurobarometer data reveals that
there is also another category of people: those identifying with Europe only, i.e.,
‘the Europeans’.
Fligstein also examined Eurobarometer data (1992–2004) and defines the
category of Europeans as entrepreneurs, professionals and other white-collar
workers who travel for business, speak many languages and live in other European
countries for short or longer periods (2009: 136–7). Furthermore, Fligstein
describes non-Europeans as blue-collar and service workers, older people who do
not speak other languages and thus do not travel, and people who are less educated
and less well-off, have conservative political views and possess strong ties with
their national identity (2009: 136–7). Thus, Fligstein focuses on mechanisms of
national identity (in-groups, out-groups) and on the category of social class to
explain who ‘the Europeans’ are.
As mentioned above in the introductory section, one of the most important
mechanisms in defining national identity is that of inclusion and exclusion. The same
holds true when defining European identity: many emphasise the importance of the
ethnic ‘other’ for the cultivation of a collective identity and approach European
identity as continuity of national identity that is also based on the exclusion of a
common ‘other’ (Smith 1995; Billig 1995; Checkel and Katzenstein 2009).
European Identity as Transnational Identity
Transnational identity is neither a new concept nor a form of identity that refers
exclusively to the European Union. In contrast, ‘transnationalism’ is defined as
‘the processes by which migrants build social fields that link together their country
of origin and their country of settlement’ (Glick-Schiller et al. 1992: 1). Hence,
transnational identity relates migration to culture and transcends the borders

of Europe. Kumar (2003) emphasises the common cultural characteristics of
Europeans and claims that European identity is synonymous with European culture
(2003: 35–6).
Supporters of the transnational approach to European identity assume that
a European identity based on common cultural characteristics, such as religion,
would be able to unify the people of Europe and simultaneously distinguish
them from the ‘others’. However, the concept of transnational identity does not
comprise political and state mechanisms that are obviously also relevant to the
establishment of a common identity.
European Identity as a Civic (Post-National) Identity
In his famous essay Why Europe needs a Constitution, Jürgen Habermas states
that the European Union created a new political form. It is neither a ‘federal state’
nor a ‘federation’ (2001). It is ‘an association of sovereign states which pool their
sovereignty only in very restricted areas to varying degrees, an association which
does not seek to have the coercive power to act directly on individuals in the fashion
of nation states’ (2001: 5). Thus, the European Union does not exercise political
power in respect to its members. For this reason, a more encompassing political
framework would be necessary for institutional and political reinforcement of
the Union: a European Constitution could lead to a re-regulation of the financial,
social and foreign policies of the European Union, and could also strengthen the
Union.
Moreover, he claims that constitutional patriotism would create the necessary
conditions for the establishment of the EU in European citizens’ minds and beliefs.
Hence, a European constitution would ensure democratic citizenship within the
Union and would create conditions of solidarity among strangers that could lead to
the establishment of a European identity (2001: 15–18). Furthermore, he lists the
conditions that contribute to the construction of European identities: the emergence
of a European civil society, the construction of a European-wide public sphere and
the shaping of a common political culture.
However, Habermas views European identity as exclusively political.
He emphasises the role of the public sphere for the cultivation of solidarity
‘between strangers’ and the establishment of a collective European identity – this
conception has been severely criticised ever since (see also Koller and Wodak
2008; Triandafyllidou et al. 2009). Nevertheless, the emphasis on the necessity of
democratisation remains salient.
European Identity as Supranational/Elite Identity
One of the main arguments of Smith to explain why the implementation of European
identity has failed to date is the fact that this concept was based on an elite-centred
vision (1995: 126–8). In other words, European identity was invented through the
actions and programmes of business, administrative and intellectual elites whose

needs transcended national borders (Smith 1995). Checkel and Katzenstein (2009),
for example, claim that European identity is an elite project. However, identity
constructions imply specific cultural and emotional dynamics which transcend
political projects. For this reason, according to Cinpoes (2008), the political elites
of the European Union have employed various myths and values across European
nations in order to cultivate a sense of belonging among Europeans but – as we
know and experience daily – in vain; this remains a somewhat futile project if
strategies of participation and legitimisation do not reach out to European citizens
in more accessible ways. The creation of a European flag, a European anthem and
even a European day are some examples that aim to increase the sense of unity
among the members of the European Union (2008: 4–7), and these have, in part,
succeeded in establishing a kind of ‘banal nationalism’, in contrast to the US,
Japan, China, India and so forth (Billig 1995).
The Discursive Construction of European Identities
In a range of interdisciplinary projects, Wodak and Weiss (2004, 2007) analysed

discourses about Europe, European identity and its dynamics, and argued that
‘this form of identity discourse consists of the interplay of three dimensions
and respective goals: 1. Making meaning of Europe (ideational dimension) 2.
Organising Europe (organisational dimension) 3. Drawing borders (geographical
dimension)’ (2007: 129–31).
Indeed, the first dimension refers to the idea of Europe, its essence, substance
or meaning. The second dimension reflects the question of how Europe should be
organised, which institutional forms of decision-making and political framework
are appropriate for the future, while the third dimension refers to inclusion-
exclusion strategies (Wodak and Weiss 2007: 129–31).
These three dimensions are connected with three modes of legitimising the
political construction of the European Union: 1. Legitimisation through ideas
(identity, history, culture); 2. Legitimisation through procedures (participation,
democracy, efficiency); 3. Legitimisation through ‘standardisation’ (of
humanitarianism, social standards, and economic standards) (Wodak and
Weiss 2007: 129–31). Thus, the study of mainstream voices (Krzyżanowski
and Oberhuber 2007) illustrates how European elites, like the MEPs (Wodak
2011a), define Europeanness and how they continuously produce ‘in-groups’ and
‘out-groups’ through discursive strategies of positive-Self and negative-Other
representations (see below). Furthermore, the discursive forms of inclusion and
exclusion define the Europeans and create an ‘imagined community’ that does not
comprise the ‘others’, ‘those that are not worthy of becoming Europeans’ (Wodak
2007: 651), and who are usually represented as ‘enemies’.
We are currently experiencing huge tensions within Europe and the European
Union – due to the financial and social crisis – that challenge European unification
and lead to a fragile balance between ‘us’ and ‘them’. This dichotomy raises the
question of which boundaries can be crossed – when, how and by whom; and,
moreover, who are the gatekeepers who make and take the decisions on who is
allowed to cross the respective boundaries through the pretext of national security?
The Discursive Construction of ‘Threat’: Linking Security and European

Identity Constructions
Threat and Security as Speech Acts and the Copenhagen School

Wæver, Buzan and their academic collaborators, i.e., ‘the Copenhagen School’
(1995, 1998), developed the ‘theory of securitisation’ in order to explain the
discursive construction of security by political elites. According to McDonald
(2008), securitisation can be defined as ‘the positioning through speech acts that
are usually announced by political leaders and pertains to a particular issue, such as
a threat to survival, which in turn enables emergency measures, with the consent of
the relevant constituency, and the suspension of “normal politics” in dealing with
the issue’ (2008: 567). In other words, securitisation is based on the discursive
construction of a threat, which could lead to the reinforcement of specific political
powers with the consent of those to whom the speech act is addressed. Indeed,
as Balzacq (2005) notes: ‘securitisation is a rule-governed practice, the success
of which does not necessarily depend on the existence of a real threat, but on
the discursive ability to effectively endow a development with such a specific
complexion’ (2005: 179). In answering the question what is security? Wæver
(1995: 55) states: ‘We can regard security as a speech act. In this usage, security
is not of interest as a sign that refers to something more real; the utterance itself is
the act. By saying it, something is done. By uttering security a state-representative
moves a particular development into a specific area, and thereby claims a specific
right to use whatever means are necessary to block it.’
Security is thus defined as a speech act,1 which is used by political elites to
represent an imagined threat. However, as the Copenhagen School argues, security
does not point towards an objective condition, which also does not always equal
the existence of a real threat. Following the principles of the Copenhagen School,
Williams (2003) assumes that security is not synonymous with harm and is not
connected to any kind of speech act. What makes a particular speech act a part
of securitisation is the reference to an ‘existential threat’, which might call for
extraordinary measures beyond the routines and norms of everyday politics (2003:
514). Thus, the effectiveness of a security-speech act is interlinked with a ‘successful’
discursive construction of a threat and not with the existence of a real threat.
1 Following Austin’s perspective, Balzacq (2005: 175) explains that the basic idea
of speech act theory is based on the principle that certain statements do more than merely
describe a given reality and, as such, cannot be judged as false or true. Instead, these
utterances realise a specific action – they are performatives as opposed to constatives that
simply report states of affairs and are thus subject to truth and falsity tests.
Moreover, this complicated relation between ‘existential threats’ and ‘security

issues’ is linked to the influence of Carl Schmitt’s political theory (1932).2 Hence,
securitisation contributes to the analysis of the discursive opposition between
‘us’ and ‘them’; this approach has also been applied to issues of migration and
the ‘other’. However, the securitisation framework has been criticised by several
scholars of International Relations as problematic, elliptic or narrow, because it is
exclusively focused on the discourses of dominant actors, such as political leaders,
and institutions, i.e., the State (McDonald 2008; Doty 1998; Balzacq 2005;
Williams 2003). Furthermore, a major criticism of the Copenhagen School and
approaches to securitisation concerns the narrow scope of security issues, which

are confined to the purely discursive construction of security threats (Balzacq
2005: 184–92).
The Discourse-Historical Approach and the Discursive Construction of

European Identities
In order to analyse our examples (see below), it is important to introduce some

analytic concepts of the discourse-historical approach (DHA) (Reisigl and Wodak
2001 and 2009; Wodak 2011a). This specific approach has been further elaborated
in a number of more recent studies which focus on racist discrimination, national
identities and discourses about ‘us’ and ‘them’ (see also Aydın-Düzgit in this
volume, introducing CDA and DHA principles/strategies). One of the main
principles of DHA is that of triangulation, which enables researchers to minimise
‘cherry picking’ due to its endeavour to work on the basis of a variety of different
data, methods, theories and background information (Wodak 2001: 65; Wodak and
Meyer 2009). As Wodak further explains:
The DHA attempts to integrate a large quantity of available knowledge about the
historical sources and the background of the social and political fields in which
discursive ‘events’ are embedded. Further, it analyses the historical dimension of
discursive actions by exploring the ways in which particular genres of discourse
are subject to diachronic change. Lastly, and most importantly, this is not only
viewed as information. At this point we integrate social theories to be able to
explain the so-called context. (Wodak 2001: 65)
The DHA thus links discursive practices, social variables, institutional frames and
sociopolitical and historical contexts. As Reisigl and Wodak (2009: 90) note:
[T]he DHA considers intertextual and interdiscursive relationships between

utterances, texts, genres and discourses, as well as extra-linguistic social/
2 For Schmitt a political issue is characterised by a specific intense relationship

between the actors which might lead to enmity and exclusion of the ‘other’ (theory of
friend-enemy relations). Such a vision of politics is, as Williams suggests, applicable to the
realm of securitisation which is connected with the discursive construction of the ‘threat’
and the ‘security’ of the state (2003: 516–17).
sociological variables, the history of an organisation or institution, and situational

frames. While focusing on all these relationships, we explore how discourses,
genres and texts change in relation to sociopolitical change.
In addition, the concepts of intertextuality, recontextualisation and interdiscursivity

are salient for comprehension of the DHA’s theoretical framework: intertextuality
refers to the fact that all texts are linked to other texts, in both the past and the
present. Such links can be established in different ways: through continued
reference to a topic or main actors; through reference to the same events; or by
the transfer of main arguments from one text into the next. The latter process
is also labelled recontextualisation (for instance, see Kutter in this volume).

Interdiscursivity, on the other hand, indicates that discourses are linked to each
other in complex ways; they draw on each other, overlap or refer to each other. For
example, a discourse on unemployment often refers to topics or subtopics of other
discourses, such as migration, gender or racism.
The DHA distinguishes between three dimensions of analysis. These are: the
specific content or topics of specific discourses; discursive strategies; and the
linguistic means that are drawn upon to realise both topics and strategies (Wodak
2011a: 38). Five types of discursive strategies3 are involved in positive Self and
negative Other presentation, and these reveal the main elements that establish the
discursive opposition between ‘us’ and ‘them’. These strategies include: referential
or nomination strategies which focus on membership categorisation devices,
such as biological, naturalising and depersonalising metaphors, metonymies, and
synecdoches, in order to represent social actors, and especially in-groups and out-
groups; predicational strategies which connect the social actors with negative
and stereotypical attributions; argumentation strategies through which positive
and negative attributions are justified; perspectivisation, framing or discourse
representation which emphasises the way speakers express their involvement
in discourse and position their point of view when reporting and discriminating
utterances; intensifying strategies and mitigation strategies which either sharpen
or downplay the emphasis of utterances (Reisigl and Wodak 2001: 44–84).
In the analysis below, we focus on these strategies and also, more specifically,
on the argumentation schemata which underlie the respective texts. In this context,
we believe that the concept of topos is salient for the comprehension of prejudiced
and racist discourses. Topoi are defined as parts of argumentation which belong to
obligatory, either explicit or inferable, premises. As such they justify the transition
from the argument or arguments to the conclusion. Topoi are central to the
analysis of seemingly convincing fallacious arguments which are widely adopted
in prejudiced and discriminatory discourses (Kienpointner 1996: 562; Wengeler
3 As Reisigl and Wodak (2001: 44) argue, ‘strategy means a more or less accurate and
more or less intentional plan of practices adopted to achieve a particular social, political,
psychological or linguistic aim. As far as the discursive strategies are concerned, that is
to say, systematic ways of using language, we locate them at different levels of linguistic
organisation and complexity’.
2003: 1884). Hence, any topos should be understood as a quasi-‘elliptic’ argument

(an enthymeme), where the premise is followed by the conclusion, without giving
any evidence, while taking the conclusion as confirming, and relating to, existing
knowledge (commonplace) (see also Wodak 2011a; Boukala 2013).
Inclusion and Exclusion: Political Discourses about Security, Migration,

Austerity and the ‘Other’
Geert Wilders’ ‘Reconstructions of History’ and a European ‘Crisis’ 5

Right-wing populist parties construct distinct boundaries by creating enemies

in many forms: in this way, they frequently position and discursively construct
themselves as ‘saviours of the Occident’ or as ‘Robin Hoods’ who defend the man/
woman on the street against ‘those up there’ and ‘the foreigners’ who might take
away ‘British (Dutch, Belgian, Italian) jobs from British (Dutch, Belgian, Italian)
workers’ and who ‘do not want to integrate and adapt to “our” culture’, or such
like, as illustrated in Geert Wilders’ speech delivered in Rome on 25 March 2011
(Richardson and Wodak 2009; Wodak and Köhler 2010; Wodak and Richardson
2013).
On that occasion he claimed that the ‘failure to defend our own culture has
turned immigration into the most dangerous threat that can be used against the
West. Multiculturalism has made us so tolerant that we tolerate the intolerant’.
And he continued: ‘if Europe falls, it will fall because, like ancient Rome, it no
longer believes in the superiority of its own civilisation. It will fall because it
foolishly believes that all cultures are equal and that, consequently, there is no
reason why we should fight for our own culture in order to preserve it.’
In this case Wilders clearly presents immigration as the ‘most dangerous
threat against the West’ and links immigration with multiculturalism, thus
employing a topos of threat and a metaphorical/fantasy scenario. Moreover, he
anthropomorphises Europe, parallels modern Europe with ancient Rome and
underlines the necessity of a fight to defend European culture. This argument is,
4 Cf. Wengeler (2003) for an excellent and comprehensive overview of different

definitions of topos, starting with the Aristotelian tradition (which he characterises as
‘vague’) up to various discourse-historical and semantic/conceptual historical approaches
which also employ concepts from rhetoric and argumentation theory (such as by Busse,
Hermanns, Koselleck, Skinner, Steinmetz, the DHA and so forth) as well as Pragma-
Dialectics (Van Eemeren) and Kienpointners’ related approach. Due to reasons of space,
we cannot elaborate our specific content- and context-related approach to topos (which, of
course, is substantiated by formally defined topoi and draws mostly on Wengeler’s model
study on ‘topoi in immigration debates in Germany since 1960’).
5 Geert Wilders is a Dutch right-wing politician and the founder and leader of the
Party of Freedom (PVV). In 2010, after its electoral success (it won the third place), the
PVV agreed to participate in a governmental coalition. However, the PVV withdrew its
support in April 2012.
as mentioned above, further developed by the topos of threat which relies on the
conditional ‘if immigration creates a specific threat against Europe and European
culture then Europeans should fight against it’ (Wilders 2011).
He then emphasises the end of the Roman Empire, by drawing a very tenuous
analogy to current immigration flows from North Africa (Tunisia), Turkey and the
Middle East:
Rome did not fall overnight. Rome fell gradually. The Romans scarcely noticed
what was happening. They did not perceive the immigration of the Barbarians as
a threat until it was too late. … People came to find a better life which their own
culture could not provide. But then, on December 31st in the year 406, the Rhine
froze and tens of thousands of Germanic Barbarians crossed the river, flooded
the Empire and went on a rampage, destroying every city they passed. In 410,
Rome was sacked. (Wilders 2011)
Wilders emphatically presents the fall of the Roman Empire as an unavoidable

consequence of the mass migration of barbarians to Roman provinces. In fact, as
many historians have indicated, it is highly unlikely that systematically keeping
barbarians from crossing frontiers would have prevented the invasion of 406–7,
and the related defeat of Rome (Pohl and Wodak 2012). The intertextually
significant reference to non-Western civilians as ‘barbarians’ through the prism of
historical reality leads to a distinction between Westerners and non-Westerners, or
barbarians, and the creation of in- and out-groups.
Wilders also states that ‘together with Jerusalem and Athens, Rome is the
cradle of our Western civilisation – the most advanced and superior civilisation
the world has ever known’. And he adds:
As Westerners, we share the same Judeo-Christian culture. I am from the

Netherlands and you are from Italy. Our national cultures are branches of the
same tree. We do not belong to multiple cultures, but to different branches of one
single culture. This is why when we come to Rome, we all come home in a sense.
We belong here, as we also belong in Athens and in Jerusalem. Ordinary people
are well aware that they are witnessing a population replacement phenomenon.
Ordinary people feel attached to the civilisation which their ancestors created.
They do not want it to be replaced by a multicultural society where the values
of the immigrants are considered as good as their own. It is not xenophobia or
Islamophobia to consider our Western culture as superior to other cultures – it is
plain common sense. (Wilders 2011)
Hence, he clarifies the limits of European civilisation, while using a typical nation-
building metaphor (‘the nation as a home’; Chilton and Ilyin 1993) to explain
the continuity and unification of European culture; he emphasises the alleged
superiority of this specific civilisation and – via a topos of threat – underlines that
multicultural society is a threat to ordinary (European) people. This argument is
further developed by the topos of a (common) European culture which is based on
the conditional: ‘if we share the same Judeo-Christian culture, then we are citizens
of Europe.’ Here, Wilder excludes people from Islamic countries from Europe in
an indirect way, as he does not refer to them directly but establishes an opposition
between ‘us’, the Europeans, and ‘them’, the non-Europeans, defined by ‘religion
and culture’, not by territory. This argument is also developed by the topos of
definition which refers to ‘Europeans’ and can be paraphrased as ‘if a group of
people are called Europeans, then they feel attached to the (European) civilisation
that their ancestors created’, and implicitly those people with different cultural
backgrounds, who are not considered to be attached to Europe and its civilisation,
are excluded from this group. Thus, the aforementioned topoi establish and justify
the opposition between ‘us’, the ‘Europeans’, and the ‘others’.

Finally, Wilders concludes:
Now that Tunisia is liberated, young Tunisians should help to rebuild their
country instead of leaving for Lampedusa. Europe cannot afford another influx
of thousands of refugees. (2011)
At this point, he uses a ‘flood-metaphor’ – an ‘influx of thousands of refugees’ –

and supports his argument via the topos of threat; such metaphors are frequently
employed in the context of migration (see Reisigl and Wodak 2001: 54–61). In
this way, he intensifies the idea of the dangerous ‘other’ and contributes to the
discursive construction of fear – a common right-wing populist parties’ practice
(Wodak 2014, forthcoming).
The Restatement of ‘Fortress Europe’ via the British Government in the Age of
the Financial Crisis
The British Prime Minister David Cameron’s address to the British Conservative
Party on 14 April 2011 was also related to the ‘immigration problem’:
That’s not to say migration from Europe has been insignificant. Since 2004,
when many large eastern European countries joined the EU, more than one
million people from those countries have come to live and work in the UK – a
huge number. We said back then that transitional controls should have been put
in place to restrict the numbers coming over. And now we’re in government,
if and when new countries join the European Union, transitional controls will
be put in place. But this remains the fact: when it comes to immigration to our
country, it’s the numbers from outside the EU that really matter. In the year up
to June 2010, net migration from nationals of countries outside the EU to the
UK totalled 198,000. This is the figure we can more easily control and should
control. (Cameron 2011)
In Cameron’s speech there is – not surprisingly – a reference to the migration of a

vague number of European citizens, and especially citizens of Eastern European
countries, i.e., ‘huge number (one million people) who came to live and work in the
UK’. He emphasises issues of security and represents Eastern Europeans (who, of
course, are also EU citizens) as a threat within Europe. This argument is developed
on the basis of the topos of internal threat, which is based on the conditional: ‘if
immigration from Europe is a threat against the UK, then the British government
should control it.’
However, Cameron later explains that ‘it’s the numbers from outside the
EU that really matter’ and only then restores the opposition between Europeans
and non-Europeans which is supported by the topos of threat. In Cameron’s
rhetoric three different social actors are constructed and represented: the British
government, migrants within Europe and non-European migrants. The role of the
government is elaborated by the topos of responsibility, which is based on the
conditional ‘if the British government is responsible for the people then it should
control immigration’. Moreover, Cameron underlines the numbers of immigrants
and at this point triggers an intensification of fear that is related to the topos of
threat.
The financial and social crisis in Greece was widely discussed in the spring of
2012 and the political authorities proceeded to national elections (6 May 2012)
to re-establish social and political stability in the country. However, reports from
the European Commission (2012) illustrate that the financial and social crisis has
destabilised the social structure and created a new generation of middle-class,
well-educated migrants.
While political instability continued in Greece and the country proceeded to
a second election (17 June 2012), the British Prime Minister, fearing Greece’s
possible exit from the Eurozone, declared in his speech in the House of Commons,
on 3 July 2012, that
Britain is prepared to take measures to avoid a major influx of Greek citizens. I

would be prepared to do whatever it takes to keep our country safe, to keep our
banking system strong, to keep our economy robust. At the end of the day, as
prime minister, that is your first and foremost duty. (Cameron 2012)
In Cameron’s speech the Greeks are represented as dangerous migrants that

threaten the stability of the UK, and the phrase ‘major influx of Greek citizens’ is
repeated. This claim is further elaborated by the topos of internal threat. Moreover,
Cameron emphasises the danger of the Greek other and underlines his role as a
prime minister via the topos of responsibility. He anthropomorphises the country,
the banking system and the economy, and presents himself as the saviour of the
nation who ‘will do whatever it takes’ to protect Britain. Thus, Cameron constructs
a Manichean dichotomy, an opposition between ‘us’ and the Greek migrants that
illustrates well how European allies are suddenly transformed into ‘others’ in
moments of crisis (see also Triandafyllidou et al. 2009).
The crisis in Tunisia and the debates about refugees trying to enter Europe put
security issues back on the prime political agenda of many European governments.
Moreover, Cameron’s statements regarding the ‘major influx of Greek citizens in
the UK’ challenge the borders of the EU and raise questions about the meaning of
European solidarity.
Destroying the ‘Myth’ of European Solidarity – Opposition in Greece to

European Austerity Policies
In the autumn of 2012, the Greek coalition government was planning to apply
new austerity measures/policies to a country that was already in its fifth year of
recession. The opposition and the trade unions opposed the new measures and
were challenging the government parties not to accept these policies that were
imposed on Greece by the so-called troika (the European Union, the European
Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund).
In this time of political and social instability, the Chancellor of Germany,

