Eu Foreign Policy Through The Lens Of Discourse Analysis

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.

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. 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 course text.

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. 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 course text.

This text reviews a variety of approaches to the study of the European Union's foreign policy. Much analysis of EU foreign policy contains implicit theoretical assumptions about the nature of the EU and its member states, their inter-relationships, the international system in which they operate and the nature and direction of European integration. In many instances such assumptions, given that they are not discussed openly, curtail rather than facilitate debate. The purpose of this book is to open up this field of enquiry so that students, observers and analysts of EU foreign policy can review a broad range of tools and theoretical templates from which the development and the trajectory of the EU's foreign policy can be studied.

Henrik Larsen presents discourse analysis as an alternative approach to foreign policy analysis. Through an extensive empirical study of British and French policies towards Europe in the 1980s, he demonstrates the importance of political discourse in shaping foreign policy. The author discusses key theoretical problems within traditional belief system approaches and proposes an alternative one: political discourse analysis. The theory is illustrated through detailed analyses of British and French discourses on Europe, nation/state security and the nature of international relations.

Can a distinct national foreign policy still be identified for small EU member states, and what accounts for the balance between national and EU foreign policy? Henrik Larsen develops an analytical framework for analyzing these questions and offers solutions through an empirical examination of the foreign policy of a small EU member state in the context of EU foreign policy - the case of Denmark. The book looks at seven policy areas: policy towards other EU member states, anti-terrorism, development, the Balkans, Africa, Latin America and trade. On the basis of the empirical study, the implications for the theoretical study of national foreign policy in an EU Context are outlined. It is suggested that we need a new, mixed approach to foreign policy analysis within the EU taking into account the nature of the policy area concerned and national conceptions of actorness.

This book argues that theories of European foreign policy are performative: they create the objects they analyse. In this text, Larsen outlines the performativity approach to the role of theories based on the work of Derrida and goes on to examine the performative role of Christopher Hill's concept of Capability-Expectations Gap in the study of European foreign policy. Through examples from relevant literature, Larsen not only demonstrates how this concept sets up standards for the EU as a foreign policy actor (that are not met by most other international actors) but also shows how this curtails analysis of EU foreign policy. The author goes on to discuss how the widespread use of the concept of ‘gap' affects the way in which EU foreign policy has been studied; and that it always produces the same result: the EU is an unfulfilled actor outside the realm of “normal” actors in IR. This volume offers new perspectives on European foreign policy research and advice and serves as an invaluable resource for students of EU foreign policy and, more broadly, European Studies.

This book focuses on how discourse and various narratives contribute to the construction of the European Union as a political actor, thus seeking to challenge the more established approaches to the study of the Union. It sheds light on the way discourses about the European Union are created, perpetuated and then translated into policy outcomes. Most of the contributions attempt to account for the differences that usually arise between discourse and policy practices. The methods employed range from more traditional variants of discourse analysis to other more radical versions that emphasize power, or to critical or differential reading of policy narratives and ethnography. Policy areas such as trade, enlargement, foreign policy and the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) are discussed, while a particular interest is awarded to the European Parliament and the Commission. In doing so, the contributions shed light on the role discourse plays in relation to policies, institutional practices, and value representations at the European level. Moreover, the authors analyse the different actors and structures that create and perpetuate discourses within the EU, highlighting new insights that a focus on discourse can bring to the field of European Union studies. This book was published as a special issue of Perspectives on European Politics and Society.