EU Foreign Policy through the Lens of Discourse Analysis: Making Sense of Diversity (Globalisation, Europe, and Multilateralism)

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. Leading scholars in discourse analysis and European foreign policy join forces in this book, marking a real breakthrough in the literature. Not only do they offer original perspectives on European foreign policy, but they bring together various theories on foreign policy discourses that remain too often isolated from each other. This theoretical diversity is clearly reflected in the book’s four-pronged structure: Part I - Post-structuralist Approaches (with contributions from Thomas Diez, Henrik Larsen and Beste Isleyen); Part II - Constructivist Approaches (with contributions from Knud Erik Jørgensen, Jan Orbie, Ferdi de Ville, Esther Barbé, Anna Herranz-Surrallés and Michal Natorski); Part III - Critical Discourse Analytical Approaches (with contributions from Senem Aydin-Düzgit, Amelie Kutter, Ruth Wodak, Salomi Boukala and Caterina Carta); Part IV - Discursive Institutionalist Approaches (with contributions from Ben Rosamond, Antoine Rayroux and Vivien A. Schmidt). The volume is the first full-length study on how to apply different discourse analytical approaches and methodologies to European foreign policy. The paperback edition makes for a unique selling point as a course text.