Angela Merkel, one of the foremost proponents of austerity policy, decided to
visit Athens (9 October 2012) and express her solidarity with the Greek people as
well as to encourage/coerce the Greek coalition government to adopt tough new
measures (as claimed by members of the opposition left-wing party Syriza). The
European mainstream media highlighted the German Chancellor’s visit to Athens
and the protests of the Greek people. Indeed, a British newspaper, The Guardian,
published a Greek message to Angela Merkel from the leader of the left-wing
party Syriza, Alexis Tsipras (2012).
In this message Tsipras criticised the austerity policy of the European Union
and maintained that
As Angela Merkel visits Athens on Tuesday, she will find a Greece in its fifth
consecutive year of recession. In 2008 and 2009, the recession was a spillover
from the global financial crisis. Since then it has been caused and deepened by
the austerity policies imposed on Greece by the troika.
These policies are devastating the Greek people, especially workers,
pensioners, small businessmen and women, and of course young people. The
Greek economy has contracted by more than 22%, workers and pensioners have
lost 32% of their income, and unemployment has reached an unprecedented
24% with youth unemployment at 55%. Austerity policies have led to cuts in
benefits, the deregulation of the labour market and the further deterioration of
the limited welfare state that had survived a neoliberal onslaught.
The government argues that only the austerity agenda can make the Greek
public debt viable again. But the opposite is true. Austerity policies prevent the
economy from returning to growth. Austerity creates a vicious spiral of recession
and an increase in debt that in turns leads both Greece and its lenders to calamity.
(Tsipras 2012)
Here, the leader of Syriza elaborates the consequences of austerity measures for
the Greek economy and society. He refers indirectly to Angela Merkel and the
other European politicians – including the members of the Greek government –
who all share the same/similar ideological views via the metonymic designation
‘austerity policies’. Hence, two social actors dominate his rhetoric: the neoliberal
European politicians who impose the austerity agenda on Greece; and the Greek
people facing the negative consequences of this agenda. Tsipras refers to the
percentages of unemployment and financial loss, in order to highlight them,
and develops a distinction between Greece that is represented as the victim of

European neoliberal policies, and the European political elites, especially the
German Chancellor, who have the role of perpetrators. This argument is further
supported by the Aristotelian topos from the opposite, which can be paraphrased
as the conditional, ‘if the austerity policies destroy European societies, especially
the Greek society, then the European leaders should adopt an alternative political
agenda’.
Thereafter, Tsipras notes:
All this is known to the European and Greek policymakers and elites, including
Merkel, who aim to implement similar programmes in all European countries

facing debt problems, such as Spain, Portugal and Italy. Why do they insist so
dogmatically on this disastrous political and economic path? We believe that
their aim is not to solve the debt crisis but to create a new regulatory framework
throughout Europe that is based on cheap labour, deregulation of the labour
market, low public spending and tax exemptions for capital. To succeed, this
strategy uses a form of political and financial blackmail that aims to convince or
coerce Europeans to accept austerity packages without resistance. The politics
of fear and blackmail used in Greece is the best illustration of this strategy.
(Tsipras 2012)
Here, the leader of the left-wing opposition party uses a path metaphor via a
rhetorical question – ‘why do they insist so dogmatically on this disastrous political
and economic path?’ – to emphasise his claim that the European leaders will cause
the economic and sociopolitical destruction of Greece and Europe. In this way,
he develops a distinction between the European political elites and the European
citizens that are affected by the neoliberal/austerity policies. Tsipras also refers
to Spain, Portugal and Italy, and claims that the European neoliberal elites aim to
implement austerity policies in ‘all European countries facing debt problems’. In
this case, he adds a third social actor to his rhetoric: the Europeans/all Europeans,
who are depicted as potential victims of European political elites that ‘blackmail
and destroy all/the European citizens’.
Thus, Tsipras reveals that his message is not addressed only to Angela Merkel,
but to the European citizens who feel threatened by the austerity policies:
The European citizens should know, however, that loans to Greece are paid
into an ‘escrow’ account and are used exclusively to repay past loans and to
re-capitalise near bankrupt private banks. The money cannot be used to pay
salaries and pensions, or to buy basic medicine for hospitals and milk for
schools. The precondition for these loans is even more austerity, paralyzing the
Greek economy and increasing the possibility of default. If there is a risk of
European taxpayers losing their money, it is created by austerity. (Tsipras 2012)
The leader of Syriza is directly addressing European citizens, especially taxpayers,

and explains the function that the loans actually have. He criticises the European
political elites’ management of the Greek financial crisis and underlines the
danger of the austerity policies for other European societies. This claim is further
developed by the topos of the opposite, which in this case is related to a different
social actor, the European citizens, and is based on the conditional, ‘if the European
neoliberal and austerity policies disorganise European societies then the European
people should not accept them’.
Consequently, the European policymakers and elites are clearly constructed as
the ‘other’ in Tsipras’s message to Angela Merkel, an ‘other’ that might destroy the
Greek, and potentially all European peoples, via austerity measures.
Conclusion – European Identity through the Prism of the Financial Crisis
The distinction between ‘Europeans’ and ‘non-Europeans’ that dominates Wilders’

speech, the discovery of the ‘European other’ by the members of the British
government and the emergence of neoliberal governments as the main ‘European
enemy’ described by the Greek opposition reveal that the discursive construction
of European identities in the age of financial crisis is based on different arguments
and discursive strategies. Wodak et al. (2009) distinguish the different strategies
that may be employed in the discursive formation of national identity (see
33–42). Two forms of those strategies can be discerned in the above examples:
constructive strategies that focus on unification, identification and solidarity, as
well as differentiation – used by Wilders as he refers to Europeans and the ‘others’;
and strategies of transformation that aim to transform a relatively well-established
form of identity and its components into another identity, the contours of which the
speaker has already conceptualised. Cameron and Tsipras adopt these strategies
insofar as they challenge the limits of ‘otherness’ and European unification and
present an ‘other’ within European borders.
Speaking at the Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony, the head of the Nobel
Committee commented:
We need to maintain solidarity across borders, as the Union is doing by cancelling

debts and adopting other concrete support measures, and by formulating the
framework for a finance industry on which we all depend. Unfaithful servants
must be removed. These are preconditions for the continuing belief of the
European masses in the compromises and moderation which the Union is now
demanding of them. (Jagland 2012)
In this way, the chairman of the Nobel Committee reveals that there are two types
of Europeans: those who collaborate and work on the financial development of the
Union; and the ‘unfaithful servants’ who ‘must be removed’. This argument, in
addition to the dichotomy between ‘European masses’ and ‘unfaithful servants’,
could be considered as another example of strategies of transformation and
reveals that the meanings of Europeanness and otherness are being negotiated.
We experience the recursive and fluid construction of European identities among
many publics, also inside the EU organisations.
Simultaneously, symbols of banal nationalism (such as the European anthem)

are created and employed as well as the re-negotiation and co-construction of
European characteristics – what is defined as establishing and maintaining
Europeanness in ever new ways, forms and modes. Following the developments
briefly summarised above, in respect to the rise of the extreme right-wing populist
movements across Europe, more cleavages become apparent which transcend the
traditional cleavage between ‘left and right’ and ‘East and West’ (or Christian
Occident and Muslim Orient) (see also Azmanova 2009; Ayidin-Düzgit 2012;
Harrison and Bruter 2011; Wodak 2014, forthcoming): salient new distinctions
arise within Europe and European member states, between those with jobs and
those who are unemployed, between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’.
Hence, the European identity is obviously not a stable one. There are different
forms of European identity (cultural, civic) which are used in different ways by
European politicians and continuously reshaped in the name of national security
and protectionism. The – necessarily brief – analysis of some governmental
discourses above in moments of crisis illustrates the current rhetoric about security
and solidarity which seeks to justify, time and again, the discursive construction
of in-groups and out-groups, of those who belong, and those who do not belong
to Europe. The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the EU at the time of the
worst financial and socio-political crisis of its 50-year existence appears to be a
contradiction, and at the same time challenges European values. The rise of far-
right parties, such as in Hungary, Holland, Austria and Greece, and the dichotomy
between Northern and Southern Europe question the very notion of ‘European
solidarity’. The EU may have earned the Nobel Peace Prize but it is still seeking a
way to be at peace with itself.
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Chapter 10
From the ‘Magnificent Castle’
to the Brutish State of Nature:
Use of Metaphors and the Analysis
of the EU’s International Discourse
Caterina Carta
Introduction: The Normative Saliency of the EU’s International Discourse
In figurative terms, the EU has often been labelled as an international power-

in-the-making (Diez 2005), whether ‘normative’ (Manners 2002), ‘postmodern’
(Caporaso 1996), ‘civilian’ (Duchêne 1972), ‘soft imperialist’ (Hettne and
Söderbaum 2005), ‘militarised yet civilian’ (Stavridis 2001), ‘ethical’ (Aggestam
2008), ‘ideal’ (Cebeci 2012) or ‘tragic’ (Hyde-Price 2008).
As can be noticed, the most salient – whether alleged or polemical – target of
these representations of the EU is the moral posture sustaining its international
activity. A vast body of literature has explored the possibility of disentangling
normative, value-oriented components from strategic thinking, interest-oriented,
components in the making of the political discourses of international actors
(Aggestam 2008; Kratochwil 2000; Youngs 2004). Discourse analytical approaches
tend not to oppose the two discursive components (see the introduction to this
volume for an account of differences among approaches) but to focus attention on
‘how-questions’, that is, questions that depict ‘the kind of power that is productive
of meanings, subject identities, their interrelationships, and a range of imaginable
conduct’ (Doty 1993: 299). Therefore, discourse analysis aims to depict patterns
in which ideational and material elements in a given actor’s discourse are framed,
structured and organised to pursue various functions, and the ways these patterns
contribute to the constitution of modes of subjectivities.
Similar to other contributions (Hülsse 2006; Barbé, Herranz-Surrallés and
Natorski, this volume), this chapter focuses on the metaphorical construction of
the EU’s international subjectivity. Unlike in other contributions, some original
metaphors are here advanced in order to interpret and order collected material.
This strategy serves the purpose of individualising representational patterns, e.g.,
ways of defining an international actor’s subjectivity, and connecting results to the
general academic literature on the topic.
By relying on Discourse-Historical Analysis (DHA), this chapter looks at ways

in which the EU’s institutional representatives and individual civil servants of
the Commission and the European External Action Service (EEAS) frame their
discourses on the EU’s international role and values.
Like Diez’s and Jørgensen’s contributions (this volume), this chapter places
the EU’s international discourse in its institutional ‘context’ by examining the
interplay between discourse and the institutional setting in which it emerges and
develops. Differently from the Diez and Jørgensen contributions, this chapter
narrows down the focus of analysis to the conceptions of foreign governance
options held by foreign policy actors. For the purpose of this chapter, therefore,
the term ‘context’ retraces ‘an institutionalised framing of activities or ways
that group-derived prescriptive norms pressure and/or channel people with
designated titles, presumed competencies, duties or responsibilities into
certain physical spaces at certain times in order to engage in a finite number of
specifiable activities’ (Cicourel 1987: 218). In this light, the context ‘represents
an intermediate level between the human contact that leads to the discourse and
the broader characteristics of the society in which it is embedded’ (Agar 1985:
184).
The chapter proceeds as follows. Firstly, it introduces the data and methodology
employed in DHA. Secondly, it identifies three main patterns of discourse-making
and associates them with metaphors coming from the Western European literature
tradition: two figures from Voltaire’s Candide – Candide and Pangloss – and a
character from Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni. Finally, the chapter focuses on
perceptions of the EU’s international actions and its core underlying values. A
review of how different European studies perceive the international action of
the EU is enclosed in the analysis, noting whether scholars traditionally describe
the EU as a normative-oriented, inherently colonising, or strategic-oriented
international actor.
Data and Methods of Analysis
This chapter relies on selected public statements made by high-profile EU

representatives and on 30 interviews with members of the Commission’s RELEX
Family (mostly from DG DEVCO and DG Trade) and the EEAS. To preserve
the anonymity of respondents, no reference is made to their nationality1 and
organisational position.
1 Nationality of respondents were as various as possible: they included Austrian,

Belgian, British, Czech, Danish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Maltese, Slovenian,
Swedish nationals. Codes for institutions read as follow: 1. Commission; 2. EEAS; 3.
Foreign Policy Instrument, followed by the number of the interview.
From the ‘Magnificent Castle’ to the Brutish State of Nature 193
The aim of the interviews was to determine subjective perceptions of both the
EU’s international role and the values that it allegedly pursues in international
politics. To relate interviewees’ discourses to the wider institutional context the
essay relies on intertextual and interdiscursive analytical strategies, as explained
in more detail below.
This chapter relies on socio-linguistic/discourse-historical (DHA) methods
of analysis. DHA explicitly relies on triangulation of different sources, data,
methods, theories and background information (see Wodak and Boukala, this
volume; Aydın-Düzgit, this volume; Wodak and Meyer 2009; Wodak 2001) to
grasp the context in which discourses are embedded. DHA specifically relies
on intertextuality – the relation among different texts – and interdiscursivity –
the connection among discourses – to establish a dynamic relationship between
utterances and the context in which they are produced. The focus on intertextuality
and interdscursivity also allows us to follow the ways in which a given discourse
is recontextualised in different utterances.
DHA methods of analysis focus on referential/nomination strategies,
predication, argumentation, framing, discourse representation and mitigation or
intensification of discursive patterns. As Aydın-Düzgit in this volume posits, this
focus allows us to shed light on different functions of discourse bearing specific
socio-political connotations. DHA allows us to grasp the dynamics of the discursive
construction of categories of the group self and the dynamics of othering; the ways
in which actors are labelled; patterns of justification and blaming; the position of
the speaker towards given issues and the level of saliency of given issues for a
given speaker.
Metaphors and the EU International Role
Only paradoxical language may be sufficient to make us aware that something

fundamental is at issue between the conflicting viewpoints. (Zashin and
Chapman 1974: 294)
Political discourse is markedly figurative, that is, it conveys and relies on a

‘rhetorical code, and understanding [of] this code’ (Chandler 2003: 124). A wide
speech community – grounded in more or less tight cultural affinity – contributes
to the socio-cultural construction of figures of speech and their interpretations
(Sharifian 2009: 417). In associating reality with a particular image, metaphors
have a generative power, in that they ‘create similarity’ between objects (Zashin
and Chapman 1974: 296). As Lakoff notes, metaphors are systems of ‘ontological
mapping across conceptual domains’ from a ‘source domain’ (a signifier) to a
‘target domain’ (the signified), where the language is secondary and the mapping
primary (1993: 208). Metaphors, therefore, represent ‘the main mechanism
through which we comprehend abstract concepts and perform abstract reasoning’
(1993: 245). Metaphors subsume an image from a selected attribute to describe a

given phenomenon in ‘a distinctive yet partial way’ (Morgan 1997: 4). Metaphors,
however, are more than synecdoche. They do contribute to giving names to things,
thereby establishing new nets of meanings among objects. As Spencer notes,
metaphors not only establish nets of similarities, they also connect differences.
In other words, metaphors establish an ‘anomalous assertion of identity’: whereas
a metaphor ‘does not suppress disparities, it is precisely our awareness of them
which makes the assertion of identity anomalous. Therefore, they are disturbing’
(Spencer, as reported in Zashin and Chapman 1974: 301).
All metaphorical representations of the EU, therefore, involve a double-sided

role: on the one hand, they rely on a particular attribute of the EU in order to
describe its subjectivity; on the other, they create new webs of meanings by relying
on an anomalous assertion of identity.
In an attempt to depict different discursive patterns, this chapter focuses on
three sets of discourses and associated metaphors. The choice was made to select
three metaphors from the Western European cultural heritage and to associate
them with academic definitions of the EU as an international actor: the ways
in which the EU is defined in the speeches of its leadership and the textual
evidence from interviews. The rationale for selecting metaphors stemming from
a common Western European tradition stems from the recognition that what we
define as shaping both what is ‘European’ and ‘how a European foreign policy
ought to be’ is profoundly rooted in this tradition, in such a way that ‘often
people from outside the speech community miss the nuances of meaning that
are associated with the use of particular figures of speech’ (Sharifian 2009: 417).
These figures derive respectively from Voltaire’s Candide and from Mozart’s
Don Giovanni.
Candide is a story of optimistic reliance on reason and the positive nature
of humankind. Candide’s actions and beliefs are devoted to the realisation of
the precepts of his philosophical master, Pangloss, a professor in ‘métaphysico-
théologo-cosmolonigologie’. Pangloss teaches Candide to live as in the ‘the best
all possible worlds’, where ‘all is for the best’. During his amusing allegorical
journey, Candide is confronted with all possible accidents and with all possible
forms of human incoherence, philosophies, contradictions and miseries. Yet,
he maintains his optimistic faith in reason. By the end of the journey, Candide
has progressively taken his distance from his master, stating: ‘we must cultivate
our garden.’ Pangloss stays loyal to ‘the most beautiful thing in the world’ (pre-
established harmony), ‘since Leibniz cannot be wrong’.
Don Giovanni, in the libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, is an amoral and decadent
nobleman, ‘a master of signifiers, a flouter of the (proper) name, … a champion
of pure form, an artist of displacements and condensations’ (Margaroni 2009:
9). During two tragicomic acts, Don Giovanni pursues his pleasure, regardless
of any consequences or any form of morality. As a result of his immorality, the
Devil himself comes to take Don Giovanni at the end of the opera. Don Giovanni
was first performed in 1787, two years before the French Revolution. As such, it
represents a celebration of Enlightenment ideals and, at the same time, a conceptual
countermelody to these ideals. Like Candide, Don Giovanni celebrates freedom,
liberty from prejudices, the primacy of man over the social conventions of the past
and ‘a new concept of the political’. However, freedom for all (or la volonté de
tous in Rousseau’s Social Contract) soon reveals its Janus face, ‘a cornucopia of
almost irreconcilable interpretations’ (Fehér 1991: 565–6 in Madsen 2004: 70). In
contrast to Candide, Don Giovanni is the expression of an individual conception
of freedom, an ‘unrestricted aristocratic privilege to be defended if necessary by

the sword’ (Madsen 2004: 70).
As was mentioned, when it comes to the EU, most assertions of identity tend
to have its ‘normative’ status as a fulcrum. This alleged or questioned morality
has been portrayed as based, respectively, on its foundation (the legal agreement
among a group of states to yield portions of sovereignty and give up war as a
means of resolution of controversies), on the end result of the process of European
integration (mitigation of the egotistic interests of its members), on its specific
toolkit (multilateral, markedly not military; yet inefficient), or on its heritage
(variously, the colonial, capitalist, liberal democratic history of some member
states), to quote but a few elements. The conceptual mapping of EU foreign
policy scholars reflects and converges in the construction of EU foreign policy
narratives in a mutually constitutive and reinforcing way, meaning decision-
makers and scholars of EU integration share the same rhetorical code. As shown
in Table 10.1 (below), the three metaphors selected here serve as a good platform
on which to organise predication, presupposition and the subject-positioning of
both discourse and meta-discourse on the EU as a foreign policy actor. In the
first place, they presuppose different definitions of the international environment,
which contributes to the positioning of all actors in radically different ways. In the
second place, linked to this, they predicate a radically different international role
and subjectivity for both the EU and other international players.
The next sections will further elaborate on the three discursive patterns and
organise textual evidence accordingly.
Table 10.1 Metaphors and related EU tropes
EU-related
tropes Candide Pangloss Don Giovanni
Self- Force for good Portrait of a morally A multilateral actor,
description inherited by its superior actor; with strengths
multilateral genesis; example of goodness and weaknesses:
portrait of a reliable emphasis on Western
and altruistic actor; civilisation
focus on other actors’
needs
International Pursuing the good An abstract, un- Increasing members’
role for both self and contextualised relative power;
others; emphasis on definition; role based identifying and
procedures to achieve on principles, never pursuing own
one’s values and goals on needs or interests; interests; identifying
despite the context; conduct of immaterial, strategies to be as
fair conduct is the not interest-based loyal as possible with
key to influencing the values own ideals; but ready
environment to give up on these
ideals if the context
requires it
Definition The ‘best of all A potentially good A hostile
of the possible worlds’; or, environment, environment;
international at least, a world which provided that it is imposing constraints;
environment is orderly, based educated to this end. and requiring power
on fair distribution A world of unequals: to pursue one’s goals;
of resources, some are repositories a world of strategic
shared goals and of wisdom and others interactions
compromises for the are in the process of
sake of the realisation learning what is good
of all for themselves
Definitions The others can be The others can be Units pursue their
of other helped to accomplish taught to act for the self-interests;
players their own objectives: sake of their own differences in power
peace, prosperity; fair interests; the others and values must
order; development … do not know what is influence the conduct
good for them and of international
the international affairs; different
environment actors require
different strategies
Discursive Subject-centred; Focus on the subject’s Context-centred;
patterns value-oriented; attributes; idealistic, materialistic/interest-
stressing coherence; rationalising, far from based; related to
tendency to take reality. Tendency to calculations about
on board others’ decide what is good the nature of the
entreaties for others environment
Definition of Pursuit of the good Power by model Fulfilment of own
power for all interest
Candide: Is the EU an ‘Idiot’ Power?
How Candide Was Brought Up in a Magnificent Castle and How He Was Driven
Thence. (Voltaire 1759)
The EU’s international discourse can assume an idiotic discursive component, like
a sort of Dostoevsky’s Prince Myshkin, which incarnates ‘a completely beautiful
human being’; a ‘Holy Fool, a descendant of Don Quixote, and a type of Christ
in an un-Christian world’ (Byatt 2004). In this connotation, the words ‘candid’ or
‘idiot’ do not assume any derogatory meaning: they aim to represent a subject who
ignores evil.
Due to its particular genesis, the EU is required to pursue a foreign policy
based on compromise: in a word, the constant pursuit of agreement brings the
EU to a more balanced and value-oriented position between conflicting egotistic
interests. Accordingly, the values that it projects outwards are the same values that
govern its conduct internally: those of civilised politics (Duchêne 1972).
The external world is represented ‘as if’ it is inherently benevolent: if not ‘the
best of all possible worlds’, at least one that shares the goal of achieving the common
good. This discursive pattern, therefore, lays emphasis on subjectivity rather than
on the environment: the central idea here is that ‘a state can be democratic all
by itself’ (Wendt 1999: 226) and that, ‘ultimately, the EU would need to model
itself on the utopia that it seeks to project on to the rest of the world’ (Nicolaidis
and Howse 2002: 788). This discursive pattern rests on the idea that persuasion
(and therefore international influence) can be achieved by ensuring that the values
pursued by means of public diplomacy effectively match with the actual policies
that are promoted internationally (Nye 2004). Accordingly, discourse emphasises
cooperation not conflict. Violence is represented as a last resort, ‘supranational
structures’ are the privileged venues to pursue individual goals and ‘international
responsibility’ is the main principle guiding international conduct (Smith, K.E.
2000: 12).
Paraphrasing Buber, Ish-Shalom describes the dialogic imperative underlying
this ideal-typical discourse in terms of an ‘I–Thou relationship – a relationship
based on unmediated listening and unity of existence. I–Thou relationships create
an interpersonal sphere that Buber called the Between, which enables a community
of We to emerge’ (2011: 825). This discourse recalls the notion of ‘ethical power
Europe’, and rests on a ‘conceptual shift in the EU’s role and aspirations from
what it “is” to what it “does”’ (Aggestam 2008: 2). So, the EU is ideally portrayed
as (or blamed for not being) a careful listener to other actors’ needs.
An example of related patterns can be found in the 2010 commitment, following
the Copenhagen Accord, to reduce unilaterally overall emissions by 20% of 1990
levels and a conditional offer to increase this cut to 30% provided that other
major emitters agreed to take on their fair share of a global reduction effort. In
a speech given at Oxford (Hedegaard 2010), the Climate Action Commissioner
Connie Hedegaard asserted: ‘Inevitably, we all have to contribute by lowering our
emissions. I wish we could turn it into an innovation race, we all participate in to

win.’ And she concluded: ‘in facing up [to this] challenge, much more unites us
than divides us’ (Hedegaard 2010). The failures of Cancun and Copenhagen have
been unequivocally seen as an EU diplomatic failure: a watered-down pioneering
effort. In this context, like Candide, the EU remained trapped by its own attempt
to represent ‘a qualitatively different (i.e., normative) power in world politics’
(Farrell 2005: 453). The pronominal selection (Maitland and Wilson 1987;
Íñigo-Mora 2004; Postoutenko 2009) adopted here strives to expand the border
of the ‘we’ to include ‘fellow’ international actors.
Some discursive practices assumed by VP/HR Catherine Ashton reflect the

same pattern of pronominal selection. When related to international action, ‘we’ is
presented as an inclusive concept, which tends to be widened to other international
actors. In Ashton’s discursive practices, the pronoun ‘I’ is often connected to her role
as VP/HR: she discursively locates herself as a medium to an end, a porte-parole.
‘I’ is always in search of complicity and connected to a role of intermediation.
In terms of the pronominal, the following example is particularly illustrative of
the overlap of collective and individual subjectivities: whereas Catherine Ashton
firstly makes a move toward her interlocutor journalists, in presupposing a shared
understanding, she then refers to a situation that urges action upon a collective
and sympathetic ‘we’; then she draws her role in the picture to expand common
potentiality: ‘But you and I know that the situation could reach a point where we
are asked to work quickly and I want to make sure we could’ (Al Jazeera 2011).
In this discursive pattern, the international community is called upon with
specific names, whether the member states, the EU staff, the United Nations,
the United States or the Arab League. The international action, however painful,
is modulated in terms of efforts. Reference to violence and the use of force is
eclipsed by the emphasis on wished-for results. References to ‘efforts’ and
stretching capabilities to action seem to be specifically related to the collective
nature of the EU. The achievement of being capable to act is already meaningful
proof of a tenacious will to be a different subject on the international scene: one
that strives to act, despite its unusual toolkit. As mentioned, this unusual toolkit
also bears witness to the intention to act collectively. Multilateralism is, therefore,
a means and an end of the EU’s action and profoundly informs the rhetorical and
discursive structure of the Candide pattern. The aimed-for end results of common
actions are goals shared by a wider subjectivity, which transcends the borders
of the EU. Officials reflecting this discursive position intensify the potentially
benevolent role of the EU, to the detriment of its own interests. The perception is
that the EU is there to help. However, while the action of the EU is predicated as
being potentially beneficial, there is an intensification of the discourse on action/
taking action and a mitigation of the discourse on values. In marked difference to
Pangloss’ discursive pattern – presented below – there is a special attention paid to
establishing dialogical relations in terms of affinity, not of difference. As we can
read in the words of this official:
There’s a rhetoric that says that ‘the EU defends the values of human rights’,
etcetera. … When we see how it acts on the international scene, I do not believe
that we can say this counts everywhere and in any case. There are so many
ambiguities and, honestly, I don’t like this rhetoric very much. In my opinion,
the EU should give concrete answers to concrete questions. Often, this rhetoric
gives space to a sense of superiority and a certain vein of racism, for instance,
towards the Arab countries … . It’s totally unacceptable, so I avoid like the
plague to pay reference to the rhetoric on the EU values. And I hope in my daily
work to contribute to give concrete answers, beyond rhetoric. (Interview 2.16,
author’s translation from Italian)
Or again:
Your question assumes that there is a role to play, therefore that we would have
some … some … values or … I don’t know. You easily fall into an imperialistic
speech when you assume that. What role do we have to play? … If you consider
that what we achieved within the European Union serves the rest of the world,
I guess its role; its mission would be to … expand its model to other places
around the world, which is really what we are trying to do! In most countries, I
mean, especially in those countries where we provide development assistance:
trying to support human rights, trying to support free market economy, so … .
But this implies a political judgment as well. Is that what we are supposed to
do? I don’t know, if you ask me. [The country I was posted in] is a country that
is still in the stage of … the mindset of the people is not ready; the economy is
in a limbo, because they came out from a ten-year civil war. I mean, they were
not ready to absorb all this. And anyway, bon, we try to promote this. We use …
financial incentives to convince them, which I don’t think is a good thing to do.
(Interview 1.21)
Therefore, the EU should behave differently, not speak differently, according

to this pattern. Emphasis on ambiguity – which is thoroughly and bitterly
criticised in most interviews – reflects the ambition of being a good actor on the
international scene. Emphasis on subjectivity, rather than strategic evaluation of
the environment, often leads to a strong sense of deception regarding what the EU
could do ‘if only’ the world were different. This discursive pattern is, therefore,
accompanied alternatively by optimism or a sense of retreat.
Pangloss: Where the ‘Force for Good’ Ends and the Garrulous Preacher Begins
Symbolically, Pangloss represents a critical counterpoint to Candide. The

relationship between Candide and Pangloss is one of identification, where
Candide is the subject and Pangloss is the object of such identification. In this,
Candide and Pangloss represent two different archetypical discourses, insofar
as ‘identification is a substitution, a quid pro quo, the result of an accomplished
displacement: someone for someone else’ (Bourdin 2010: 226). It might be worth
noting that the name Pangloss derives from the ancient Greek term Panglossía,
which means ‘garrulousness’, ‘wordiness’. Under this definition, the term also
highlights a form of detachment of utterance from social practice. Pangloss is an

allegorical character who symbolises Leibniz’s philosophy. While Candide strives
to be a living example, Pangloss conceives himself as a model. The definition of
the international environment, of its own and other actors’ position within this
environment, is abstract and based on how things ought to be, in theoretical terms,
rather than on reality.
Some discursive components of the EU international presence account for the
EU as a self-proclaimed model. What it says and represents is self-referential and
implies a visions of ‘“others” as less, rather than anti-self’ (Rumelili 2004: 33). In
this sense, the EU projects a model that has gained a prescriptive force, regardless
of its concrete application. In this connotation, this discursive pattern serves the
double purpose of both legitimising its own actions and gaining influence on the
international scene (Cebeci 2012).
To exemplify associated discourses, we might select a recent video from
Directorate General (DG) Enlargement (European Commission 2012).2 The video
portrayed a young ‘Kill Bill-like’ woman dressed in the EU’s flag colours. During
the video she is confronted with all kinds of belligerent adversaries: a Chinese
Kung Fu master; an Indian practitioner of kalaripayattu brandishing a scimitar;
and a black Brazilian master of capoeira. Once surrounded by these aggressive
figures, the ‘EU-ma Thurman’ splits into 12 parts (the number of stars in the EU
flag) and encircles the fighters. Caught in her magnetism, all of them sit together
and meditate. Needless to say, the video was considered racist and consequentially
axed. Stefano Sannino, Director General of DG Enlargement, stated that the video
was meant to address a young audience and that it offered ‘a demonstration of
[everyone’s] skills’ in showing ‘their mutual respect, concluding in a position of
peace and harmony’.
The presupposition underlying this discursive posture – both with regard to the
international environment and the predicates related to other international actors –
is pretty evident. On the one hand, the environment is seen as hostile; on the other,
other international actors are seen as having a belligerent, though majestic, culture.
Beyond the intentions, reference to a martial vs. peaceful discourse is difficult
to deny. Referring to Ish-Shalom’s interpretation of Buber, the kind of dialogic
pattern inherent in this approach could be defined in terms of an I-It relation,
whereby ‘members of the society perceive each other instrumentally and are
alienated from each other. I-It maintains the alienated conditions of human society,
preventing the constitution of the dialogical community as We’ (Ish-Shalom 2011:
285). This example of public communication clearly explains both the presumed
distinctiveness of the EU international discourses and a common perception of the
EU as a preaching, colonising international actor, both towards external partners
(Hettne and Söderbaum 2005) and its member states (Polat 2011).
An example of this discursive practice is offered by the regulation on Carbon
Fees for Airlines. Did the EU aspire to engage in the above-quoted ‘innovation
2 The author is grateful to Barbara Delcourt for discussions on this point.

race’ for the environment with or without consideration to other actors’ will?
Undeniably, the EU acted against the will of a wide plethora of actors, as testified
by the fact that 29 states signed a declaration threatening retaliation against the
regulation.
In interviewees’ discourses, we can find some associated discursive patterns.
However, these discursive patterns are definitely approached with caution by
officials. Therefore, utterances associated with this discursive pattern are generally
accompanied by a cautious attitude on the part of civil servants and by a tendency
to define in a detailed manner both other actors and the international context. None
of the interviewees seemed to like the EU’s propensity to act as a Pangloss. The
tendency to see the EU as somehow above other international actors, however, is
there. So, for instance in the vivid words of this official:
What I really appreciate and what I find extremely important and I would like to
stress is that the European Union is trying to support other countries in general
and try – let’s say – to tutor them. I don’t want to say that it is teaching, but to
tutor them. Mao used to say: let’s first teach them how to fish and then they
can build their life. This is how I feel about the EU: they are really trying to
make a better world. There are other actors in the external action stage, who
are following their own interests. From this point of view I do believe that the
European Union is making a huge jump. (Interview 2.8)
As might be seen, interviewees did not intend to convey a racist message or

consciously refer to the EU as morally superior. What associates civil servants’
discourse to this trope is a form of otherness that detaches the EU from others,
whether grounded in the level of economic, institutional development or foreign
policy conduct. So, for instance, in the words of this civil servant:
The role is more to civilise the jungle rather than to be the strongest beast in the
jungle. So, rather than becoming stronger and fighting back and all the jargon
about becoming a different power of a different kind, the other way would be
the one of being a sort of civilising force and creating a jungle where we could
all get along, ideally, of course. (Interview 3.1)
In general, therefore, in most of the interviews, the attention to the context

represents – in both the Don Giovanni and the Candide discursive patterns – a
countermelody to the Pangloss discursive pattern. This pattern represents a shift
from theory to practice, from the ideal world to reality. Whereas in the Candide
pattern the emphasis is on coherence – on how to make words come true – in the
Don Giovanni pattern, the translation to reality imposes a mitigation of ambitions,
a way to come closer to a discourse focused on actual needs and interests. This
example brings us directly to the Don Giovanni metaphor: that of an actor with
the ambition to leave its stage of infancy and acquire genuine power to pursue its
goals.
Don Giovanni: Longing for Power
Don Giovanni can be conceived as Candide’s alter-ego. Don Giovanni is a

profound connoisseur of the world; he is the prototype of a pragmatic man. The
social structure, the symbolic stage of the Mozart opera, ‘is far from the world of
politics, but is permeated by class conflicts and conflicts of attitudes and values’
(Madsen 2004: 70). An image of the relationship between a subject and its society
clearly emerges, wherein Don Giovanni incarnates an ‘uncertainty principle’, an
image which recalls the ‘brooding shadow of violence’ portrayed by Waltz (1979
[2010]: 102). In Camus’ vivid interpretation: ‘Don Juan sait et n’espère pas … .
Et c’est bien là le génie: l’intelligence qui connaît ses frontières’ (Camus 1942:
66–7).3
The idea of a world informed by conflicts both shapes the contours of actors in
the international scene and sheds light on the anarchic, chaotic and asymmetrical
order that la volonté de tous produces. Elements of such a discursive pattern
conceive power as a limited resource. The focus is, therefore, on how to remove
obstacles to the pursuit of power and personal objectives. This requires the
capacity to influence other actors’ behaviour, presupposes the ‘capabilities’ to
do so and necessitates a vision or strategy that connects capabilities with major
objectives. This discourse presupposes a distinction between ‘the desirable’ and
the ‘possible’, based on the evaluation of the international context, rather than on
normative indifference (Hyde-Price 2008).
Along these lines, Robert Cooper admits that it is difficult to be both good
and powerful. The way in which an actor’s identity is framed entails a definition
of others’ identities. To be good does not necessarily equate with being a force
for good, as ‘being good may in the end be bad for the people you serve, and …
moral ends may best be served by thinking in terms of power and how it should be
preserved …’ (2005: 25). There is recognition that the world is an ‘uncertain’ place
(2005: 28). ‘Democracy’, as well as order, are not ‘natural condition of humankind’
(2005: 27) and international institutions are ‘needed precisely because states,
like men, are not to be trusted’. In this context, ‘force remains indispensable in
international affairs both because we have not yet achieved the democratic dream;
and even if we do [force] will still be needed as the ultimate enforcer of law’
(2005: 31). Based on ‘calculation and restraint’, however, the use of force to attain
stability is not necessarily ‘sustainable in a democratic age’ (Cooper, 2005: 31–2).
In this discursive framework, the EU does not rely on military means because they
are not strategically convenient.
Accordingly, interviewees adopting this stance cannot be considered as amoral
Don Giovannis but, rather, as strategic thinkers. A foreign policy actor is not only
to be assessed by the goodness of his values, but also by his capacity to pursue
them. For instance, reference to results and strength is explicit:
3 ‘Don Juan knows and doesn’t hope. And this is where the genius lies: intelligence
which is aware of its limits.’ Author’s translation.
We have real diplomacy where we get angry at people and people get angry
at us. For instance, in the transport sectors. Recently they were all very angry
because recently their flights in Europe will be taxed. There we said: ‘look,
you’re flying in our territory. It is our territory, … it’s the EU’s’. (Interview 3.1)
Dialogic patterns with other actors might rely on both ‘I-Thou’ and ‘I-It’
formulations, depending on the specific nature of the relations. These patterns,
indeed, tend not to be predicated in abstract terms. Henceforth, in interviews, there
is a mitigation of both ambitions and rhetoric on values, and an intensification of
the necessity to pursue personal interests; the ability, also, to exert influence in
defence of these values. This is clear in the following examples:
You can have the vision of the EU, but you will have the reality of regimes that
do not even understand that ideology. They are alien. You can’t convince the
Chinese on universal values. And you have to deal with foreigners since you are
a diplomat! And be able to deal with several different models. So, coherence, is
difficult. (Interview 3.1)
I tend to escape abstract definitions, such as ‘actor’, ‘power’ and their ability
to define values … I don’t know. In a world which is changing faster than we
supposed (and certainly not to the European Union’s advantage), I believe that
the question that is progressively emerging is that the goal of the EU is, sad to
say, that of representing a kind of multiplying effect of national interests, of the
sum of common national interests of the member states. So, a vehicle of defence
of interests, essentially … . (Interview 1.25, author’s translation from Italian)
Values? … [I]t is extremely difficult to reason in abstract terms. You never find
yourself in abstract situations. In reality there’s the EU and a group of countries;
or the EU and a country. So, it’s difficult to generalise. … The real problem,
in the real life, is when you need to reconcile these values with the interests.
This is the real challenge. Above all when you confront a partner who doesn’t
share your own values. Because, in reality, we can tell lots of things, but Ben
Ali’s Tunisia did not share our values on human rights and democracy. Even if
we have certainly written somewhere that we did. But the truth is different. So,
the task of the EU is one of promoting some values, while not forgetting that
some interests exist. So, we necessarily need to find a balance between the two.
(Interview 2.1)
These sections have illustrated three different patterns of discourse on world

politics, connected to three metaphors. It has, thus, been shown that these discursive
patterns coexist in the EU’s international discourse. This highlights the necessity
of grasping the different logics enmeshed in one actor’s discourse and stresses the
need for an analytical strategy able to link different discursive patterns.
Conclusion – Discourse on Normativity
In line with the theoretical challenge of this edited volume, this chapter attempted
to retrace discursive patterns associated with the EU’s international subjectivity.
In doing so, it specifically looked at utterances produced by institutional actors,
relying on an analysis of both public speeches and original interviews.
The chapter showed that the peculiar nature of the EU does not prevent strategic
discourse. However, the constitutive nature of the EU reveals the importance of
normative discourses, whether to highlight its incoherence, or to celebrate it, or
to deny its existence. The chapter explored tropes of international discourse and
revealed coexisting discursive patterns. The EU is unequivocally recognised as

being an atypical foreign policy actor, with limited resources, but with global
ambitions. Three metaphors stemming from Western European culture were
selected. All these metaphors reflect a clear line of shared continuity with Western
European tradition.
The Candide metaphor was intended to depict an optimistic and action-based
component of the EU’s international discourse. This discursive pattern emphasises
the centrality of EU subjectivity, as grounded in multilateralism, the respect of the
rule of law and international law. This discursive posture minimises the effect of
the external environment on determining foreign policy action: the EU can better
influence the environment if it is loyal to its principles, regardless of the conditions
under which it performs. In this, the EU can be portrayed as an ‘Idiot Power’, a
model of power which relies on examples of good conduct to assert itself on the
international scene.
The Pangloss discursive posture is more abstract and relies on a discursive
narrative based on moral superiority. The EU is presented as a model, grounded in
its peculiar international genesis. However, in opposition to the previous model,
incoherences are wisely minimised and there is neither a benevolent nor a strategic
posture in defining both the international context and other international actors.
The metaphor of Don Giovanni is centred on the definition of the international
context. The context shapes the margins of what the EU – as one actor in a
thousand – can do. The international environment is presupposed to be hostile
and to leave little leeway for the EU to shape the context on the exclusive ground
of its will. A ‘good’ international actor is primarily one that is effectively capable
of pursuing its goals: not one who dreams or preaches unattainable values.
These discursive patterns are all equally present in the making of the EU as an
international discursive actor and tell of different representational practices.
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Part IV
Approaches
Discursive Institutionalist

Chapter 11
The EU’s Normative Power and Three
Modes of Liberal Communicative Discourse
Ben Rosamond
Introduction
This chapter brings the debate about the EU’s normative power into dialogue with
discursive institutionalist (DI) approaches to politics and International Relations.
It examines the discursive terrain of EU foreign policy-making and suggests that
this is best conceived in terms of a set of overlapping, yet potentially contradictory,
liberal justifications for EU external action. Much of the recent debate about EU
foreign policy has tended to cluster around the claim that the EU is a normative
power (Manners 2002; see Whitman 2013 for an overview of the debate). The idea
of ‘Normative Power Europe’ (NPE) has often (though not, it should be said, in
the work of its main proponent) been reduced to a discussion of essences. What
kind of ‘power’ is the EU in world politics? Why does the EU act in world politics
as it does? Does action x undertaken by the EU reflect interest-driven or norm-
driven behaviour? These questions tend to presuppose singular answers. In turn,
it is assumed that if we find evidence against the basic claims of the NPE school –
that EU external action is a projection of its internal constitution through a set of
positive civic-liberal norms – then the whole NPE argument must be refuted.
By using some of the key insights from DI (Schmidt 2008) to conduct a
reading of EU external action, attention is drawn to the ways in which foreign
policy is justified in communicative discourse, and the ways in which such
discourse operates with both cognitive logics of consequence and normative
logics of appropriateness. This approach does not reduce discursive justification
to ‘mere rhetoric’, but rather rests upon the assumption that policies and forms of
behaviour are enabled and constrained via their constitution in discourse. This is
a view that treats an actor’s communicative discourse as constitutive of interests
and behaviour – hence the reluctance here to draw a sharp analytical distinction
between interest-driven and norm- (or value-) driven action (see variously Blyth
2003; Dodier 1993; Hay 2011; Laffey and Weldes 1997).
The incorporation of a DI approach allows for a deepening of discussion about
the ideational bases of EU foreign policy without shedding the basic architecture
of NPE reasoning. The argument here, in brief, is that the NPE argument has
much to offer by casting EU foreign policy as the external projection of internally
constituted norms. Moreover, the NPE school is most certainly onto something
when it describes these norms as liberal (see also Ferrera 2009; Garton Ash
1998; Magnette 2009; Schimmelfennig 2001). Finally, it is extremely helpful to
understand an actor’s foreign policy in terms of seeking to shape understandings
of what is ‘normal’ in world politics. However, its treatment of EU liberalism as
bound up with the projection of positive civic-political freedoms is partial, and
neglects two other varieties of liberalism that are crucial to understanding the full
repertoire of EU actions in world politics. One of these is a form of liberalism
familiar in international theory that seeks to pacify international politics through
processes of (primarily) commercial exchange. The other – and the one receiving
the most attention here – is economic liberalism. In this regard, the chapter argues
(a) that the EU is significantly (though not necessarily exclusively) constituted by
economic liberalism, (b) that its identity as a liberal market order is a significant
determinant of the EU’s external policy and (c) that a significant portion of the
EU’s normative influence in world politics consists of the propagation of economic
liberal norms.
Three additional observations need to be made at this point. First, this line
of argument is not to suggest that the designation ‘market power’ (Damro 2012)
is a better understanding of the orientation and substance of EU external policy
than ‘normative power’. To make such a move requires an understanding that
reduces normative power to value-driven behaviour that yields value-promoting
outcomes. This is not consistent with a close reading of the NPE argument and has
the consequence of identifying only particular norms and ideas – those associated
with liberal-cosmopolitan expressions of positive freedom – as being consistent
with the exercise of ‘normative power’. This in turn might disallow the analysis
of the normative power of ideas associated with liberalism as negative freedom/
market cosmopolitanism in the domain of the economy (Parker and Rosamond
2013). The second observation is that an emphasis on the importance of market
liberalism to NPE does not necessarily mean that other liberal logics are absent
or unimportant to the operation of the EU’s normative power. Indeed, one of the
main components of the argument here is to sketch the logic of three ideal typical
‘liberalisms’ that are manifest in the EU’s internal constitution and (thus) in its
external policy. The third point concerns economic liberalism, which, of course,
should not be treated as a unitary category. As is noted later in this piece, there
are multiple varieties of economic liberalism and the distinctions between them
are important. The history of EU economic liberalism is a delicate balancing act
between these varieties (for example ordoliberalism versus neoliberalism), which
carry within them quite different accounts of the market and the role of public
authority therein (Bonefeld 2012; Crouch 2011; Harcourt 2011; Harvey 2005;
Peck 2008, 2010; White 2012).
The argument proceeds in the following manner. The next section seeks to
dissolve the simple distinction between normative and strategic action by thinking
about not only the range of possible motivations for ‘liberal’ forms of external
action, but also about the ways in which action or policy might be justified ethically
The EU’s Normative Power and Three Modes of Liberal … 213
as liberal. This move is designed with two purposes in mind: (a) to caution against
the reduction of discussion of NPE to a matter of settling empirically whether
EU external action is either liberal/normative or realist/strategic in character,
and (b) to affirm that ‘liberal’ external action is potentially multifaceted and,
crucially, normatively contestable. The second section thinks about how an actor
or its policy might be constructed as ‘normative’ or ‘liberal’ and makes a brief
case for a broadly discursive institutionalist approach to the evaluation of liberal
foreign policy. The third section derives and presents three ideal typical modes of
liberalism. These emerge from distinct strands in liberal thought. Their application
to the EU case is discussed, with particular reference to how the NPE debate can
be taken forward.
Dissolving the Normative/Strategic Distinction
Is EU external policy driven by values or by strategic calculus? The distinction

suggests that genuine liberalism in foreign policy actions can be understood by the
motivations for that action. It further implies that value-driven (normative) foreign
policy is the only possible vehicle for liberal foreign policy. Values here equate to
liberal values. Strategic calculus equates to something else – realpolitik – that is
fundamentally rooted in interest-driven behaviour.
At first sight, the ‘normative’ versus ‘strategic’ opposition would appear to be
something of a reinvention of the dividing line between liberal and realist thought
in International Relations. Realists maintain that a state’s behaviour is explained
by interest-driven external security calculus. Liberals also think that states follow
a rational interest-driven logic in the international system, but are more than open
to the idea that a state’s foreign policy is a function of preference formation within
the domestic political processes. Liberals thus treat the relationship between
domestic and international politics as a two-level game, while realists understand
the domestic and international polities as autonomous domains with separate
structural determinants of actor behaviour.
Notice immediately that ‘strategic’ need not necessarily mean that a state
operates according to a realist security calculus. Interest-driven behaviour may
also involve the promotion of liberal values. To assume that interest-driven
behaviour cannot be associated with values or ethics is to fall into the trap of
what Brown (2001) calls ‘pop realism’. ‘Strategic’ action could be domestically
determined and authorised – perhaps through democratic means. Normative
power is most obviously liberal in that it invokes liberal universals and claims
legitimacy to act upon those principles. But, of course, those liberal universals
could, in some circumstances, be invoked without democratic authorisation.
Crudely, this leaves us in the peculiar situation where action that is strategic would
seem to be more liberal than action premised on normative claims. However, there
are two arguments that might be used in defence of declaratory normative power
(that is, normative power without domestic authorisation). The first is that liberal
universals are non-negotiable and so action in defence of these principles must by
definition be liberal. This is analogous to arguments that resist the restoration of
capital punishment in domestic societies where a majority of the population favours
capital punishment. The right to life is a fundamental and non-negotiable premise
of democratic society. A state that transgresses this right, even in the context of
its democratically authorised punishment regime, ceases to be a liberal state.
(The argument is impeccably Lockean.) The second argument is that declaratory
normative power should be judged by its outputs, not its inputs. Strategic action
may carry liberal democratic authorisation and thus input legitimacy, but if
its consequences are illiberal then perhaps it has less of a claim to be properly
liberal than normatively-driven actions that consequentially advance the cause of
liberalism, even if they lack liberal authorisation.
We are left, in other words, with two forms of liberal ethical justification for
quite different types of external action. One locates the liberalism (or otherwise)
of an act in the process through which it is decided upon, while the other locates
liberalism (or not) in an act’s consequences. In short, there is no straightforward
route to adjudicating the liberality or otherwise of an external act. In terms of
ethical theory these two ideal typical representations of liberal foreign policy
can be aligned with, respectively, deontological and consequentialist ethical
justifications (Brown 2001; see also Manners 2008). From a deontological
perspective, it is important to ask whether the decision to act was arrived at via
clearly established rules and understandings of duty. If the action can be shown
to have conformed to such solid ethical reasoning then it can be said to have been
morally appropriate – regardless of its consequences. This ethical justification
might only apply to the rather special circumstances found in our ideal typical
example – where clear rules about the liberal democratic authorisation of policy
yield an act that is strategic. Indeed we may end up determining that such an
act is ‘strategic’ only through a negative evaluation of its consequences.
Consequentialist understandings of ethical justification, in contrast, judge the
moral propriety of an act only in relation to the consequences it brings about. If
those consequences are liberal then the act can be deemed to have been liberal.
As Manners (2008) reminds us, there is a third strand of ethical theory – virtue
ethics – that offers another way of adjudicating the morality of an act. The focus
of virtue ethics is the moral status of the actor. If the actor is constituted as liberal,
then we may infer its actions to be liberal (where liberalism and morality are
equated). Manners (2008) argues that a virtue ethics reading of an actor’s foreign
policy would be to investigate not only whether it consistently and coherently
applies its own norms when acting externally, but also whether it applies norms
that emanate from a higher liberal universalising project (the United Nations). But
a virtue ethics reading could also refer us to an actor’s constitutive principles – to
the extent to which it is formed itself as a liberal actor.
We might simplify this discussion of ethical justification a little by noting that
the claim about whether action is liberal can be reduced to input (deontological/
virtue) and output (consequentialist) considerations. The point to make is that

reducing the adjudication of the liberal credentials of an external intervention
to strategic versus normative motivations is – at one level – a false dichotomy
(see, to some extent, Youngs 2004). It is, as argued above, possible to grade
actions that might seem to be the obverse of normative power as liberal. In
Manners’ early formulation of the NPE concept (Manners 2002), he seemed
to rely upon input arguments as the basis for arguing for the EU’s normativity.
Here Manners identifies normative power with a particular subset of actions that
constitute the default mode of behaviour for a particular type of actor. In short,
normative power is about the promotion ‘of norms which displace the state as
the centre of concern’ (2002: 236). In the case of the EU, this mode of action is
itself constituted by the context of the EU’s foundation, the hybrid quality of its
polity and its tendency to transform – to constitutionalise – international treaties.
As such the EU has a series of norms inscribed into itself and these five ‘core
norms’ – peace, liberty, democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human rights
and fundamental freedoms – predispose the EU to act on their behalf in world
politics. He elaborates thus (2008: 46): ‘the EU promotes a series of normative
principles that are generally acknowledged, within the United Nations system, to
be universally applicable.’ Some early discussants of the NPE concept criticized
Manners for his lack of attention to the implementation or consequences of
normative power. Both Diez (2005) and Pace (2007) argue that the EU tends
to treat its norms as absolutes that are imposed coercively as conditions upon
negotiating partners. A better form of normative power would see the EU entering
into dynamic dialogue with the norms of others, where the foreign policy outcome
is not pre-determined, but rather the product of negotiation between normative
orders. More recently Manners (2008) has argued that one of the criteria to be
invoked in a deontological adjudication of the EU’s external action would be the
extent to which it behaves ‘reasonably’ in world politics; the degree to which it
practices engagement and dialogue.
One clear point to make at the conclusion of this section is that the
commonplace distinction between normative and strategic power is problematic.
It has also been suggested that the ethical adjudication of whether the EU acts in
accordance with its supposed liberal principles (presumably a key indicator of its
normativity) can also be done in different ways with potentially different results.
Yet all of the foregoing assumes a straightforward understanding of liberalism as
being located in a set of civic cosmopolitan values and their normative expression.
The argument developed here suggests that a proper understanding (and thus
adjudication) of normative power needs to take account of varieties of liberalism.
In the EU context this means that the literature on normative power so far has not
considered the ways in which these different liberalisms might (a) be considered
as fundamentally constitutive of the EU, and thus (b) might account for quite
distinct and potentially contradictory modes of external behaviour.
Foreign Policy Liberalism: A Discursive Institutionalist Approach
Ethical adjudication is one way to explore the liberalism or otherwise of EU

external action. Needless to say, such ethical adjudication always relies upon an
objectivist stance in relation to how we judge an action. To say that action x is
authentically liberal requires an external referent of what proper liberalism would
be in this instance. Another method would be to draw upon broadly constructivist
scholarship on the importance of ideas to action. In contrast to the adjudication of
liberalism via the toolkit of ethical absolutes, this approach would be more interested
in understanding how and why an action or an actor comes to be constituted as
liberal and with what effects. It would be interested in why liberal principles, as
opposed to any others, are invoked and what kind of work such principles do.
There are several ways in which the use of liberal ideas in foreign policy
might be studied. The most minimal approach is to suggest that ideas explain that
narrow category of phenomena that interest-driven instrumental rationality cannot
(Goldstein and Keohane 1993). In this account, ideas can work in two ways: (a) as
normative justifications for action (‘principled beliefs’ in Goldstein and Keohane
parlance) and (b) as ‘causal’ beliefs – that is road maps which help actors to
achieve goals that have been derived externally from their material interests (see
also Parsons 2002). Thinking about foreign policy and liberal ideas, this account
is relatively easily completed. Liberal ideas provide rhetorical cover for action that
is strategically motivated. They also help actors confronting a crisis situation to
navigate their way through the process of diagnosing the problem and prescribing
solutions (e.g., ‘ideas tell us that what is going on in Syria is x, therefore – and
given our interests – we should do y’). Subsequent scholarship has built on these
two distinctions to think more deeply about ideas. One important strand is the
question of how guiding intellectual frameworks (or ‘policy paradigms’ – Hall
1993) change, or how ideas – via the mediation of uncertainty – account for
change in institutional equilibria (Blyth 2002).
For the purposes of this chapter it is also important to ask why, how and under
what conditions liberal principles are invoked in support of external/foreign policy
behaviour. Campbell’s work provides a helpful starting point (Campbell 1998).
Campbell argues that ideas can work on both cognitive and normative levels.
Moreover, ideas may be at the foreground of public debate – and thus contested –
or ‘backgrounded’ (not contested publicly). Cognitive ideas operate according
to a technical logic of consequence or necessity: if x, then y is the technically
correct solution. Normative ideas are about legitimation: what is good and bad
about x, and if x, then we should do y. The foreground/background distinction is
useful because it guides us to whether a claim about the world (and what to do
in it) is sedimented and naturalised in public discourse. So, for example, in the
case of liberal ideas about intervention, we might ascertain the extent to which
the principle of humanitarian intervention and the broader ideas that underpin it
are subject to political contest over time. If it is fully backgrounded as an idea,
then we might appreciate why foreign policymakers routinely draw upon the idea
and seemingly act in accordance with its assumptions. Note that humanitarian
intervention (HI) and R2P (Responsibility to Protect) are deeply value-laden (i.e.,
normative) concepts. If policymakers internalise HI/R2P assumptions, then the
scope of what is legitimately possible to do is both defined and circumscribed.
At the same time such ideas also seem capable of migration, in this case from
the status of public ‘sentiments’ to ‘frames’. This would mean that policymakers,
acting on the basis of assumptions consistent with an HI/R2P view of the world,
happily bring the ideas into the arena of normal politics as a way of signalling the
legitimacy of their action.
All of this may help us to understand the deeper anatomy of interventionist/

foreign policy liberalism. But it leaves one question unanswered. One of
the implications of the foreground/background distinction is that ideas can
become assimilated to the extent that policymakers come to believe them. Such
circumstances would clearly differ from instances where an actor drew upon an
idea in order to justify an interest-driven action. In this latter case, the actor would
be using the idea without believing it. So do actors actually believe in the liberal
principles that they invoke when justifying external action, or do they knowingly
deploy such rhetoric knowing that its conceptual repertoire can be persuasive and
will assist them in pursuing interest-driven goals?
In sum, this broadly constructivist approach to ideas allows us to rethink
and add nuance to the rather crude differentiation between normatively- and
strategically-driven modes of action that has been integral to much recent
discussion about EU external action. One of the things that can happen in debates
about normative power is a two-step dismissal of the importance of ideas. First,
‘ideas’ are reduced in importance by their inclusion (opposite ‘interests’) in an
‘either/or’ discussion about the proximate determinants of actor behaviour.
Second, ideas are dismissed as ‘just rhetoric’, thereby becoming little more than
secondary expressions of interests, which are likely to be the primary sources of
EU foreign policy. Normative power, as an explanation, would only get a look-in
where either (a) ideas/values are clearly articulated in the pursuit of EU external
action or (b) material interests or expressed actor preferences appear to have been
overridden in policy outcomes. The usefulness of the foreground/background
distinction mentioned here is to point us to the fact that communicative discourse
will not always express the ideational sources of policy. By definition, this is
unlikely to happen in circumstances where the ideas in question have become
‘backgrounded’. The utility of the normative power approach – as presented by
Manners – is that it asks us to look for the ideational determinants of external
action in empirical loci other than the communicative discourse of policy actors.
In particular, we are invited to consider the constitutive principles of an actor
and its behaviour. It is to these constitutive principles of EU external action that
the chapter now turns. Using the architecture of the normative power argument
then allows us to question the extent to which the prevailing expression of the
‘Normative Power Europe’ thesis offers a complete representation of the scope
and nature of the EU’s normative power.
Liberalism and EU External Policy: Three Modes of Justification
So far little has been said about the substance of liberal argument. This section
brings these concerns together to discuss three modes of liberal justification for
external action. Here we re-engage with the idea of NPE, which – it is suggested
here – does not incorporate the full repertoire of liberal forms of external action.
Manners (2002), it should be remembered, works with two levels of definition
about the analytics of normative power. First, normative power is defined as a
form of action that seeks to shape conceptions of ‘normal’ in international politics.
If the definition were left here, then it could embrace many forms of coercive
action. Crudely, you might be able to convince me that something was normal
through discussion, argument, persuasion and the appeal to moral principles.
Nevertheless, I will probably arrive at the same conclusion if you are pointing
a loaded pistol at my head. The second level of the definition, as noted above,
identifies a particular liberal character to normative power. It is a type of power
that begets interventions informed by and on behalf of particular values. Moreover,
in the EU’s case these values can be understood as external expressions of the
EU’s constitutive principles.
Manners (2008) reminds us that there are nine substantive normative
principles at the heart of EU foreign policy: ‘sustainable peace’, ‘social freedom’,
‘consensual democracy’, ‘associative human rights’, ‘supranational rule of law’,
‘inclusive equality’, ‘social solidarity’, ‘sustainable development’ and ‘good
governance’. These are almost all unequivocally liberal principles (particularly
when the qualifying adjectives are removed). However, one rather obvious variety
of liberalism is missing from Manners’ list: economic liberalism. At an analytical
level, this is a rather curious omission, particularly when we reconsider the
constitutive principles of the EU as expressed in the Treaties and the consolidated
acquis. This is not the place for an extended discussion, but there are strong
grounds to argue (a) that the EU represents one of the most sustained projects of
market-making in the present period and (b) that its dominant governance modus
operandi involves as a priority the provision of conditions for a functioning market
order. The dominance of market-liberal principles in the Treaties, the consolidated
acquis and the operation of the single market have recently led Damro (2012) to
develop an argument on behalf of an alternative/complementary mode of power –
‘market power Europe’. Indeed it might be argued – and this is Damro’s point –
that ‘market power’ (the externalisation of internal market policies) is the EU’s
dominant method of external action and is premised on core features of the EU’s
identity (a large regulated market). Damro’s argument is also significant because
he finds evidence of externalisation being imposed coercively. It could be argued
that this infringes the basic definition of what ‘normative power’ is. Perhaps, but
in terms of the first part of Manners’ definition of the term, the externalisation
of market liberalism certainly conforms to efforts to influence conceptions of
what is ‘normal’ in world politics. The second part of Manners’ definition invokes
liberalism as the primary normative substance of the EU’s normative power. But it
invokes only one part – perhaps a lesser part – of the EU’s liberalism.
The suggestion here is that a full evaluation of the EU’s liberalism in
external policy needs to incorporate its role as purveyor of market liberalism.
Moreover, it is suggested that there are actually three overlapping modes of
liberalism pertinent to the EU’s rationalisation of its external action. These are
labelled ‘market liberalism’, ‘liberalism as the pursuit of peace’ and ‘liberalism
as cosmopolitan duty’. Each contains within it a dominant idea that carries
technical and normative implications for how the world is organised. Each
identifies core ‘subjects’ to whom policy/intervention is targeted and through

whom liberal outcomes are expected to emerge. And each derives from its
premises a clear policy logic (i.e., what type of external policies follow from the
ideational premises – in particular, what are the expected outcomes of policy?).
These aspects are summarised in Table 11.1.
Table 11.1 The EU’s modes of liberalism
Mode Dominant Idea Subjects Policy Logic

Propagation and spread
1. Market Economic liberalism Market actors
of market order
Radical diminution of
2. Peace Kantian republicanism States
the probability of war
3. Cosmopolitan Universal human All human Protection of the
Duty rights beings distant stranger
The distinction between modes one and three is perhaps the most familiar, and
is perhaps the most crucial in seeking to understand the constitutive logics of the
EU (Parker 2012; Parker and Rosamond 2013). The dominant idea of economic
liberalism (in its broadest sense) is about the normative validity of market order.
Markets, often seen as naturally consistent with human propensities, are deemed
to be the most effective instruments for the efficient allocation of resources and the
consequent advancement of human welfare. The proper task of public authority
is thus confined to ensuring that market orders are created and maintained, with
the assurance of ‘negative freedom’ for market subjects. Indeed human freedom
is thought to be most realised in the domain of the market. Of course, as already
suggested, economic liberals take a range of positions on the appropriate extent of
state action that might be consistent with these overall goals. That said, economic
liberalism operates – across the board – with a consistent understanding of the key
subject through whom market freedom is realised and on behalf of whom market
society is constructed. In Foucault’s terms, these individual and corporate agents
are construed as ‘subjects of interest’ whose freedom is realised within the market
and achieved via independence from government (Foucault 2008: 42).
Mode three liberalism also rests upon universalist principles. But rather than
imagining human subjects purely (or at least primarily) as agents whose freedom
is most realised in the achievement of market order, mode three liberalism
emerges from the claim that freedom can only be guaranteed by ensuring that
all people enjoy a repertoire of basic rights regardless of spatial, temporal or any
other form of difference. Hence the high premium placed on the notion of the
‘distant stranger’ (Linklater 2007), whose rights are as valid as those bestowed on
members of our own community. While some philosophers, notably Locke (1988
[1689]), have worked hard to reconcile modes one and three into an integrated form
of liberalism, it is clear that the two modes represent alternative types of liberal
cosmopolitanism and can, therefore, pull in different directions. Freedom, in its
mode three sense, is to be guaranteed by government, and democratic instruments
have come to be regarded as the most effective means to the achievement of this
end (since democratic societies are able to hold their governments to account).
Mode three liberalism is distinct from mode one liberalism in that its subjects are
considered – again in Foucault’s (2008) terms – as ‘subjects of right’. The tensions
between economic liberalism (realised through the achievement of capitalist
economies) and democracy are well known and much discussed (see, for example,
Streeck 2011, 2012). Indeed the distinctiveness of the two modes is perhaps at its
starkest when we consider the implications for ‘liberal’ foreign policy. Whereas
mode one liberalism encourages the propagation of market order and its associated
negative freedoms on a global scale, the logic of mode two liberalism pushes
‘liberal’ actors to promote the spread of democratic institutions, human rights
norms and positive freedoms. Liberals, by definition, seek to attenuate the power
of government vis-à-vis individuals, but liberalism in its mode three variant also
embodies a commitment to distribute power as well as to limit it (Bobbio 1990).
The other ideal typical mode of liberalism (mode two in Table 11.1) has its
origins in liberal international thought. Here liberal optimism on the prospects
for peace contrasts with realist pessimism about the inevitability of international
conflict. For international liberals, following a line of reasoning that first fully
crystallised in Kant’s political philosophy (Kant 1957 [1795]) and which has been
worked through by modern political scientists such as Karl Deutsch (Deutsch et al.
1957) and Michael Doyle (2011), a peaceful order need not be post-international.
A peaceful world order is logically consistent with a world of states. What matters
is that those states take on a particular democratic (or in Kant’s terms, ‘republican’)
character, which in turn yields a propensity for forms of external behaviour that
significantly diminish the probability of conflict among this community of states.
At a basic level, this simple framework allows us to classify EU external
interventions according to the mode(s) of liberalism at work. This could be
accomplished in two steps. The first would be an analytic classification such as
the one presented tentatively in Table 11.2. The second step would be to examine
policies in terms of how they are justified in discourse (both communicative and
coordinative), and the extent to which liberal concepts are invoked.
Table 11.2 Tentative classification of EU external intervention by mode
1. Market External effects of the single market (standard setting), active

externalisation of regulatory regime; sanctioning actions;
conditionality measures; the EU in international trade politics,
aspects of enlargement, the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP)
2. Peace Enlargement; EU Democracy promotion; aspects of the ENP
3. Cosmopolitan EU human rights policy; humanitarian aid and civil protection,
duty EuropeAid Development and Cooperation
Discussion
Some clarification and further discussion of the material in tables 11.1 and 11.2 is
necessary at this point. First, these modes of liberalism are separated for analytical
reasons. Of course, they do not necessarily operate as constitutive principles in
isolation from one another. For example, as suggested already, one of the most
controversial discussions in modern political theory departs from the commercial
liberal claim that increasing levels of economic transaction between states is the
surest way to ensure a lasting peace between them. In terms of this classification,
mode two goals would be achieved through mode one means. Indeed, we could
argue that the foundational logic of post-war European integration was built upon
this exact premise: peace through markets (Delanty 1998). The expansion of
the EU can be conceived in these terms: as a geographically expansive project
of market integration that has successfully transformed European international
politics into a non-violent and pacific sub-region of the world system.
Second, the analytical separation is justified when we consider the different
subjects at whom external interventions based upon each mode are targeted
and through whom liberal outcomes are to be accomplished. Mode two is most
distinctive here. Mode two interventions are designed to shape the international
order in a more pacific direction. The Kantian technique – as specified in Perpetual
Peace – is to build international institutions and international law that shape state
behaviour, while at the same time shaping the character of states themselves. Again,
enlargement can be offered as a good example of an EU ‘intervention’ that is at
least partly mode two in character. EU enlargement is both a project of changing
the character of the European international system (or at least those parts of the
international system at the EU’s border) and shaping the character of candidate
states in ways that render them more EU-like. Of course part of this transformation
of the character of candidate states might involve mode one techniques, the premise
being that the development of market orders within states and the consequent
alteration of economic subjectivities will have shaping effects on the state.
Third, mode one liberalism should be disaggregated. There is a literature
suggesting that the EU is ineluctably neoliberal in character and that it is a
project designed explicitly to divorce political accountability from market power
and economic policy-making (for example, Gill 2003). But straightforwardly
equating ‘neoliberalism’ with ‘economic liberalism’ misses the complex range of

intellectual currents that have fed into the economic thought of the EU (Maes
2006). The lazy equation of neoliberalism with generic economic liberalism also
risks missing the distinctive and important character of the neoliberal turn in the
history of economic thought (Crouch 2011). The history of EU economic liberalism
has been, to simplify, a struggle and delicate balancing act between German
ordoliberalism, Anglo-American neoliberalism and French Colbertism. Jabko
(2006) argues that there are too many institutional correctives and countervailing
policy tendencies in the EU system for it to be conceptualised as a pure experiment
in neoliberalism from its point of origin (see also Caporaso and Tarrow 2009).
A lot of recent work takes as open-ended the question of which economic ideas
will prevail in the EU, while noting a definite drift over time towards neoliberal
policy norms. This applies to internal policy regimes as well as their external
projection into realms such as global trade politics (van Apeldoorn and Horn 2007;
Buch-Hansen and Wigger 2010; Horn 2011; Siles-Brügge 2011; De Ville and Orbie
in this collection). Examining how the balance between these varieties of economic
liberalism has changed over time and how they have influenced institutional
designs and policy programmes within the EU is a pre-requisite for understanding
how EU economic principles have been externalised if the NPE argument is to be
taken seriously. Indeed, thinking about the struggle between economic liberalisms
(as systems of thought and perhaps found in distinct institutional sites) within the
EU system opens up a line of thought that the extant NPE literature has bracketed:
the internal normative politics of the EU.
Fourth, the disaggregation of ‘liberalism’ into ‘liberalisms’ shines additional
light on the complexities of ethical adjudication outlined earlier. One of the
problems that follows from any attempt to evaluate the ‘liberal’ character of EU
external interventions via ethical reasoning is the difficulty of establishing what
external referents are used to establish ‘good’ and ‘right’. This is especially true of
the adjudication between using consequentialist or virtue arguments. How do we
know what constitutes a good liberal consequence of an action? Indeed, following
Zhou Enlai’s famous answer to Henry Kissinger’s question about the impact of the
French Revolution, we might wonder when appropriate consequences have been
achieved. Similarly, how do we know when an actor’s constitution is appropriate
for its actions to be considered prima facie ethical. The point is that each mode
has its own internal ethical reasoning and that these rationalities may well clash.
Take the relationship between mode one and mode three liberalism. Mode three is
premised on the sovereign equality of all human subjects regardless of exogenous
variance. Yet, as a very well-established discussion in political theory and
political economy points out, mode one logics have little problem with the market
delivering and accentuating real inequalities, which in turn may make the need
for mode three correctives more pressing. This ties, interestingly, to debates about
the internal legitimacy of the EU. In Majone’s account of the EU-as-regulatory
state (Majone 1994, 1996, 2005), the EU’s legitimacy is understood as residing in
its capacity to deliver the conditions for a market order to prevail. The argument
is not only analytical but also normative, since it rests on a thin conception of
output legitimacy (Wincott 2006), and the ethical reasoning that deems this to be
legitimate is consequentialist. But it is a form of ethical reasoning that is internal to
a neoliberal conception of good/justice. Similar arguments could be considered in
relation to the EU’s economic liberal interventions beyond its borders. Indeed these
ethical arguments are not only tools for evaluating the authentic liberal character
of EU external policy. They are also, in line with the tenets of most constructivist
scholarship, things to be studied in themselves. The revelation of these tensions
should not be seen as an inconvenience, but as an analytical opportunity.
Finally, the modes of liberalism should be viewed as discourses that both

complement and contradict one another. Each has strong normative content. Each
has the capacity to make technical (if … then) arguments. Each has ideational
components that sit at the background of public debate. Other parts are more
contested (and thus contingent). Each will have evolved historically and the
balance between each will have varied over time. How does each intersect with
other discourses such as discourses of security (e.g., mode one market liberalism
might be imposed more coercively when linked to ideas about security threats – the
ENP might be an example)? Moreover, how, if at all, do crises such as the ongoing
global financial crisis affect the balance between different economic liberalisms?
For example, De Ville and Orbie (in this collection) find evidence of nothing more
than the ‘subtle rearticulation’ of neoliberalism rather than its displacement in the
context of the crisis.
Conclusion
Debate about EU foreign policy during the past decade has been very rich, but it
has tended to be organised around two positions. The first – ‘Normative Power
Europe’ – has been read as a claim that the EU’s external action is, because of
internal constitutive reasons, predominantly liberal in character. Discussants of the
NPE thesis have tended to take a variety of positions that qualify or refute the EU’s
external liberalism. This chapter has offered an alternative way of thinking about
EU external interventions in terms of liberalism that goes beyond this opposition.
The NPE view gives a (deliberately) partial account of the EU’s external
liberalisms. The most important additive, it has been argued here, is economic
liberalism. Liberalism was also separated into three separate modes – each with
its own internal technical and normative claims and derivative policy logics. The
liberal quality of an action can be addressed through ethical reasoning, but the
logic of the position developed here is to suggest not only that the adjudication
of liberalism through ethics is a complex matter in and of itself, but that different
modes of liberalism also carry within them different ethical positions. This is
philosophically complex, but analytically interesting because a constructivist
approach to liberal modes of external action is designed to ask about how such
ideas operate and are used within political discourse.
In terms of the debate about the nature and determinants of the EU’s external
action, this chapter has argued with and against the ‘Normative Power Europe’
thesis. Indeed the point here has been to accept in very large part, for broadly
epistemological-methodological reasons, the premises of the NPE literature. At
the same time the use of NPE’s own theoretical architecture to think about the
broader range of liberal principles that are constitutive of the EU and its external
policy draws attention to that literature’s empirical silences
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Chapter 12
Understanding ‘Constructive Ambiguity’
of European Defence Policy:
A Discursive Institutionalist Perspective
Antoine Rayroux
Introduction
In an essay originally written in the late 1960s, Stanley Hoffmann described
European integration as a ‘Sisyphus’, arguing that it was a never-ending succession
of progresses, fiascos, relances and crises. To explain what kept integration alive,
he relied on the notion of constructive ambiguity, claiming that
There has always been most progress when the Europeans were able to preserve
a penumbra of ambiguity around their enterprise, so as to keep each one hoping
that the final shape would be closest to its own ideal, and to permit broad
coalitions to support the next moves. And yet there always comes a moment
when a terrible clarifier [e.g., a statesman, an event] calls for a lifting of
ambiguities, at which point deadlock is more likely than resolution. (1995: 131)
Because it is historically controversial, the European Union’s Common Security

and Defence Policy (CSDP)1 provides a vantage point to illustrate how constructive
ambiguity works in practice. Jolyon Howorth uses the concept to describe the
Franco-British misunderstanding that gave birth to CSDP during the St-Malo
bilateral summit in 1998: for the UK, CSDP ‘was an Alliance project involving
European instruments. For France, it was a European project embracing Alliance
capabilities’ (2004b: 175). And yet despite this initial ambiguity, CSDP has come
to life, as demonstrated by the 28 civilian and military interventions that have been
undertaken between 2003 and 2013.
Taking constructive ambiguity as a starting point, this contribution asks how
national actors speak about EU defence policy at home, and how they do so
in such a way that it is congruent with their national preferences. This notion
of constructive ambiguity can profitably be addressed in the context of Vivien
Schmidt’s discursive institutionalism (DI) (2008; see also Schmidt in this volume).
DI is a method of discourse analysis that sheds lights on the substantive content of
discourse (ideas), and the process of coordinating and communicating these ideas
1 CSDP is the denomination since the Lisbon treaty in 2009. I also use it to refer to
the pre-Lisbon period, although the former acronym ESDP appears in several quotations
in this chapter.
within the policy and the political spheres. My first goal in this contribution is to
highlight DI’s methodological strengths to study constructive ambiguity and the
evolution of national discourses with regard to CSDP. I will show that DI’s focus on
the role of agents and institutional contexts in discursive processes is particularly
relevant in the present case. My second goal is to provide an empirical illustration
of this dynamic of constructive ambiguity. To that end, I develop the cases of
French and Irish discourses on CSDP. France and Ireland are two contrasted cases,
which have opposite views and preferences about security policy. With a strong
military and imperial tradition, France has historically been a driver of CSDP,
while Ireland, which sees itself as a pacifist and neutral country, is a follower.
Also, the former’s public opinion is pro-CSDP, while the latter’s often raises the
spectre of a militarised Europe.2
The first part of this contribution deals with the theoretical and methodological
linkages that can be made between constructive ambiguity and discursive
institutionalism. It also briefly introduces the cases of France and Ireland to
illustrate these theoretical and methodological choices. The second part then goes
on with the empirical analysis of these two cases. The analysis demonstrates that the
countries have attributed different meanings to core EU strategic concepts such as
‘autonomy’, the ‘Petersberg tasks’ (that is, the range of possible EU peacekeeping
operations) or ‘effective multilateralism’. These different interpretations are very
much related to specific domestic institutional contexts, which are characterised
by exceptionalism in the French case, and neutrality in the Irish case. Before
concluding, the third part then discusses the results of this empirical analysis and
shows the benefits of a discursive institutionalist perspective.
Constructive Ambiguity and Discursive Institutionalism
Several scholars of the EU security and defence policy have relied on the notion
of constructive ambiguity in their works. François Heisbourg (2000) stressed the
role of constructive ambiguity as an unavoidable strategy to allow for limited
but genuine progress in CSDP, as exemplified by the lack of a clear strategic
purpose in the so-called ‘Headline Goal’ (the creation of an EU rapid reaction
force) or diverging national interpretations of the ‘Petersberg tasks’ attributed
to CSDP, from humanitarian interventions to more robust peace enforcement
missions. Other scholars argue that constructive ambiguity helps to reconcile
divergent national conceptions of the relationship between the EU and NATO
(e.g., Watanabe 2005). The 2003 European Security Strategy (ESS) has also been
taken as an illustration of how constructive ambiguity accounts for the absence
of clearly defined policy objectives (Toje 2008: 125). Key ESS concepts such as
‘preventive engagement’ or ‘effective multilateralism’, i.e., the strengthening of
2 According to a 2012 Eurobarometer survey (European Commission, Standard

Eurobarometer n. 78, November 2012), 80% of the French support CSDP, while only 50%
of the Irish do so.
Understanding ‘Constructive Ambiguity’ of European Defence Policy 229
multilateral partnerships for the conduct of EU foreign policies, are poorly defined
regarding objectives, means, instruments, which leaves room for interpretation
(Biscop 2005: viii).3
Theoretical Features of Discursive Institutionalism
Vivien Schmidt’s discursive institutionalism (DI) (2008) is a useful framework to

address constructive ambiguity and the way that national actors speak about CSDP.
DI offers a middle-ground perspective that emphasises several elements: 1) the
substantive content of discourse (ideas, i.e., what is said), but also the interactive
process of coordinating and communicating these ideas; 2) the contextual

dimension of discourse (where, when, how and why it is said), not just the textual
one; and 3) the role played by individual agents within discursive processes and
practices (who said what). DI’s added value, compared to other discourse analytical
approaches, ‘resides in the endeavour to connect the role of discourse to specific
institutional settings’ (Crespy 2014, forthcoming). On this aspect, DI is however
not very different from the focus on the ‘history’ of texts, that is, the contingent
background of social and political events in which discourses take place, which
is advocated by proponents of critical discourse analysis (see Aydın-Düzgit and
Wodak and Boukala in this volume).
DI offers two useful analytical distinctions. The first one concerns ‘background
ideational abilities’ vs. ‘foreground discursive abilities’ (Schmidt 2008: 313–17).
An agent’s background ideational abilities allow him to make sense of a given
institutional context. It refers to the set of ideational rules that are specific to this
context, which contribute to create and maintain institutions. Institutions, broadly
defined as a set of rules, norms, expectations and traditions (March and Olsen 1989:
5), have a constraining effect on discourses. But Schmidt claims that institutions are
also dynamic and contingent. Through their foreground discursive abilities, agents
have the ability to either change or maintain their institutions, as they can deliberately
or strategically communicate, think, speak and act outside them. Thus, institutions
have a constitutive role, but not a deterministic one (see also Lynggaard 2012).
To take the case of security and defence policies, background ideational
abilities can be traced back to national security cultures, a set of normative and
cognitive standards collectively attributed to a state’s identity and which shape
national security interests and policies (Katzenstein 1996; see also Schmidt 2008:
307). For European states, this national ‘we-ness’ is increasingly enmeshed with a
‘European’ dimension (or layer) that contributes to redefining national discourses
of foreign and security policies (Wæver 2005; Gariup 2009; Rogers 2009; Milzow
2012; see also Larsen in this volume). While poststructuralist discourse analysts
focus on these layered structures of discourse, the DI framework begs for an
empirical focus on national agents and how their discourse evolves within this
3 On the issue of ambiguity and CSDP-related discourses, see also Kutter’s

contribution in this volume.
changing context (for a discussion on agent/structure issues see Diez and Carta
and Morin in this volume).
The second useful analytical distinction offered by DI has to do with
coordinative vs. communicative aspects of discourse (Schmidt 2008: 309–13).
Both notions refer to the interactive process of conveying ideas, respectively
within the policy and the political sphere. The coordinative discourse concerns
the policy actors – e.g., civil servants, elected officials, experts – who elaborate
a discourse on policy priorities. These actors often join together in coalitions,
networks, epistemic communities that help to circulate and coordinate ideas.
For its part, the communicative discourse deals with the political sphere and the
process of informing and persuading the public with regard to these policy ideas.
It concerns those same policy actors, but also other actors such as the media,
activists, or public opinion in general.
An early attempt at applying these notions to European security and defence
policies is Jolyon Howorth’s work (2004a) on the role played by British, French
and German epistemic communities in the construction and communication of
a new CSDP discourse and paradigm in the 1990s and early 2000s. According
to him, discourse had a mixed effect on policy change, since the connection
between coordinative and communicative discourses on CSDP succeeded in the
French and German case, but failed in the British one, where discourse lacked
a communicative dimension congruent with public opinion. Howorth’s analysis
shows that communication is an important feature to be taken into consideration
in order to assess how nation-states speak about CSDP.
Methodological Concerns and the Case of France and Ireland
Following Katzenstein, many scholars (e.g., Meyer 2006; Mérand 2008) have
stressed the importance of domestic socio-historical and institutional contexts
in explaining national approaches to security and defence policy in Europe. For
example, France’s traditional image as a foreign policy and security actor is based
on several well-known features: a permanent seat at the UN Security Council, the
possession of nuclear weapons, a love-hate relationship with NATO, significant
involvements in UN diplomacy and peace operations since the 1990s, and the
endurance of a large network of alliances with former colonies. All these features
contribute to a French sense of grandeur and will to remain an important and
autonomous world power, which is often referred to as ‘French exceptionalism’
(Irondelle and Besancenot 2010; Drake 2010). Ireland, for its part, is a small
power located at the periphery of Europe, bereft of strong resources and important
economic or political interests to be defended. Its main security issue has long
been an ‘internal’ one, i.e., Northern Ireland. Externally, Ireland’s defence policy
is structured around the concepts of idealist and active neutrality, which translate
into an active engagement within UN peacekeeping operations since the 1960s,
the promotion of disarmament and non-proliferation issues, and a significant
contribution to overseas development aid and to anti-colonial foreign policies
(Doherty 2002). The official definition of neutrality is minimalist – military

non-alliance – but politically and culturally, it also has a normative and positive
definition, which emphasises domestic values that are highly valued by public
opinion (Agius and Devine 2011).
The two countries’ respective attitudes towards European integration also differ.
The French strategy for Europe is based on three elements: make the EU a powerful
world actor, led by a strong political leadership (favouring intergovernmentalism),
and endowed with a distinct socio-economic identity (Drake 2010). This strong
ambition is a translation at the EU level from the French politics of grandeur (see
also Schmidt 2007). Ireland also historically has a positive attitude towards the
EU, but one that is deeply practical and reactive, even ‘mercenary’ to some extent
(Holmes 2005). Ireland mainly sees the EU as a practical benefit, most notably in
terms of economic development (regarding agriculture or structural funds). In a
nutshell, France has a principled and proactive approach to Europe; Ireland has a
pragmatic and reactive one.
Table 12.1 below lists the primary documents analysed to address the national
discourse on CSDP in the case of France and Ireland. Contributions from political
authorities, representatives in parliament, military officers, and experts in epistemic
communities, are scrutinised (for a similar focus on national agents’ discourses
see Larsen in this volume). This large choice of actors is meant to provide an
encompassing view.
Table 12.1 Discourses analysed
France Ireland
– Livre blanc sur la défense (1994) – White Paper on Defence (2000)
– The French White Paper on – Strategy Statement 2008–2010
Defence and Security (2008) (2008)
Substantive
– French Presidency of the Council – Strategy Statement 2011–2014
discourse
of the EU – Work Program (2008) (2011)
– Program of the Irish Presidency
of the EU (2004)
– Parliamentary committees’ – Parliamentary committees’
debates (defence and armed forces, debates (foreign affairs, European
foreign affairs, European affairs) affairs) (2000–2011)
(2000–2011) – Military’s contributions in
Interactive – Military’s contributions in Defence Forces Review and Signal
discourse Revue défense nationale (formerly (2007–2011)
Défense nationale et sécurité – Contributions from security and
collective) (2007–2011) defence think tanks
– Contributions from security and
defence think tanks
The substantive discourse of French and Irish ideas on CSDP is examined

through official releases such as white papers, strategy statements, or EU work
programmes. In terms of coordinative discourse, looking at different kinds of
actors at the same time (elected officials, military officers, experts) allows for
analysing whether and how these actors assign meaning and interpret actions in a
similar way despite their own personal or professional backgrounds and priorities.
Also, the research is focused on discourses that have a communicative dimension
directed towards wider audiences. Minutes of parliamentary debates are usually
seen as a way to fuel public discussions. Think tanks mostly proceed through the
publication of working papers online, as well as the organisation of conferences.
And contributions of military officers in the specialised press have by nature a
communicative dimension as well. This communicative dimension is what makes
the methodological approach different from that of scholars like Davis Cross
(2011) or Howorth (2012), who mainly proceed through qualitative interviews with
national actors based in Brussels, in order to address dynamics of socialisation.
For the present empirical analysis, several caveats are in order. Firstly, Ireland
published its last White Paper on defence in 2000, while France’s latest one dates
from 2008. But Ireland has also published strategic statements for the periods
2008–2010 and 2011–2014, which have updated its White Paper.4 Secondly, the
French Assemblée nationale has a commission specifically dedicated to defence
and armed forces, which is not the case with the Irish Dáil Éireann, where defence
is handled by the committee on foreign affairs. Thirdly, the analysis of specialised
defence journals is limited to the years 2007 to 2011, since the online archives of
the Irish Defence Forces Review are not available prior to 2007. Also, the journal
Signal has been added in the Irish case, since the Defence Forces Review is an
official publication of the Department of Defence, which could be seen as having
a less independent view. Finally, it should also be noted that the empirical research
does not include the latest Irish presidency of the EU in early 2013.
Speaking EU Defence in France and Ireland
This section briefly illustrates the dynamics of constructive ambiguity through

the cases of France’s and Ireland’s discourses on CSDP. I first look at the main
substantive elements of these respective discourses. On the one side, French
and Irish ideas are totally congruent with their view on both security policy
and European integration. France has strong political ambitions, while Ireland
has a more pragmatic and reactive approach. On the other side, constructive
ambiguity matters, insofar as each country succeeds in presenting CSDP as
a natural continuation of its traditional priorities. Then, I go on to scrutinise
discursive practices, that is, how these core ideas on CSDP are coordinated and
communicated within the French and Irish policy and political spheres. Here, the
French discourse revolves around the preservation of exceptionalism, while the
Irish one aims at safeguarding neutrality.
4 In France, a new White Paper was released in 2013 but is not included in the present
analysis, which was completed before this release. In Ireland, a new White Paper is planned
for 2014.
Substantive Discourse
Since its inception, CSDP has been portrayed as a power multiplier for France,
allowing it to pursue strategic objectives it could no longer sustain on its own
(Treacher 2003). France has thus been at the forefront of EU security and defence
projects. The Europeanisation of the French security discourse actually preceded
the build-up of CSDP. In the 1994 White Paper, Prime Minister Edouard Balladur
already establishes a ‘common European defence’ as the top priority, not only to
bolster the EU’s political identity, but also to facilitate France’s defence policy in a
new environment characterised by the need for force projection and overseas crisis
management (France 1994: i–ii). From 1991 to 1996 the dominant paradigm of the
French defence establishment shifted from the concept of ‘national sanctuary’ to
that of ‘European commitment’ (Irondelle 2003: 215).
The French discourse contains an ambitious agenda for CSDP: autonomy
of decision-making and command structures (i.e., EU-led operations conducted
without the support of NATO), strong military capabilities, and common defence.
Key CSDP documents – the ESS in 2003, the Headline Goal in 2004 – have found
strong support among French decision-makers. And the White Paper on Defence
and National Security, published in 2008, further develops ‘France’s ambition
for Europe’ (France 2008b: 75–92), and confirms these priorities. Some of these
were also put forward during the French EU presidency in 2008, whose work
programme’s chapter on CSDP starts with the following sentence: ‘The French
Presidency’s main focus with regard to defence is strengthening the military
capabilities available in Europe’ (France 2008a: 23). For example, the White Paper
criticises the fact that EU Battle Groups (1,500-strong standby forces for rapid
reaction to crises), developed after 2004, seem to have replaced the initial Headline
Goal (60,000-strong intervention capacity including air and naval components,
deployable for a year). In the French perspective, ‘such Battle Groups do not account
for all of the Union’s operational needs. … It is clearly not enough to possess these
forces and make them coherent’ (France 2008b: 83). France, to summarise, sees
CSDP as a means for greater national and European political power.
Ireland’s attitude towards CSDP is cautious and ambiguous, though not hostile.
Along with membership of the NATO Partnership for Peace in 1999, adherence
to CSDP has contributed to restrict the definition of neutrality to non-participation
in a military alliance through a common defence clause (Doherty 2002). As
stated in the first Irish White Paper on Defence released in 2000, ‘participation
in Petersberg tasks [i.e., EU crisis management operations] will not affect our
longstanding policy of neutrality’ (Ireland 2000: 20). National defence documents
recall that Ireland’s principal goal is ‘to participate in multinational peace support,
crisis management and humanitarian relief operations in support of the United
Nations and under UN mandate, including regional security missions authorised
by the UN’ (Ireland 2008: 7). The acknowledged and reasserted primacy of the
UN Charter echoes the content of the ESS according to which ‘the United Nations
Security Council has the primary responsibility for the maintenance of peace and
security’ (European Union 2003: 9).
It was during the Irish EU Presidency in 2004 that the most significant EU
document about this issue – ‘EU-UN cooperation in military crisis management
operations’ – was adopted. Looking at the Irish Presidency work programme
confirms national preferences: CSDP and military issues are treated under
the wider issue of external relations (also including trade, humanitarian and
development policies), and Ireland recalls that ‘it will focus in particular on
effective multilateralism and EU-UN relations’ (Ireland 2004: 25). Ireland also
stresses that ‘the development of civilian capabilities will be a particular priority.
If the Union’s operations are to contribute to long-term stability and security, it
needs to look beyond solely military interventions’ (Ireland 2004: 30). Following
the same trend, Ireland permanently commits 850 soldiers – 10% of its available
armed forces – to a UN standby arrangement system whose purpose is to have
available troops ready for peace support operations. National commitment to the
EU’s Headline Goal is met under this arrangement. Also, the country has taken an
active stance in the development of the EU Battle Groups concept, in particular
with ‘like-minded states’ in the Nordic Battle Group and the German-Austrian
Battle Group (Ireland 2011: 14). In the Irish view, these Battle Groups could be
made available for UN rapid reaction needs. To sum up, Ireland sees CSDP as a
practical tool for peace operations.
Interactive Discourse
In the following paragraphs, I compare France’s and Ireland’s coordinative and

communicative discourse. To do so, I look at the structure of their respective
defence epistemic communities, the content of their parliamentary debates on
CSDP-related issues, and the nature of contributions written by military officers
in the specialised press.
The French defence epistemic community is well structured around a
network of independent or institutional think tanks and research centres, such
as the Institut français des relations internationales, the Institut des relations
internationales et stratégiques or the Fondation pour la recherche stratégique.
Each employs researchers that specialise on Europe (some of them former military
officers), and each houses research units devoted to European and transatlantic
security. At the governmental level, the Ministry of Defence’s Délégation pour
les affaires stratégiques is also interesting, as it commissions research projects
to the aforementioned think tanks, and works with several other institutional
partners. Among them is the Institut de recherche stratégique de l’Ecole militaire
(the research centre of the French military academy), which is closely related
to the French military staff, and has a research unit dealing with ‘European and
transatlantic security’. It was headed by General Jean-Paul Perruche, previously
Director General of the EU Military Staff, and is now chaired by General Maurice
de Langlois, a former deputy military representative of France at the EU Military
Committee. Also important is the Institut des hautes études de défense nationale
(IHEDN), whose purpose is to train civilian and military officials and to promote
defence-related knowledge, with an increasingly international and European focus.
IHEDN is one of the founding members of the European Security and Defence
College, a virtual CSDP training school for officials, where it is in charge of the
‘high-level’ course, the college’s most important programme.
By contrast, the Irish defence epistemic community is very small, with only
few sites where decision-makers and experts have the possibility to exchange
ideas. A strong UN focus remains, for example with the UN training school of
the Irish Military College. This training school includes an ‘international military
observer and staff officers’ course, which is designed for international students and
officers, and whose programme is built in coordination with the UN Department
for Peacekeeping Operations. There is, however, no teaching institution similar
to the French IHEDN to train officials on CSDP issues. One influential think
tank deserves attention: The independent Institute of International and European
Affairs, with a branch devoted to security and defence policy, chaired by Irish
scholars Patrick Keatinge and Ben Tonra, as well as by H.E. Marie Cross, former
Irish ambassador to the EU Political and Security Committee. This branch has been
proactive in raising awareness and public debates about CSDP and Irish neutrality.
For example, it published two reports in 2009, prior to the second referendum
on the Lisbon Treaty: ‘Making sense of European Security and Defence Policy:
Ireland and the Lisbon Treaty’, and ‘European Security and Defence Policy and
the Lisbon Treaty’. Their content is clearly pedagogical, aiming at clarifying what
CSDP is about – ‘to deal with the challenges of international crisis management’
(Keatinge and Tonra 2009) – explaining the EU legal guarantees obtained by
Ireland, and ‘dispelling some myths about EU defence’ (Keohane 2009). This
communicative effort developed to counter a strong mobilisation that emerged
before the first referendum, carried by civil society movements such as the Peace
and Neutrality Alliance or Action from Ireland, opposed to CSDP.
In general, the French defence epistemic community has a much more
important focus on CSDP than the Irish one. A similar trend can be identified if
one looks at parliamentary debates. In France, CSDP is a topic discussed in three
different commissions: defence and armed forces, foreign affairs and European
affairs. Discussions cover a broad range of issues, as demonstrated by the variety
of commission hearings: members of ministries or ministers themselves, experts,
representatives of defence industrial firms, chiefs of staff from different armed
services … . A comprehensive analysis of debates in the years 2000–2011 shows
that MPs express a growing dissatisfaction with CSDP. From 2000 to 2007, the
dominant discourse is rather enthusiastic and ambitious: discussions stress the
progress made by CSDP and its potential to balance NATO. The emphasis is put
on the need for a powerful Europe endowed with significant military capabilities.
For example: ‘The construction of a Europe of defence rests upon the principle of
a certain autonomy vis-à-vis NATO and the American ally. [… But] we should not
impose the vision of a “Europe puissance”’ (Assemblée nationale 2003).
However, in 2008–2009, the discourse progressively turns more critical, as the
first CSDP interventions overseas lack ambition, industrial defence cooperation
mostly happens at a bilateral level, and French MPs lament the fact that CSDP
deals exclusively with overseas operations, not the defence of Europe. Several
debates even suggest that the existence of a European defence should be called
into question, with France’s return to NATO command structures and the absence
of new operations, cooperation, and European identity: ‘Europe of defence has
broken down, and its achievements are particularly poor. … And regarding
European states’ reactions, let’s face it: defence is a priority for none of them’
(Assemblée nationale 2009).
In Ireland, also in contrast with France, the Parliament plays an important
role in defence policy and overseas military interventions. The Irish legal system
functions according to a logic of ‘triple lock’: any deployment of more than 12
soldiers must be UN-mandated, decided by the government, and approved by
parliament.5 Given that there is no standing committee on defence, the prevalent

topics discussed in Parliament concern foreign affairs: overseas development
aid and development cooperation come first, followed by humanitarian crises,
and the role of Irish NGOs. Hearings very often welcome NGO representatives
and members of Irish Aid – the governmental aid and development agency. This
humanitarian focus consistently shows through discussions that deal with CSDP.
For example, MPs often criticise the non-use of the EU Battle Groups as a rapid
response during humanitarian crises:
There is always the idea of how one can have a reserve peace corps which would
be available to do some practical work. … It is something the EU is developing
in terms of civilian crisis management functions. For example, the unfortunately
named Battle Group, involves having 1,500 military personnel available to go
into a situation at the behest of the UN Secretary General if something happens.
(Minister for Foreign Affairs Brian Cowen, in Dáil Éireann 2004)
Regarding CSDP, it is also noteworthy that over time, neutrality has become a
non-issue. Debates in the early 2000s showed a significant concern in this regard:
The insertion of an optional Article 5 clause in an attempt to create a mutual
defence union in the European Union is not what the EU is about. … This
country is not sitting back and allowing developments to take place which are
inimical to our interests or inconsistent with our foreign policy tradition. (Dáil
Éireann 2000)
However, such debates have almost disappeared since then, and neutrality was
even not much discussed during the Lisbon Treaty negotiations. Irish political
parties, apart from Sinn Féin, all share a minimalist view of military neutrality
(Devine 2009). These evolutions confirm that CSDP remains a secondary concern
for Irish elected officials.
Public officials, however, are not the only relevant actors worth looking at
when studying coordinative and communicative discourses on security. To be
more exhaustive, it is also relevant to scrutinise military officers. Here, I do
5 However, the parliamentary ‘lock’ is in practice significantly weakened by

the ‘whip’ and majoritarian system, making parliamentary ratification of an overseas
intervention a formality.
so by providing a short overview of articles published in specialised defence

journals. In France, the Revue défense nationale (previously Défense nationale
et sécurité collective) is the most important source in that regard. The Revue
défense nationale is a monthly publication whose purpose is to address political,
economic, scientific issues from the perspective of defence. The journal welcomes
contributions from the military, diplomats, politicians, journalists, experts, and its
editorial board aims at ‘hosting the revitalised strategic thinking, which foremost
applies to the Europe of defence, or even the defence of Europe when time will
come’. Many contributions confirm this editorial commitment: from 2007 to 2009,
there is hardly an issue that does not evoke CSDP, and two issues per year are
specifically dedicated to Europe with dossiers entitled ‘CSDP [ESDP] strategic
watch’. In total, out of 664 articles published during these three years, 139 (one
out of five) deal directly with CSDP. Contributions from military officers strongly
lean towards the ambition for a strong ‘Europe puissance’ (power Europe), and
the criticism of those who refuse to endorse it: ‘Europe is in search of itself. … An
ESDP worthy of what the EU represents would require that we stop playing games
and show a determination that would be neither ephemeral nor merely verbal’
(Lieutenant-colonel Magnuszewki 2008: 100).
As in Parliament, disenchantment and criticisms have grown after 2009. For
example: ‘We need to establish the political, strategic and security bases of a real
political and strategic Union, unless we wish to maintain the Union in its status of
intermediate normative power subject to the constraints of NATO’s pre-eminence
on the European soil’ (Former air force officer Cardot 2010).
This disenchantment is also symbolised by a significant drop in the number
of contributions devoted to Europe, and a growing indifference. The journal only
dedicated 36 articles out of 442 (less than one out of ten) to CSDP in 2010–2011.
In Ireland, there is no equivalent to the French Revue défense nationale, in
terms of content, scope and influence. However, both the official Defence Forces
Review and the independent Signal (journal of the Representative Association of
Commissioned Officers) offer interesting clues with regard to the main concerns of
the Irish military. The Defence Forces Review is an annual publication, edited by
the public relations service of the armed forces, and circulated within Irish defence
forces, universities and libraries, and embassies. According to its editorial board, it
serves to ‘provide a forum for contributors to raise current issues, provoke thought
and generate discussion across the wider Defence Community’. Signal is bi-
annual and serves a very similar purpose, also welcoming contributions from both
political authorities, military, experts, etc. However, it resembles more a magazine
and is less academic in content and spirit. From 2007 to 2011, out of 63 articles
published in the Defence Forces Review, only one deals with CSDP, and does so
in the larger framework of non-UN peacekeeping operations, whereas 16 articles
out of a total of 90 (almost one out of five) address EU issues in Signal. In both
journals, the military focuses foremost on the evolutions of UN peace operations
and the difficult compatibility between military peacekeeping and aid policy. For
example, an article on regional peacekeeping operations claims that
Until it evolves further the organisation [the EU] will not be in the position
to truly undertake the role of a global player in conflict resolution. … Many
parties to conflict in Africa and Asia view the EU as an agent of colonialism
and are sceptical about its true intentions in conflict intervention. It is this
point of legitimacy that underlines the preference for a UN security presence.
(Commandant Hearns 2008: 112)
In Signal most concerns also revolve around the challenges facing the
regionalisation of peacekeeping and UN reforms. Participation in EU missions
(e.g., in Chad) is often addressed in such a perspective: ‘The fact that Irish troops
are operating under a NATO flag in Kosovo and under an EU flag on a United
Nations Chapter 7 peace enforcement mission in Chad is quite a radical change
from the more static large scale deployments of the past’ (Chief of staff Dermot
Earley, in Kavanagh 2008: 10)
Here again, it seems as though Irish actors regard CSDP as one framework
among several (UN, NATO, OSCE …) where traditional peacekeeping policies
are pursued. Ireland’s view of CSDP is more pragmatic than the French one,
although it is also a way to reaffirm the country’s commitment to active neutrality
through peace operations.
The Merits of Discursive Institutionalism
Table 12.2 below summarises the main findings of the French and Irish discourses.
Table 12.2 Constructive ambiguity and the national discourse
France Ireland
Aspects of
constructive Importance Importance
ambiguity in in national in national
CSDP discourse Meaning discourse Meaning
Autonomous EU Autonomous
policy (including EU instruments
‘Autonomy’ Strong Weak
a common (no common
defence clause) defence clause)
Lower-
Higher-end
end tasks
tasks (peace
(peacekeeping,
‘Petersberg enforcement,
Strong Strong humanitarian
tasks’ military
and civilian
capabilities,
capabilities,
Headline Goal)
Battle Groups)
Effectiveness Multilateralism
‘Effective
Weak (partnership with Strong (under UN
multilateralism’
UN, NATO …) authority)
France and Ireland offer a very different interpretation of all three elements
of CSDP selected for the analysis: autonomy, Petersberg tasks, effective
multilateralism. Seen from that perspective, there is little doubt that constructive
ambiguity succeeds in the way that both France and Ireland are able to frame and
interpret elements of CSDP that best fit their needs, to use them to promote their
defence agenda in a legitimate and ‘European’ way, and to present CSDP as a
natural continuation of their preferences. However, how does DI help us to grasp
this comparison between France and Ireland? Two observations can be made here.
The first one concerns the agents’ background ideational and foreground
discursive abilities. The analysis demonstrates that each national discourse is

consistent, endowed with clearly observable core features, despite professional or
organisational preferences of the actors involved. This is congruent with Schmidt’s
idea that agents’ practical and taken-for-granted social dispositions and meanings
remain central. These deeply rooted features still revolve around neutrality for Irish
actors and exceptionalism for French ones. The interesting added value of DI rests
within the notion of agents’ foreground discursive abilities. It is only through this
second notion that one may understand how constructive ambiguity works, that is,
how national actors are able to pursue their national policies while incrementally
and strategically giving them a European flavour. France and Ireland provide a
robust confirmation of this analytical distinction, as they both include ‘Europe’ in
their discourses, but in a different way.
The second observation concerns coordinative and communicative discourses.
Here, the empirical analysis shows that France and Ireland follow different paths.
The challenges of coordination are higher in France, and those of communication
more central in Ireland. In France, many actors are involved – e.g., three
parliamentary commissions, companies and industrial lobbies, a wide range of
think tanks, etc. – a majority of whom have been Europeanised since the late
1990s (Irondelle 2003). As a consequence, most of the discourse centres on the
coordinative dimension, where specialised policy actors (public officials, military
officers, experts) speak with each other in different settings – think tanks or the
Revue Défense Nationale. In Ireland, there are fewer issues, actors and interests at
play, and coordination is easier. However, on the communicative side, the discourse
faces more challenges, since the issue of neutrality remains very sensitive in public
opinion. Efforts to communicate about what CSDP is about – often in an explicitly
pedagogical way – feature prominently. In that sense, it is not surprising that the
magazine Signal talks more about Europe than does the more academic Defence
Forces Review. For example, a 2009 issue of Signal on the Lisbon Treaty includes
interviews with scholars Keohane and Tonra, and also publishes a copy of the
protocol annexed to the treaty in which Ireland obtained the legal guarantee to
safeguard its neutral status.6
6 In this regard, it is also interesting to note that this ‘Irish defence protocol’ is annexed
to an academic textbook on Irish foreign policy recently published (Tonra, Kennedy, Doyle
et al. 2012).
Thus, the comparison between France and Ireland confirms DI’s claim that
it is necessary to take the institutional context into consideration in order to
understand how the national discourse is built, coordinated and communicated.
On the one hand, the formal institutional context matters: in Ireland, the fact that
the constitution requires a parliamentary vote on overseas military operations, and
a popular referendum on EU treaty changes, necessitates a greater communication
effort on the part of foreign policy decision-makers. In France, there are fewer such
concerns, as the executive branch has much more latitude with regard to security
and European policies. On the other hand, informal institutional structures, norms,
rules, also matter, as evidenced by the ongoing pre-eminence of France’s and

Ireland’s security cultures: exceptionalism and neutrality.
Finally, the combination of constructive ambiguity and DI is also insightful
regarding the issue of change in security discourse and policies. It offers an
interesting alternative to the classical view that there is either no change at all
or progressive convergence towards a common model (Gross 2009). The case
of France and Ireland’s discourse on CSDP demonstrates that there is indeed an
incremental change at the national level, in the sense that both countries adapt their
thinking to Europe, but this change tends to reaffirm national specificities more
than it erases them. As a consequence, these national specificities are always likely
to show up in case of an event or crisis which, to recall Stanley Hoffmann’s initial
statement in this contribution, acts as a ‘terrible clarifier’ that lifts ambiguities.
Such examples of events include, on the French side, the decision taken by the
executive and Nicolas Sarkozy to join NATO command structures in 2009, which
has been seen as a sign of French disenchantment towards CSDP, and a will to
adopt a more pragmatic and balanced approach that would preserve France’s global
ambitions (Irondelle 2008). In Ireland, the inclusion of an EU common defence
clause in the Lisbon Treaty, whereby member states now have an obligation of aid
and assistance if one of them is the victim of armed aggression, was considered
as one of the main reasons for the ‘No’ vote to the first referendum on the treaty
(O’Brennan 2009). This obligation does not refer to the use of military force,
as does the NATO equivalent (Article 5), but it is a considerable move towards
common defence. If further steps were to be taken in that direction, that could
prove a central challenge for Ireland’s neutrality.
Conclusion
Using discursive institutionalism as an analytical framework, this chapter has

addressed how national actors articulate discourses on EU defence policy at home.
DI stresses the role of domestic institutional contexts and agents in the expression,
coordination and communication of discourses. In so doing, it shows how national
actors are able to present CSDP as a natural continuation of their security policies,
which is congruent with their national preferences.
Empirically, a comparative analysis of French and Irish substantive and

interactive discourses on CSDP has offered a robust confirmation of this dynamic
of constructive ambiguity. The comparison demonstrates that overall, ‘Europe’
and CSDP tend to have a much more powerful and symbolic meaning for France,
vs. a pragmatic meaning for Ireland. France aims at making the EU a political actor
on the world stage, while Ireland mainly sees it as an organisational framework
for the conduct of peace operations under the authority of the United Nations.
The ambiguity of core concepts that are enacted in official EU documents like
the European Security Strategy contributes to such different views of what the
EU security policy is about.

Constructive ambiguity of CSDP offers the possibility of a limited
and incremental discourse and policy change at the national level: French
exceptionalism is normalised or Europeanised, and Irish neutrality is eroded,
but they remain core features of both countries’ defence policies. In so doing,
constructive ambiguity keeps European defence alive. It does not however
transform these dominant national paradigms, at least in the field of security and
defence, and neither does it foster convergence towards a common discourse on
CSDP. For that to happen, the intergovernmental CSDP would have to turn into a
common policy with more constraining institutional rules, which is not likely to
happen any time soon.
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Chapter 13
EU Leaders’ Ideas and Discourse
in the Eurozone Crisis:
A Discursive Institutionalist Analysis
Vivien A. Schmidt
Introduction
The EU’s sovereign debt crisis stems not just from the economics, including the
volatility of the financial markets in response to perceptions of countries’ high
deficits, excessive debts, declining growth and loss of competitiveness. It is also
a result of the politics of the crisis, in particular with regard to EU leaders’ ideas
about the crisis and how they have communicated (or not) about them to national
publics and to financial actors. With regard to the communication alone, EU
leaders are effectively engaged in three different sets of discursive interactions
with potentially conflicting messages. EU leaders speak to one another in one
way in the ‘coordinative discourse’ of summits and EU Council meetings as they
debate and negotiate agreements behind closed doors. They speak in another
way in their ‘communicative discourse’ to ‘the markets’ as they seek to convince
the main financial market players of their crisis solutions. And they speak in yet
another way in their communicative discourse to ‘the people’, as they seek to
legitimate their EU-level decisions generally to their national constituencies.
There are also feedback loops, in the ways in which EU member-state leaders’
ideas and discourse about the crisis and its solution are generated not just at the
supranational EU level but also, and more significantly, in national contexts.
The main actors are the EU member-state leaders who engage in the
intergovernmental negotiation of solutions in EU summits and Council meetings
at the same time that they are the prime communicators to the financial markets
and to their national publics. EU institutional leaders have also been key to the
generation of ideas for solutions, however, although not always as central to their
communication. The European Central Bank (ECB) has been a major player in this
game, in particular with regard to coordination with other EU leaders and (subtle)
communication to the markets. The European Commission is also an important
actor, in particular with regard to its new institutional role of vetting member-
state budgets as well as its periodic assessments of the state of EU member states’
economies. But with regard to the overall crisis, although it has occasionally
proposed remedies, the Commission has had little effective voice, and has only
rarely been heard above the cacophony of EU member-state leaders’ voices. This
is in great contrast to its role in other areas, such as in international trade (see
De Ville and Orbie, this volume). Other actors with varying degrees of input
include the think tanks, experts and interest groups involved in the coordinative
discourse of policy construction; the top private banks, investors, firms and ratings
agencies also engaged in the communicative discourse with the markets; and the
opinion leaders, mass media and social movements engaged in the communicative
discourse with the public. Citizens per se are less directly involved because they
have little power and no purchase over the coordinative negotiations carried out in
their name by their elected leaders, although their opinions, as expressed in polls,
surveys and votes, and their practices, as evidenced through buying and selling
of shares, spending and savings patterns, protests, strikes and demonstrations,
naturally make themselves felt in the communicative sphere.
This chapter uses ‘discursive institutionalism’ as its framework for analysis.
This approach tends to be very open to a wide range of ways of analysing
the substantive content of ideas and the interactive processes of discourse in
institutional context (Schmidt 2002, 2006, 2008, 2011; see also Campbell and
Pedersen 2011). With regard to the analysis of ideas, it has much in common
with approaches such as the ‘ideational turn’ (Blyth 1997; see also Beland and
Cox 2011) and the ‘référentiel’ school (Jobert 1989; Muller 1995) in comparative
politics; with ‘constructivism’ in International Relations (e.g., Finnemore 1996;
Rosamond, this volume); and with a range of framing and agenda-setting
approaches in policy analysis (e.g., Stone 1988; Baumgartner and Jones 1993; Rein
and Schön 1994). Discursive institutionalism also engages with poststructuralist
and postmodernist approaches (e.g., Foucault 2008) when it comes to discourse
as the embodiment of ideas, including critical discourse analysis (De Ville and
Orbie, this volume; Diez, this volume). With regard to the interactive processes
of discourse, moreover, discursive institutionalism builds on approaches that
emphasise the ‘coordinative discourse’ of policy construction via discourse
coalitions (Sabatier 1993; Hajer 1993; Lehmbruch 2001), epistemic communities
(e.g., Haas 1992), and knowledge regimes (e.g., Fischer 1993; Campbell and
Pedersen 2011) as well as those concerned with the ‘communicative discourse’
between elites and the public through deliberation and contestation with mass
publics, the media, electorates, social movements and the everyday public (e.g.,
Habermas 1989; Mutz et al. 1996).
The chapter uses a number of these methodological approaches as it examines
the political dimension of the Eurozone’s economic crisis. In so doing, the chapter
also points to the scope and limits of such approaches, as it shows which aspects
of the crisis a given approach best illuminates, which it may ignore or obscure as
a result of its methodological focus, and with which other approaches it is more
complementary or contradictory in its interpretation of the crisis.
The first part of the chapter explores the substantive content of ideas and
discourse regarding the Eurozone crisis, examining their different forms, types
and levels of generalisation, as well as the differences in rates and mechanisms of
change. The second part considers the agents and their discursive interactions in
EU Leaders’ Ideas and Discourse in the Eurozone Crisis 247
the processes of policy coordination and political communication. Issues related to

the institutional context will be considered throughout, both in terms of the formal
institutions that make for a multi-level set of interactions – international institutions
and global markets, EU institutions and actors, European and national publics –
and of the informal rules that give agents’ ideas and discursive practices meaning
in these contexts. What actually happened is naturally also part of the analysis,
because whether and how ideas and discourse lead to collective action help in the
assessment of the credibility and feasibility of the ideas and discourse as well as of
the intentions of the agents (see Schmidt 2008, 2011). Empirical examples of EU
institutional and member-state ideas and discourse will be provided throughout

in illustration, with those of the Germans and French most prominent, as the two
main generators of ideas and discourse.
The Content of Ideas and Discourse about the Eurozone Crisis
The Eurozone crisis has generated a wide range of ideas conveyed by EU

leaders’ discourse that come in many different forms – frames, narratives,
stories, memories, discursive struggles and argumentative practices; two types of
arguments – cognitive and normative; and three levels of generality – policies,
programmes and philosophies. These may have different rates and mechanisms
of change (or persistence) that in turn affect problems with finding jointly agreed
solutions to the crisis.
Forms and Types of Ideas and Discourse about the Crisis
The Eurozone crisis has been conceptualised and articulated in many different
ways (see Table 13.1 below). Discourse surrounding the Eurozone crisis contains
rival ‘frames’ with different guideposts for knowledge, persuasion and action
(Rein and Schön 1994) or ‘frames of reference’ that serve to orient differing
understandings and actions (Jobert 1989; Muller 1995). Such frames largely pit
those who explain the crisis in terms of excessive private sector debt, insufficient
regulation of the global financial markets, and the need for expansionary state
intervention to rescue countries in distress against those who understand the
crisis instead in terms of excessive public sector debt in peripheral countries, the
failure of states to rein in their finances, and the need for budgetary austerity and
structural reform for countries in trouble (see also De Ville and Orbie, this volume;
Rosamond, this volume). While the latter are generally termed ‘neoliberals’ or
‘ordoliberals’ (read neoliberals with rules, a primarily German approach to
economics – see Mirowski and Plehwe 2009; Ptak 2009), the former are often
called ‘neo-Keynesians’, although ‘non-neoliberals’ might be a more accurate
term, since it would encompass the much wider range of economists who frame
the crisis in this way but are not strictly speaking Keynesians.
Table 13.1 Ideas in the Eurozone discourse
Ideas in
Discourse Empirical Examples
Neoliberalism (too much public sector debt, need
budgetary austerity & structural reform) vs.
Frames Neo-Keynesianism (too much private sector debt,
too little global regulation, need expansionary state
intervention)
French economic governance vs. German ordoliberal
Form of Narratives
policies
Ideas
Stories ‘Germans who save’ vs. French solidarity
Collective
Germany’s hyperinflation of 1923, not 1931 depression
Memories
Discursive Battles to establish neoliberal vs. neo-Keynesian
Struggles problem definitions
Reference to principles of neo-classical economics vs.
Cognitive
Types of neo-Keynesian economics
Arguments Neoliberal appeal to ‘moral hazards’ and castigation of
Normative
Greek profligacy and PIIGS vs. neo-Keynesian solidarity
The crisis-related discourse also contains rival ‘narratives’ that shape

understandings of events (Roe 1994; Bal 2009), including the realisation that this is
a crisis, and whether it is surmountable or signals decline (Della Sala 2012). Thus,
in accounts of how the crisis was being addressed, the narrative of French President
Sarkozy tended to emphasise his country’s long-standing political leadership in
the EU and the triumph of its long-thwarted plans for gouvernance économique,
without mentioning the neoliberal content of that economic governance or the
reductions in sovereignty that it implied. German Chancellor Merkel’s narrative
instead focused on her own country’s more collective (or partnership) approach
to leadership, on her ‘ordoliberal’ solutions (rule-based liberalism focused
on stability) to the crisis, and the need to deepen the federalism Germany has
always supported, without mentioning the acquiescence to French gouvernance
économique (Crespy and Schmidt 2012).
In addition, there are different stories about the crisis, depending upon the
actors involved, as in the case of the financial crisis, where politicians, technocrats
and bankers all had contrasting stories of why the crisis occurred (Froud et al.
2012). In the case of the Eurozone crisis in its early days, the story on the German
side was all about the profligate Greeks versus the ‘good Germans’ who save,
whereas on the Greek side it was about arrogant Germans who refuse to do what’s
right. For the French, moreover, the story was initially about the importance of
solidarity whereas later, as Sarkozy increasingly acceded to German demands for
austerity, it was focused on stability (Crespy and Schmidt 2012).
‘Collective memories’ that frame action (Rothstein 2005) also play a role.
Most notable is its influence in the Germans’ story, which consistently evokes
the 1923 hyperinflation as justification for austerity policies and for opposition to
the European Central Bank to act as a lender of last resort, to buy member-state
debt or to engage in quantitative easing (printing money), as the Federal Reserve
Bank has been doing periodically since 2008. But the question never asked is why
they return to this memory rather than the depression of 1931, with its massive
deflation that made possible Hitler’s rise (Wolf 2011).
The ‘discursive struggles’ that establish problem definitions, define ideas and
create shared meanings on which people act (Stone 1988) are also an important
part of the development of frames, stories and narratives. These can be read in
the op-ed pages of major newspapers across Europe and on online websites, as
think tanks, experts and opinion leaders propose different interpretations of and
solutions to the crisis, divided in particular by neoliberal versus neo-Keynesian (or
non-neoliberal) framing of the crisis. But they can also be seen in the parliamentary
debates in any given member state (Wendler 2012).
The discourse about the Eurozone crisis also involves different types of
‘argumentative practices’ which sit at the centre of the policy process (Fischer
1993), and can be usefully divided for analytic purposes into cognitive and
normative arguments. The Eurozone crisis discourse has had its share of cognitive
arguments that offer guidelines for political action justified through reference to
(social) scientific principles and interpretations, often with interest-based logics
and invocations of necessity (see Hall 1993; Muller 1995; Schmidt 2002, 2008), as
neo-Keynesians and other non-neoliberals, neoliberals and ordoliberals developed
analyses based on their different frames. But the crisis discourse also had normative
arguments that attach values to action and serve to legitimise ideas (Schmidt 2002:
213–17; Finnemore 1996). Most of the economists’ neoliberal cognitive arguments
cited the principles of neo-classical economics, with normative arguments that
invoked the virtues of belt-tightening and the ‘moral hazards’ that would come from
countries believing they would be bailed out for their bad debts and overspending.
German arguments, similarly, mixed cognitive assessments that blamed the crisis
on excessive public spending with normative condemnation, as they castigated the
Greeks’ public profligacy and then extended this to the other ‘PIIGS’ (Portugal,
Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain). The response from neo-Keynesians (and other
non-neoliberals) challenged the argument’s cognitive justification, since the other
countries were not guilty of the Greek under-reporting and over-spending of public
budgets, and argued instead that Germany had a normative obligation to help
because (cognitively) Germany’s surplus-producing, export-oriented economy
profited greatly from the deficit-spending South.
Levels of Generalisation in Ideas and Discourse about the Crisis
Ideas and discourse related to the Eurozone crisis also come at different levels
of generalisation, with differences in the timing and mechanisms of change.
These include the philosophies at the deepest level of ideas and discourse, that
also tend to be the slowest to evolve; the programmatic ideas and discourse at an
intermediate level that may involve sudden revolutionary change or incremental
evolution; and the policy ideas and discourse at the most immediate level that are
the quickest to change (Schmidt 2008). All three are important for understanding
why EU leaders have encountered such great difficulties speaking to the markets
and to the people, let alone to one another (see Table 13.2).
Table 13.2 Different levels of generality of ideas in discourse and rates/

mechanisms of change
Forms of Examples of Ideas

Levels of Ideas in in Eurozone Crisis Rates of Mechanisms
Generality Discourse Discourse Change of Change
EU skirts no-bailout
clause with Greek loan
at market rates, for EFSF
interprets contagion
as ‘unnatural disaster’ Radical or
(04/2010); incremental
ECB buys debt on Fast when ‘windows
Policy secondary mkts of opportunity’
Policy ideas innovations (04/2010), offers low- open
and agendas cost loans to banks
(12/2011), pledges
debt buy-up w/o limit
(10/2012)
Alternative ideas
Incremental if
not taken up, No immediate
or when ideas
e.g., Eurobonds, effect
adopted
project-bonds
Post-war neo-Keynesian
‘Big bang’
paradigm; post-1980s
radical
Kuhnian neoliberal paradigm;
Revolutionary succession of
paradigms 2008–9 challenge
one paradigm
by neo-Keynesian
by another
Programmatic stimulus fails
ideas Neoliberal programme
Incremental
Rival challenged by neo-
through
research Keynesian alternatives;
Evolutionary layering, drift,
programmes/ begins to have effect
reinterpretation,
traditions spring 2012 with calls
bricolage
for ‘Growth Pact’
Ideology, ECB & bankers blinded Bring to fore or
Foucault by ordoliberal, anti- de-emphasise
‘archeology’ inflation philosophy Very slow different
Philosophical
German ordoliberal evolution values/
ideas
‘Webs of ‘culture of stability’ philosophies
belief’ vs. French ‘culture within cultural
of the state’ repertoire
Philosophical ideas
At the deepest level of generalisation are the worldviews, ideologies, philosophical
principles, public philosophies, normative values or discourses that underpin the
core understandings of individuals and society about how the world works and
what is therefore appropriate action in the world (e.g., Weir 1992; Berman 1998:
21; Campbell 1998; Foucault 2000). These are for the most part portrayed as the
slowest to change, mainly through evolutionary processes, helping to explain how
it is that EU leaders have had such different perspectives on the crisis and have
therefore failed over and over again to reach agreement.
A Foucauldian poststructuralist approach, for example, by explaining the

problem in terms of the underlying worldview of the ‘subjects’ to the discourse
(Foucault 2000), enables us to get away from seeing only interest-based calculation,
intentional blindness or ‘bloody mindedness’ on the part of EU leaders. It focuses
attention instead on the ‘archeology’ of the discourse, or how EU leaders are
caught by the dominant discourse of their culture or their institution – in this
case by ordoliberalism (Foucault 2004). This applied well to the bankers of the
ECB up until recently and still largely does to the economists and bankers of the
Bundesbank, so immersed in the discourse and practice of ordoliberalism and its
anti-inflation philosophy (MacNamara 1999) that they had long been deaf to pleas
to promote growth, and seemingly ignored the dangers of deflation. This is about
the hold of old ideas that can’t be dislodged because they are so fundamental to
actors’ understanding of events – and themselves.
What makes this deep-seated philosophy even more apparent is that although
German leaders (or at least those of the majority) share the underlying ordoliberal
philosophy, for obvious reasons French leaders do not. Here, Foucauldian ‘genealogy’
or investigations of the slowly evolving ‘webs of belief’ (Bevir and Rhodes 2003)
of these countries’ differing traditions of economic governance could help further
elucidate their philosophies. For the Germans, the ordoliberal economic ‘Culture of
Stability’ has been a ruling idea since the post-war period, reinforced by collective
memories of the 1920s hyperinflation. It remains the principal point of reference
today, used not only in German leaders’ speeches but also in parliamentary debates,
especially by the conservative majority (Wendler 2012). For the French, by contrast,
the political ‘Culture of the State’ has been a deeply embedded philosophical idea
since Louis XIV. This is despite the fact that it has had only periodic concretisations
as a major force in directing the economy, such as during the Second Empire of
Louis Napoleon and in the post-war period, with the dirigiste (interventionist) state
and its neo-Keynesian policies devised by right-wing technocratic elites (Nord
2010). Since the 1980s, however, the ‘State in action’ has become more of a ‘state
of mind’ (Schmidt 2012) as post-war Keynesianism gave way to neoliberal reform.
Nonetheless, the deep-seated idea of the legitimacy of strong state action helps
explain why the French would be ready to jump back in with a more state-led,
Keynesian approach to the 2008 crisis, and why Germany, with its stability culture,
and without such an idea of the state, would resist.
Deep philosophical ideas do naturally evolve as circumstances change, events

intervene and life goes on. In the process, in the repertoire of values of any given
society, some may be brought to the fore and others de-emphasised by leaders and
publics as they seek to understand and respond to changing realities. But where
one particular set of philosophical ideas remains predominant, it may remain
unquestioned even at moments of great crisis, when the policy programmes that it
underpins may suffer crisis, renewal or even rejection.
Programmatic ideas
At an intermediate level, in between philosophical and policy ideas, are the

paradigms, problem definitions, or analytical frameworks that constitute
policy programmes (Hall 1993; Jobert 1989; Muller 1995; Schmidt 2002,
2011). Programmatic ideas are more than just ‘frames’, since they come with a
whole set of policy prescriptions, instruments and goals in addition to having a
given conceptual approach. And when such programmatic ideas are defined as
‘paradigms’, following Kuhn’s philosophy of science, they suggest a predominance
of one overarching policy programme over a relatively long period of time, to be
overthrown in a revolutionary shift by another such paradigm (e.g., Jobert 1989;
Hall 1993; Schmidt 2002: Ch. 5; Skogstad and Schmidt 2011).
Paradigm theory offers an explanation of European political economy in two
periods: the post-war neo-Keynesian paradigm that lasted up until the 1970s, and
the neoliberal paradigm that has predominated ever since. At the heart of this latter
paradigm is neoliberalism, with its recommendations for budgetary austerity, low
inflation and low deficits and debt. The paradigm could be said to have had its
beginnings and biggest success in the UK, with the 1980s Thatcher revolution
(Hall 1993), while processes of global diffusion of ideas, mimesis or learning
enable us to explain its adoption elsewhere (Hall 1989). This paradigm had its
first major challenge in a long time in 2008, when UK Prime Minister Brown
followed quickly by French President Sarkozy called for Keynesian stimulus,
while German Chancellor Merkel demurred, but ultimately gave in. This is when
many thought that a new progressive neo-Keynesian paradigm was about to take
hold. But this hope faded in May 2010, when neo- (or ordo-) liberal austerity
was re-imposed, only to return with the campaign of Socialist President François
Hollande in Spring 2012, in the calls for a ‘Growth Pact’ to accompany the ‘Fiscal
Compact’.
This suggests that while paradigm theory provides a useful metaphor for
what appears in retrospect as long-standing stability followed by radical, crisis-
induced change, it is of little use when looking into the moment of crisis, when
ideas seem in flux, new policy ideas are being tried, and the dominant ‘paradigm’
is under attack but continuing to apply its cure, with little result. In consequence,
whether within crisis periods or over time, change can just as easily be seen to
occur as incremental steps in adaptation and adjustment to changing realities
(e.g., Berman 2006).
It is equally important to note that some new policies fit neither the paradigmatic
prescriptions nor the ideologies, philosophies or ‘discourse’ of the neoliberals. For
example, the ECB’s decision to ease the crisis first in December 2011 by providing
massive three-year loans to the Eurozone’s banks with low rates of interest, and
then even more significantly with the July 2012 pledge to buy member-state bonds
without limit because the markets were unfairly pricing their debt, violated the
non-intervention prescriptions of the ordoliberal programme and philosophy, and
came very close to the neo-Keynesian programme, which recommended that the
ECB become a lender of last resort. But to explain this, we need to consider the
policy ideas that go beyond those expectable within existing programmatic and
philosophical ideas, developed through processes of bricolage, by adding new
elements to the old ideas (Carstensen 2011).
Policy ideas
At the most immediate level are the ideas contained in the specific policies,
norms, values and political discourse applied to particular situations which
change rapidly when new agendas emerge and ‘windows of opportunity’ open
up (Kingdon 1984; Baumgartner and Jones 1993). Here we can place the whole
range of Eurozone leaders’ policy solutions that followed one another in rapid
succession, each time calming the markets only momentarily, often because the
best window for action was long gone. Nonetheless, these were highly innovative
solutions, and they often ran counter to the extremely constraining institutional
context of the EU Treaties.
The EU skirted the no-bailout clause that forbids the EU and any member
state from assuming the financial commitments or liabilities of any other for the
Greek bailout by providing a loan at close to market prices, while the ECB got
around the prohibition by purchasing government debt on the secondary markets.
At the same time, the EU justified establishing the European Financial Stability
Facility (EFSF) by applying the exception allowed for ‘natural disasters or
exceptional occurrences beyond its control’ to the ‘unnatural disaster’ threatening
other member states with contagion from the Greek crisis. Moreover, the EU did
not attempt to set the EFSF up under the Treaties for fear of failing to achieve
unanimity, and instead went through multiple bilateral agreements (Schmidt
2010).
The agreement of 9–10 May 2010 was supposed to ‘shock and awe’ the markets
into submission. Nothing of the sort happened, nor did it thereafter. In the meantime,
a vast range of ambitious proposals that clearly violated the tenets of the neoliberal
policy programme – such as making the ECB a lender of last resort, pooling
member-state debt through Eurobonds or promoting growth through investment via
‘project-bonds’ – were widely discussed by think tanks, academics and the press,
demonstrating that there was a (neo-Keynesian – or at least non-neoliberal) way out
of the crisis, but they were not taken up (with the exception of project-bonds, when
two years later newly-elected President Hollande insisted on it).
All of this suggests that the give and take of policy-making is more complex
than theories about paradigms would allow, and that philosophical principles
or deep-seated ‘discourse’ do not always stop their ‘subjects’ from taking
action, although they may delay it. New and unexpected policy ideas that don’t
fit the paradigm do emerge all the time, while philosophical ideas and policy
programmes evolve. So how then do we understand the mechanisms of change?
As evolutionary or revolutionary? It is difficult to choose between them because
while radical revolutionary changes do occur and can certainly be seen from the
distance of time, during the moment of crisis the mechanisms of change are often
understood as incremental, involving bricolage or layering of one new idea on

the other, although they can also involve the recurrence of old ideas reintroduced
in a new guise (Schmidt and Thatcher 2013; see also Campbell 2004). Notably,
continuity with small evolutionary changes also occurs, even through a major
crisis, as De Ville and Orbie (this volume) show for the neoliberal programme
in international trade. For the explanation of the dynamics of any such change
or continuity, however, we need to turn to the discursive processes of interaction
among EU leaders, as they discussed, debated, deliberated and contested one
another’s ideas about what to do in response to the crisis.
Discursive Interactions in the Eurozone Crisis
The Eurozone crisis stems not just from problems with the substantive content of
EU leaders’ ideas and discourse. It also concerns their discursive interactions in
different spheres. To analyse the crisis it is not enough to know what EU leaders
thought (ideas) or said (discourse), we also need to investigate what they said to
whom in the process of policy construction and political communication in the
‘public sphere’ (Habermas 1989). The two main parts of the public spheres of
discursive interaction are the policy sphere, in which policy actors engage one
another in a ‘coordinative’ discourse about policy construction, and the political
sphere in which political actors engage the public in a ‘communicative’ discourse
about the necessity and appropriateness of such policies (see Schmidt 2002: Ch. 5;
Schmidt 2008) (see tables 13.3 and 13.4). But complicating matters is that when
EU leaders communicate in either sphere, ‘the markets’ may be listening, as they
read accounts of their coordinative discussions with one another in the financial
press, the specialised media and online, or of their communicative discourse to
‘the people’ in the general press.
Table 13.3 Discursive interactions in the coordinative sphere
Discursive Discursive Supranational

Actors Interlocutors Interactions National Interactions
1st Greek bailout: German
Too little, too late – concerns about elections,
Germany resists but Constitutional Court
Policy-
France convinces 2nd Greek bailout: slowed by
makers
Germans May 2010, 17 parl. ratifications; Finns
and again later demand Greek collateral;
Slovakian government falls

ECB, Commission,
Advocacy IMF, Germany,
or discourse Policy-makers N. Europe promote Germany: in early years,
coalitions fiscal consolidation, discourse coalition develops
structural reform ordoliberal philosophy that
informs Bundesbank and
Beginning 1980s, becomes philosophy of ECB
Epistemic
pro EMU bankers,
communities
economists
Think tanks recommend
Knowledge
euro-bonds, EMF, –
Regimes
project-bonds, etc.
Table 13.4 Discursive interactions in the communicative sphere
Discursive Discursive Supranational

Actors Interlocutors Interactions National Interactions
EU leaders give markets
ideas to panic over, e.g.,
–
Germany insists bank
creditors take haircut
Markets
Late or no action as silent
communication signalling
–
EU leaders’ unwillingness
to rescue member states
Merkel’s anti-Greek,
anti-action discourse fuels
Political Growth discourse of Monti, media feeding-frenzy,
leaders Hollande finds resonance making about-face ‘to save
People
across Europe as austerity the euro’ hard to legitimise.
policies don’t solve crisis For credibility, Merkel
defends ever more rigid
austerity pacts
Media play critical role in
Cacophony of EU leaders’
relaying leaders’ discourse,
voices communicate to
commenting, critiquing,
Media media on coordinative
helping sway public
discourse differently
opinion – negatively
from what said in mtgs
in Germany
The Coordinative Discourse among Policy Actors
In the Eurozone crisis, the ‘coordinative discourse’ consists of the individuals

and groups in the policy sphere, including elected officials, civil servants,
experts, think tanks, organised interests and activists, among others, who seek to
coordinate agreement among themselves on policy ideas through their discursive
interaction. The strongest ‘advocacy coalition’ (Sabatier 1993) in the Eurozone
has been constituted arguably by members of the ECB, the EU Commission,
Germany and some other Northern European member states who constitute the
‘Brussels-Frankfurt Consensus’ (Jones 2013), all promoting neoliberal precepts of

‘sound’ macroeconomic policy, budgetary austerity and ‘structural reform’. The
European Monetary Union (EMU) is itself the fruit of an earlier, more loosely
connected ‘epistemic community’ (Haas 1992) of central bankers, economists and
financial reporters who convinced policymakers of the merits of EMU (Verdun
2000). Moreover, the philosophical ideas at the basis of the ordoliberalism,
which informed not just the Bundesbank but also the ECB, were developed by
a post-war ‘discourse coalition’ in Germany (Lehmbruch 2001). In addition,
‘knowledge regimes’ made up of think tanks and other experts have also in recent
years become increasingly important players in the coordinative discourse, by
providing alternative views and/or expert advice to EU policymakers (Campbell
and Pedersen 2011).
The most significant players in the coordinative discourse surrounding the
Eurozone crisis are the EU leaders themselves. In this crisis, their discursive
interactions have been fraught with conflict. Their actions have often been hesitant
and delayed, largely because of resistance from one or another of the other leaders
involved in negotiation. The problems stem not only from the ideas and discourse
per se but from how they are used in the multi-level set of dynamics at play.
These involve not just EU-level politics, involving ideas and discourse about
the necessary and appropriate policies, programmes and philosophies, but also
national politics, involving concerns about the impact of EU decisions on a wide
variety of national issues. Such concerns include the effects of EU initiatives not
just on national economies but also on the EU leaders’ electoral prospects as well
as on how any given decision would be perceived at the national level.
As already suggested above, the crisis could have been avoided had German
leaders not been so resistant to any kind of bailout of Greece in the period
from late January to early May 2010 (see Jones 2010). The reasons for German
resistance are many. But in addition to the deep-seated ordoliberal philosophical
ideas along with the policy and programmatic ideas already mentioned, we need
to cite short-term, interest-based ideas as well as institutional considerations and
domestic politics. Merkel worried that the German Constitutional Court might
block a Greek bailout on German constitutional grounds. But she was also all
the while hoping that Greece would tighten its own belt sufficiently to calm the
markets while allowing her party to win the Nord Rhine Westphalia elections on
9 May 2010 – which it did not.
In contrast, on that ‘historic’ weekend of 8–9 May, President Sarkozy was

himself largely responsible for convincing Chancellor Merkel to drop her opposition
to the bailout and for pushing the €750 billion loan guarantee mechanism designed
to shore up other vulnerable member states. In exchange, he dropped his neo-
Keynesian resistance to imposing budgetary austerity across Europe along with
his discourse about the need to solve the problems that stemmed from deficit vs.
surplus countries.
Subsequent rounds of negotiation added more complications. Not only was
Merkel hesitant and slow to move but other EU leaders also threw in monkey
wrenches along the way. On the second Greek bailout, for example, the need for
parliamentary ratification in all 17 Eurozone countries slowed the process, and
worried the markets even more as the Finns insisted on collateral from Greece
for its participation in the second bailout, and the Slovakian government fell over
internal divisions in its coalition.
The Communicative Discourse with the Markets and the People
In the Eurozone crisis, the ‘communicative discourse’ of EU leaders has served

mainly as part of a mass process of persuasion (Mutz et al. l996) through which
they seek to communicate with both the markets and the people on the results
of the coordinative discourse in the effort to convince them of the necessity and
appropriateness of their decisions. The problem here is that the discourse may
work at cross-purposes. Communication about new bailout initiatives that might
calm the global markets can easily inflame the national publics of Northern Europe
while comforting Southern Europe, or vice-versa. Increasing the complexity of the
discursive interactions in this communicative sphere is that it involves multiple
interlocutors at different levels. Agreements within the coordinative discourse
among EU leaders may be complicated not only because hard to legitimate to
national publics but also because EU leaders bring their national publics’ policy
concerns to the table. The results are then communicated through the media to the
markets, possibility increasing their panic, and to the people, possibly reinforcing
their resistance to any proposed solutions. Finally, the markets themselves may
respond directly to the coordinative discourse, when it is communicated by the
specialised press or in online venues by experts and think tanks, as well as to EU
leaders’ actions or, more likely, non-action.
Speaking to the markets

EU leaders’ communicative discourse to ‘the markets’ – representing individual
investors, pension funds, traders and bankers using a wide range of financial
instruments to bet with or against the euro, national sovereign debt, national banks
and national and European companies – has been singularly bad. One problem
has much to do with how the two-level institutional structure of the EU affects
the discourse. A cacophony of EU leaders’ voices tends to follow any given
coordinative negotiation among EU leaders, as they step out of their closed-door
meetings to address the international press as well as their own national press,
often spinning the coordinative discourse differently from what they actually said
or agreed in the meetings. And the media in turn may further distort what went on
through simplification or taking a statement out of context.
EU institutional leaders’ discourse is different from that of EU member-state
leaders, since they tend to think more about the markets or the people generally as
opposed to national constituencies. The EU Commission has little clout with the
markets, but the ECB is naturally a major player. As Jörg Asmussen, a German
member of the Executive Board of the ECB noted, Central Bank communication
is all about creating trust and managing market expectations. And this has become
more difficult because of ‘market communication versus political communication’.
To illustrate, he used the example of Chancellor Merkel’s discourse legitimating
her turnabout on the first Greek bailout, insisting that ‘the future of the Euro is at
stake’, which led to the newspaper headlines, ‘Merkel questions survival of Euro’,
that in turn sowed panic in the markets (Asmussen 2012).
One of the main problems for EU leaders generally with regard to the markets
is that they constantly give the markets new ideas to panic over. For example,
when the German Chancellor insisted that bank creditors should also share the
pain under the more permanent EMS to start in 2013, the markets for the first time
considered the possibility that they would have to take losses, and immediately
intensified their pressure on Ireland and other Southern European countries.
No amount of subsequent reassurances by European leaders that ‘haircuts’ for
creditors would apply only to bonds emitted after 2013 could stop the run on
Ireland, which by the end of November 2010 had to seek protection under the
EFSF. Portugal and Spain soon followed.
Another part of the problem has been not just that EU leaders’ initiatives did
not do enough; it is also that they consistently came late. Actions, or lack thereof,
are also a form of silent communication signalling EU leaders’ unwillingness or
inability to rescue member states at risk of default. Had the Greek rescue arrived
in January or February 2010, when the Eurozone debt crisis started, or even in
March rather than May, the markets might have been reassured and the EU might
not even have had to come up with the loan guarantee mechanisms for the other
countries at risk (Jones 2010).
Speaking to the people

EU leaders have not done much better in terms of their speaking to ‘the people’.
EU leaders’ discursive interactions with the people are generally mediated by
the media, which act as the main transmission belt for information, reporting,
commenting and critiquing EU leaders’ press conferences, speeches, declarations
and actions, as well as the responses from informed publics and ordinary citizens.
In Germany, for example, Chancellor Merkel’s discourse in the months before
agreeing to the first Greek bailout and creation of the EFSF seemed to go along
with the tabloid press that castigated the ‘lazy Greeks’. Her discourse, which also
rejected any ‘transfer union’, fuelled a nationalistic, media feeding-frenzy that
opposed any bailout because it would make ‘good’ member states liable for the
debts of ‘bad’ ones. And there was no mention here of the ways in which Germany
itself had benefited from consumption in other European countries, or its current
account surpluses that were partly responsible for the deficits in other countries,
as noted earlier.
This anti-Greek, anti-action discourse made Merkel’s about-face, with her
political discourse ‘to save the euro’ on 10 May 2010, all the more difficult to
legitimise. When Merkel came out on national television to explain her decision,
she offered a very thin, economic argument maintaining that ‘the future of Europe
depended on the bailout’ and ‘it was essential to maintain the stability of the euro’.
The move was deeply unpopular. Critics like the conservative newspaper, the
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (11 May 2010) announced: ‘All of the principles of
monetary union have been sacrificed.’ In order to appear more credible, therefore,
Merkel’s government became the defender of the most rigid interpretation of the
Stability and Growth Pact, calling for draconian punishment of offending Eurozone
members. The subsequent ‘six pack’ and ‘fiscal compact’ were as much about
trying to convince the people at home that the euro would be German as it was
about convincing the markets that the EU was resolving its problems. Finally, it
has only been very recently that the Chancellor has been making a strong positive
case in Germany for EU-level solutions, for example when she insisted in a speech
to the CDU’s annual conference that ‘not less Europe but more’ was the answer to
the crisis, since Europe had likely entered its ‘most difficult hours since World War
II’ (The New York Times, 14 November 2011).
In France, by contrast, Sarkozy’s message of maintaining solidarity was largely
positively received, and he was seen as something of a ‘White Knight’ riding to the
rescue of Greece, as opposed to Merkel, Europe’s new ‘Iron Lady’ (Crespy and
Schmidt 2012). However, his slow turn to a stability discourse, with an emphasis
on austerity, was increasingly contested over time, contributing to his loss of the
presidential elections to opposition candidate Hollande, who argued for growth and
opposed the fiscal compact. Once president, however, Hollande shifted his own
communicative discourse into one much more in tune with that of his predecessor
and Merkel, as he proposed and then passed an austerity package that went much
further than anything Sarkozy had implemented, on the grounds that France had
to maintain its credibility with the markets and regain its credibility with Germany
by becoming more competitive while meeting the terms of the fiscal compact. The
irony is that in so doing France is likely to go into recession, thus losing credibility
with Germany.
Conclusion
Many insights on the Eurozone crisis emerge from the use of a range of
methodological approaches that fall under the analytic framework of discourse
institutionalism. By separating out the different levels and interlocutors of EU
leaders’ discourse, we better understand the difficulties that such leaders have had
in arriving at solutions to the crisis that satisfy the markets, persuade the people,
make the case to the media and convince one another. By considering the many
different ideas involved in the discursive interactions, we see how such ideas may
be consciously deployed or unconsciously reflected in EU leaders’ discourse as
they coordinate agreements in the policy sphere and as they communicate to the
markets and the people. As for the ideas themselves, we see how crisis frames
provide snapshots of rival ideas; how narratives and stories weave together such
ideas with events over longer periods; how paradigms depict systems subject to
revolutionary change at times of crisis; how programmatic ideas trace incremental

changes through stability and crisis; and how new, rapidly changing policy ideas
demonstrate the creativity of EU leaders’ ideas, beyond what might have been
expected within the context of long-accepted frames and paradigms, let alone the
deeper, slowly evolving philosophical ideas.
The Eurozone’s economic crisis has developed and intensified largely because
the clash in EU leaders’ ideas makes it difficult for them to coordinate agreement
sufficiently well to produce adequate solutions to the crisis or to communicate
convincingly to ‘the markets’ and ‘the people’ about them. The problems have
involved not only the substantive content of the ideas and discourse but also the
discursive interactions in multi-level Europe.
With regard to the markets, EU leaders have proposed solutions that were seen as
too little too late, such as the various loan guarantee mechanisms; were considered
to be the wrong solutions, as in austerity measures that created growth concerns;
or raised new contingencies that the markets themselves had not anticipated, as
in banks taking haircuts and Greece exiting the Eurozone. The markets, however,
responded not only to the failures of EU leaders’ communicative discourse but
also to their coordinative discourse, as it came out in the specialised media and as
it failed to lead to positive action.
With regard to the people, the wrong messages, in particular with Germany’s
chastising discourse, have not prepared national publics for the necessary EU as
well as national reform initiatives, while the poverty of the legitimating discourse
generally has increased public disaffection. This has been complicated by the
fact that EU leaders are national leaders first, and their national communicative
considerations often trump their EU coordinative discussions.
The only way out of this multi-level bind is for EU leaders to develop new
frames and narratives that enable them to speak convincingly to both the markets
and the people. But for that, they will need to develop a discourse that proposes
new political-economic ideas that go beyond neoliberalism, and that not only
convinces but works.
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Index
actorness background ideational abilities 229, 239

articulations of 44–6, 47, 50, 56t, 57, Balzacq, T. 177
144–5 Barcelona Declaration 62

of EU 35 Barnier, M. 104–5
metaphorical expressions and 140 Barroso, M. 103, 118
national 44–6, 56t, 57 Barthes, R. 86
presidencies and 45 Beer, S.H. 85
state identity and 45 Berger, P. 4
as term 44–5 Bernstein, B. 157
agency Blair, T. 146
articulations of 48–9, 53–6 border policies 73; see also migration
Danish foreign policy and 46–8 Boudon, R. 7
agriculture 50 boundary setting 32–5, 38–9, 177
Almond, G. 81, 83, 89, 91 Bourdieu, P. 157
Althusser, L. 4–5 Bretherton, C. 44
Angell, N. 83 Brittan, L. 95
anthropomorphisation 140, 144, 180 Brown, C. 211
Arab Spring 138 Bruges Speech (Thatcher) 146
Arctic Council 54 Buber, M. 197, 200
Area of Freedom and Security Justice 62 Buzan, B. 177
argumentation strategies 137, 138, 140–41,
179, 193 Cameron, D. 182–3, 186
argumentation/justifications 65, 114, 115, Campbell, D. 34
115t, 116–17, 120t Camus, A. 202
Arms Trade Treaty 122 Candide (Voltaire) 192, 194, 195, 196t,
articulation 197–201, 204
of actorness 50 capitalism 5
of agency 48–9, 53–6, 56t Carbon Fees for Airlines 200–201
function of 8 Carr, E.H. 82–3
of national actorness 44–6, 47 Changing World, A 48
structure and 32 Checkel, J. 6, 176
Ashton, C. 80, 81, 96, 100, 101, 118, Chilton, P. 134
124, 198 China 49, 54, 105
Asia 49 Chirac, J. 152
attentive public (AP) 81, 83–4, 86, 87–8, Chouliaraki, L. 141
89, 91 Christiansen, T. 99
austerity measures/policy 184–6, 248–9, cognitive arguments 249
259 collective intentionality 7
Austin 177n1 Common Foreign and Security Policy
authorisation 156, 156t, 159 (CFSP) 10, 17, 35, 48, 151–2, 158,
autonomy 228, 239 161–3, 165–6, 227–41 passim, 238t
Common Security and Defence Policy focus of 14

(CSDP) 18, 151–2, 158, 161–3, as framework 2
165–6 methodological guidelines for 16
communicative actions 6 partial application of 98
communicative dimension 232 positivism and 3
communicative discourse 255t, 257 Critical Realism 31
communicative vs. coordinative aspects of
discourse 230, 239, 245–6 Damro, C. 218
community, terrorism and 67, 68, 69 Danish Yearbook of Foreign Policy 47,
Comprehensive Approach to the EU 48, 52
implementation of UNSCR 1325 data selection, on counterterrorism 64–5

and 1820 on Women, Peace and Davis Cross, M.K. 232
Security 124 De Gucht, K. 96, 101, 102–3, 104–5
consequentialist ethical justifications Defence Forces Review 237, 239
214–15 defense policy 227, 230, 232, 233
Constitutional Process 157–8, 161–6 definition, topos of 182
constructive ambiguity 18, 227–32, 238t, democracy deficit 172
239, 241 Denmark
constructivism 6–7, 8, 14, 16, 96–7, 99, after Lisbon Treaty 52–6
99fig, 106 before Lisbon treaty 48–51
context-dependent linguistic interaction foreign policy background and 46–8
154 deontological ethical justifications 214–15
continuity 99–100 Derrida, J. 8, 133
Cooper, R. 142, 202 ‘Derridarean move’ in discourse analysis
coordinative discourse 231–2, 255t, 32–3
256–7, 258 Deutsch, K. 220
coordinative vs. communicative aspects of development issues 50, 55, 120
discourse 230, 239, 245–6 DG Trade 16, 80n5, 84–5, 98; see also
Copenhagen Accord 197 trade policy
Copenhagen School 133–4, 177, 178 Diez, T. 11, 13, 14, 15, 82, 98, 141,
Council Framework Decision on 192, 215
Combating Terrorism 59 diplomacy
counterterrorism context for 79
cooperation on 15–16, 59 public and 81
discourse theory approach to 62–5 discourse
EU external action on 61–2 boundary setting and 32–5
EU policy on 66–72, 73 as constitutive force 44, 99
governance and 63–4 contested 81–5
crisis, financial 95, 100; see also Eurozone definitions of 60
economic crisis foreign policy and 28–32
critical discourse analysis (CDA) performativity of 113
analytical framework of 153–7 role of 1–2, 8
application of 134–8, 142–6 structural influence of 31
challenges posed by 146–7 as term 3
constructivism and 106, 112–13 verbal vs. non-verbal 27–8
description of 8–9 discourse analysis
discursive construction and 154 critical vs. explanatory 28–9, 31
discursive institutionalism (DI) methods of 133–4
and 246 theoretical diversity and 3–6
Index 267
discourse representation 179, 193 European Monetary Union (EMU) 256,

discourse strategies 156, 156t 258
discourse topics 137 European Security Strategy (ESS) 68, 69,
discourse-historical approach (DHA) 87, 151, 228–9, 233, 241
adaptation of 114n4 European Union
application of 142–6 actorness of 35
challenges posed by 146–7 as civilian power 35
description of 136–8, 178–9, 193 as civilising power 151–2, 158–61,
EU foreign policy and 138–42 163–6
EU role and 192 as collective actor 11
discursive, definition of 60 definitions of 10

discursive articulations 15 institutional structure of 12t, 13
discursive coalitions 30 international subjectivity of 191
discursive institutionalism (DI) 2, 3, 7–8, layered discourse of 14
14, 211, 216–17, 227–8, 229–30, role of 35, 111–12, 125, 158–9, 193–5
238–40, 246 Europol 69, 71–2
discursive legitimation 154, 155–6 Eurozone economic crisis
discursive positions 11 discursive interactions in 254, 255t,
discursive shareware 83, 86–8 256–9
discursive strategies 137, 179 euro crisis 102, 104, 105, 172–3
discursive struggles 8, 28–32, 63, 249 ideas and discourse about 247–54,
Doha deal 101 248t, 250t
Don Giovanni (Mozart) 192, 194–5, 196t, philosophical ideas on 250t, 251–2
201, 202–3, 204 policy ideas on 250t, 253–4
Doty, R. 64, 178, 191 programmatic ideas on 250t, 252–3
Doyle, M. 220 exceptionalism, French 230, 232, 239,
Duchêne, F. 14, 35 240, 241
exclusion, inclusion and 174, 176, 180–86
economic liberalism 212, 218, 219t, exclusion, rhetoric of 173
222, 223 exports 103, 122
Edwards, G. 10 external intervention 221, 221t, 223–4
effective multilateralism 228–9, 234, 239 external policies, investigations of 153–4
emissions 197–8
enlargement policy 134, 145, 221 Fairclough, N. 9, 97, 98, 135, 154, 157
Epstein, C. 11, 45 fear, construction of 182
Essex School 30–31 Ferrero-Waldner, B. 118
ethical justifications 214–15 Fierke, K. 113
EU Code of Conduct on Arms Export Figaro, Le 162, 163, 165
121–2, 123 Finnemore, M. 30, 87, 246, 249
EU Constitutional Treaty 152 Fischer, J. 83
EU-ECOWAS relations 122 fishing, external 50
Euro-Mediterranean Partnership 61 foreground discursive abilities 229, 239
European Council 68, 69 foreground/background distinction
European External Action Service (EEAS) 217, 229
43, 68, 69, 79–81, 84–5, 89, 192 foreign policy
European Financial Stability Facility analysis of excerpts from discourse on
(EFSF) 253, 258 142–6
European integration process 1, 10, 27, competences and 11–12, 12t
155, 164, 227, 231 concept of 11
Danish 46–57, 56t, 87 Hall, P. 216, 249, 252

DHA and 138–42 Hall, S. 8
discourse and 28–32 Hansen, L. 136, 138–9
discursive institutionalist approach to ‘harm principle’ 34–5
216–17 Hay, C. 10, 102, 211
discursive shareware and 86–8 Headline Goal 233, 234
EEAS and 84 Hedegaard, C. 197–8
functional areas and 50–51, 54 hegemony 5, 8
geographical areas and 49–50, 53 Heisbourg, F. 228
identity construction and 33, 34 high politics 11
literature on 82 Hoffmann, S. 227, 240

norms and 39 Hollande, F. 105, 252, 259
public philosophies and 88 Hopf, T. 7
setting the limits of 38–9 Howarth, D. 30
value-driven 213 Howorth, J. 227, 230, 232
Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) 10 Hülsse, R. 134
Foucault, M. 4, 5–6, 8, 9, 15, 44, 133, 219, human rights 55, 71, 120, 123, 124
220, 251 humanitarian intervention (HI) 216–17
framing 179, 193 Huntington, S.P. 142
France 152, 157, 162–4, 165–6, 167, 173,
228, 230–37, 238t, 239–41, 251 ideas, cognitive vs. normative 216
Frankfurt School 9, 135 identity
freedom 67–8, 69, 70, 195, 219–20 civic 175
French exceptionalism 230, 232, 239, definitions of 172
240, 241 European 173–7
FRONTEX 72, 73 national 174, 186
supranationl 175–6
Gazeta Wyborcza 162–3, 165 transnational 174–5
genealogical method 133 identity construction 136, 140, 154
Germany 37–8, 251, 256; see also identity-building 154
Merkel, A. ideology, Marx’s approach to 4
Ginsberg, R.H. 10 immigration 180–83
Giscard d’Estaing, V. 153, 158, 163, 164 inclusion and exclusion 174, 176, 180–86
global governance, EU role and 111–12, India 54
113, 114, 115–24 institution-building 153–4
globalisation 17, 101–2, 117–18, 159 INSTRUMENT, EU as 112, 113, 115t,
governance 118–19, 120t, 121, 122, 123, 125
definition of 60 intensifying strategies 179
discursive struggles and 63–4 interactive discourse 234–8
visions of 66–70 interdiscursivity 137, 141–2, 144, 179, 193
Gramsci, A. 4, 5, 8, 9 interest-driven behaviour 211, 213,
Great Depression 100 216, 217
Greece 102, 173, 183–6, 253, 256, 258 internal market integration 96
Grube, C. 53 ‘International Situation and Danish Foreign
Policy 20xx, The’ 47
Haas, E. 83 Internet, terrorism and 68, 74
Habermas, J. 4, 6, 7, 9, 36, 135, 153, 175 interpellation 4–5
Hague, W. 142, 143–4 interpretative constructivism 2, 6–7
Hajer, M. 1, 246 intertextuality 137, 141–2, 145, 179, 193
Index 269
interviews 138, 139, 192–3 Manners, I. 14, 35–6, 142, 214, 215, 217,
Iraq conflict 152, 165–6 218–19
Ireland 228, 230–31, 232, 233–4, 235, 236, March, J.C. 7, 86, 229
237–8, 238t, 239–41 marginalisation 164–5
Ish-Shalom, P. 197, 200 market liberal discourse 17
isolationist populists 84 market order 219–20, 221
market power Europe 218
Joint Declaration on Proliferation of Small markets, speaking to 257–8
Arms and Light Weapons 122 Marx, K. 4, 5
Jørgensen, K.E. 4, 16, 192 McDonald, M. 177
Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council meaning construction 32–3

62, 69 media 89–90, 161–6, 162t, 258–9
Merkel, A. 83, 184–5, 186, 248, 252,
Kant, I. 4, 220 256–7, 258–9
Katzenstein, P. 176, 230 metanarratives 63, 64
Keohane, D. 239 metaphorical expressions 113, 140, 143–4
Kissinger, H. 145, 222 metaphors
Köhler, H. 38 conceptual 113
Kratochwil, F. 7, 13, 191 description of 113, 193–4
Kuhn, T. 252 for EU 112, 113, 115–24
EU role and 194, 195, 196t,
Laclau, E. 15, 30, 33, 45, 153 197–203, 204
Laeken Declaration 153, 157–60 summary of 120t
Lakoff, C. 193 methodology, views on 133
Lamy, P. 16, 95–6, 100 Meunier, S. 16
Langlois, M. de 234 Middle East 50, 53, 62, 181
language, power relations and 135 migration 174–5, 180–83
Larsen, H. 15, 44n1, 47, 51, 136, 140 Milliken, J. 3, 133
Latin America 49, 122 mitigation strategies 179, 193
legitimisation 27, 60, 64, 65, 66, 99, 106, MODEL, EU as 112, 113, 115t, 116–17,
156t, 173, 176 116t, 119, 120t, 121, 124, 125–6
Lehne, S. 89 Monde, Le 162–4, 165
Leibniz, G.W. 200 monetary union 161
liberal vs. realist thought 213 moral evaluation 156, 156t, 159
liberalism 99fig, 213–14, 215, 216–17, Morgenthau, H. 83
218–23, 219t Mouffe, C. 15, 33, 45, 153
Lidington, D. 142, 144–5 movement, freedom of 70
linguistic analysis 9 Mozart, W.A. 192, 194
linguistic means 137, 179 multilateral negotiation 157–61, 166
Lisbon Treaty 11, 43, 47, 52–3, 56t, 138, multilateralism 16, 120t, 198
151, 152, 166, 235, 239, 240 mythologies 86
Locke, J. 218
London bombing 66 nation, concept of 31
low politics 11 national actorness, articulations of 44–6,
Luckmann, T. 4 56t, 57
national discourses 31
Maastricht Treaty 10, 11 nationalism 17, 174, 187
Madrid bombing 66 NATO 152
Mandelson, P. 16, 96, 100 Nau, H.R. 86
neoliberalism 95, 102–4, 105, 106, 163, Poland 152, 157, 162–3, 164–6, 167
184–5, 221–22, 252 policy and opinion elite (POE) 81, 86,
Neumann, I. 133 87–8, 89–90, 91
neutrality 230–31, 232, 233, 236, 238, 239, policy process 11
240, 241 political speeches 138, 139, 142–6
Nice Treaty 161 polity-construction 153–61, 165, 167
no-bailout clause 253 positivism 3, 97–8
Nobel Peace Prize 171–3, 186, 187 poststructuralism
nomination/predication 114, 115, 115t, application of 15
116, 119, 120t CDA and 135–6
normative arguments 249 constructivism and 106, 112–13

normative concepts 7 contributions of 14
normative power 14, 17, 28, 30, 87, description of 8
111, 145, 151, 198, 213–14, DHA and 146–7
215, 217, 218 discourse analysis and 28
Normative Power Europe (NPE) discourse theory of 62–3
discourse/concept 29, 35–8, as framework 2
140–41, 142, 211–13, 215, 217, methodology and 133–4
218, 222, 223, 224 othering and 98–9
normative/strategic distinction 212–15 positivism and 3
norms 29, 32, 39, 87, 111–15, 125 power
North Africa 50, 61–2, 181 critical discourse analysis (CDA) and 9
Nye, J. 197 language and 135
poststructuralism and 8
official declarations/foreign policy responsibility and 7
documents 138, 139 role of 5–6
Olsen, J. 7, 86, 229 social structure and 13
opposite, topos from the 185 predication, strategy of 137–8, 140,
opposite, topos of the 186 179, 193
ordoliberalism 212, 220, 247, 248, 249, prescription 114, 115, 115t, 116, 117,
251, 256 118–19, 120t
orientalisation, topos of 141 presidencies
othering/Others 98–9, 100, 106, 141, EU 55
159–60, 166, 173, 174–5, 176, 179, national 43, 45
181–2, 183, 186 Priorities in Danish Foreign Policy 50
Program of Action to Prevent, Combat and
Pace, M. 215 Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small
Pangloss (Candide) 192, 194, 196t, 198, Arms and Light Weapons in All Its
199–201, 204 Aspects (PoA) 112, 120, 121, 122
paradigm theory 252 pronomial selection 198
parliamentary debates 138–9 protectionism 100–101, 104, 173
people, speaking to the 258–9 public philosophies 85, 86–7, 88, 89
Perpetual Peace (Kant) 221
perspectivisation 179 Qualified Majority Voting (QMV)
Petersberg tasks 228, 233, 239 161–2, 165
Phillips, L. 4
plausibilisation 156, 156t Rabinow, P. 4
PLAYER, EU as 112, 113, 115t, 117–18, ‘radicalisation as an external security
120t, 125 threat’ 66, 67t, 68–70
Index 271
‘radicalisation from within the EU’ 66, as speech act 177

67–8, 67t, 69–70, 74 terrorism and 67, 68–9, 71
radicalism 99, 99fig semantic signs 8
rationalisation 156, 156t, 159 September 11th attacks 61, 66, 70, 159
rationalism 99fig Sharp, J. 83
realism 99fig Shepherd, L.J. 14
realist vs. liberal thought 211 Signal 237–8, 239
reciprocity 103–5 Sikkink, K. 30
recontextualisation 154, 156–7, 179 Sil, R. 4
referential/nomination strategies 137, 140, single market 161, 218, 221t
179, 193 Sinnott, R. 80n4

reflectivism 99, 99fig small arms and light weapons (SALW)
refugees 73, 74 112, 114, 120, 121–3
Reisigl, M. 178, 179n3 Smith, A. 175–6
RELEX Family 192 social constructivism 3, 29, 135, 146
representation 156, 156t social fragmentation 17
resistance 5 social policies 161–2
Resolution 1325 on Women and Peace and social structures 4, 6, 7, 13
Security 112, 120, 123–4 Solana, J. 117–18
responsibility, topos of 183 solidarity 183–4, 186
Revue défense nationale 237 speech act theory 134, 177n1
Risse, T. 7, 13, 37, 96, 174 speech acts, security and 177
Rogers, J. 30, 31, 32, 133 Stability and Growth Pact 259
Rosamond, B. 11, 16, 17, 37 state, concept of 31
Ruggie, J. 43 state identity
Russia 50, 53 actorness and 45
Rzeczpospolita 162–3, 164–5 articulations of 57
strategic calculus 213
Sannino, S. 200 structural determinism 4–5
Sarkozy, N. 104, 240, 248, 252, 257, 259 structure, articulation and 32
Saussure, F. de 32–3 Subject and Power, The (Foucault) 5
‘Schengen zone under threat’ conception substantive discourse 231, 233–4
60, 62, 66, 67t, 69–73 Sullivan, W.M. 4
Schimmelfennig, F. 7, 97, 134, 153, 212
Schmidt, V.A. 7–8, 18, 28, 83–4, 227, Tampere Summit 62
229, 239 technology, terrorism and 68, 70, 71–2
Schmitt, C. 178 terrorism; see also security
Searle, J.R. 8 actorness and 55
securitisation 141, 177–8 attempts to define 66
security; see also terrorism constructions of 63–4, 66–70, 72
actorness and 55 cooperation and 15–16, 59
approaches to 230 diverse views on 70–71
identity and 177–80 EU policy on 73
legitimisation and 173 Internet and 68, 74
military 51 technical knowledge and 71–2
non-military aspects of 51 threat of 60
SALW and 120 Thatcher, M. 1, 146
small arms and light weapons theoretical diversity, discourse analysis
(SALW) 123 and 3–6
Theory of Communicative Action United States 50, 54, 117, 143, 152, 165–6
(Habermas) 6 unity 176
threat, topos of 180–81, 182, 183
threats 177–8; see also security; validity claims 6
terrorism van den Hoven, A. 98
Tonra, B. 235, 239 Van Dijk, T.A. 137, 145
topoi 114n5, 119, 138, 141, 179–80 virtue ethics 214
Torfing, J. 62, 136 Vogler, J. 44–5
‘Trade, Growth and World Affairs’ Voltaire 192, 194
Communication 103 vote weighting 161–2
trade liberalisation 95–6, 101, 102, 104

trade policy; see also DG Trade Wæver, O. 31, 32, 97, 99, 177
crisis and 100–105 Waltz, K.N. 202
critical approaches to 96–100 Warsaw Speech (Blair) 146
Denmark and 49, 50, 51, 54 Weiss, G. 139, 176
DG Trade and 85 Weldes, J. 6, 133, 211
economic growth and 101–2 welfare 62–3
euro crisis and 102–3 Wendt, A. 197
media and 163 West Africa 121
neoliberalism and 95–6 Western Marxism 9
reciprocity and 103–5 Why Europe needs a Constitution
SALW and 122 (Habermas) 175
small arms and light weapons Wilders, G. 180–82, 186
(SALW) 123 Wittgenstein, L. 1
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Wodak, R. 9, 17, 139, 172, 176, 178,
Partnership 103 179n3, 186
transformation, strategies of 186 women, rights of 112, 114, 120, 123–4
transnationalism 174–5
Triandafyllidou, A. 172 Zielonka, J. 125
triangulation 137, 139, 178, 193
Other titles in the Globalisation, Europe, Multilateralism series:
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EU Foreign Policy through the

Mario TELÒ, Series editor (mtelo@ulb.ac.be)

International Editorial Board

The Institut d’Etudes Européennes de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles (IEE-ULB) is a

Published 2016 by Routledge

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © Caterina Carta, Jean-Frédéric Morin and contributors 2014

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

List of Figures and Tables  vii

Introduction: EU Foreign Policy through the Lens of Discourse Analysis  1

Part I: Poststructuralist Approaches

1 Speaking Europe, Drawing Boundaries: Reflections on the Role

2 Continuity or Change in National Foreign Policy Discourses

3 Protection or Prevention? Different Visions of EU

Part II: Constructivist Approaches

4 Constructing European Diplomacy in a Changing World  79

5 ‘A Boost to our Economies that Doesn’t Cost a Cent’:

6 Model, Player or Instrument for Global Governance: Metaphors

Part III: Critical Discourse Analytical Approaches

7 Unravelling European Union Foreign Policy through Critical

8 (De-)Constructing the EU as a Civilising Power: CFSP/CSDP

9 Talking about Solidarity and Security in the Age of Crisis:

10 From the ‘Magnificent Castle’ to the Brutish State of Nature:

Part IV: Discursive Institutionalist Approaches

11 The EU’s Normative Power and Three Modes of Liberal

12 Understanding ‘Constructive Ambiguity’ of European Defence

13 EU Leaders’ Ideas and Discourse in the Eurozone Crisis:

5.1 Constructivism and (meta)theoretical perspectives 99

I.1 Actors, competences and ability to speak at the international

2.1 Articulations of actorness before and after the Lisbon Treaty 56

3.1 Three central constructions around EU counter-terrorism

6.1 Frequency of discursive elements conceptualised as MODEL,

6.2 Examples of metaphorical expressions of the EU as MODEL 116

6.3 Summary of the analysis of the metaphors of the EU’s

8.1 Strategies of legitimation 156

8.2 Salient topics of EU reform in opinion articles 2002–2004

10.1 Metaphors and related EU tropes 196

11.1 The EU’s modes of liberalism 219

11.2 Tentative classification of EU external intervention by mode 221

12.1 Discourses analysed 231

12.2 Constructive ambiguity and the national discourse 238

13.1 Ideas in the Eurozone discourse 248

13.2 Different levels of generality of ideas in discourse and

13.3 Discursive interactions in the coordinative sphere 255

13.4 Discursive interactions in the communicative sphere 255

Senem Aydın-Düzgit is Associate Professor and Jean Monnet Chair in the

from Bogazici University. Her principal research interests include EU enlargement,

Esther Barbé is Professor of International Relations at the Autonomous University

Caterina Carta is Assistant Professor at Vesalius College (VUB). She holds a

Thomas Diez is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the

Anna Herranz-Surrallés is Lecturer in International Relations at Maastricht

Beste Isleyen is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Amsterdam Centre for

Knud Erik Jørgensen (PhD) is Professor in the Department of Political Science

Performance, Policy, Power (Routledge, 2013). Articles have been published in

Amelie Kutter is Researcher at the Cultural Political Economy Research Centre,

Lancaster University, FU Berlin, EUV, TU Dresden, CERI/Sciences Po. She

Henrik Larsen is Associate Professor of International Relations and holds the

Jean-Frédéric Morin is Professor of International Relations at the Université

Michal Natorski is Senior Research Fellow at the European Neighbourhood

particular EU trade and development policies. He is the author of numerous

Antoine Rayroux is a Fulbright-Schuman postdoctoral researcher at Georgetown

interventions. He is interested in security studies, international peace operations

List of Figures and Tables vii

Introduction: EU Foreign Policy through the Lens of Discourse Analysis 1

4 Constructing European Diplomacy in a Changing World 79