(mis-) recognition of the identity of the European Union as an international actor

331 Pages·2016·2.12 MB·English

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Faculty of Law
Department of Public Law and Historical-Juridical Sciences
PhD Programme in Politics, Policies and International Relations

The (mis-) recognition of the identity of the European Union as
an international actor: the discourse-historical analysis of the
Russian political narrative

Doctoral thesis presented by
Irina Khayrizamanova Khayrizamanova

Thesis supervisors:
Dr. Michał Natorski Prof. Esther Barbé Izuel

September, 2016

CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................................... v
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ................................................................................. vii
ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................................... ix
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... xi
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 1
1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1
2. The role of external images for the EU actorness and identity: state-of-the-art .............. 2
3. Studies on EU-Russia relations ........................................................................................ 5
3.1. EU-Russian relations: state of affairs and causes of conflict .................................... 6
3.2. Studies on the EU-Russia ideational interactions ..................................................... 9
4. Research design ............................................................................................................. 13
4.1. Research questions .................................................................................................. 13
4.2. Case studies ............................................................................................................. 15
4.2.1. The images of the European Union as a model of regional integration in
Russian political discourse ......................................................................................... 15
4.2.2. Perceptions of the EU’s identity as an actor in the common neighbourhood in
the EU and Russian political discourses .................................................................... 18
4.2.3. Images of the European Union as a promoter of human rights and democracy
in European and Russian political narratives ............................................................. 20
4.2.4. Perceptions of the European Union as an actor in the Ukrainian crisis in the
EU and Russian political discourses .......................................................................... 23
4.3. Research strategy .................................................................................................... 25
4.4. Sources and the main difficulties of the analysis .................................................... 28
5. Structure of the thesis ..................................................................................................... 30
CHAPTER II. SELF AND OTHER MUTUAL CONSTITUTION THROUGH
DISCURSIVE INTERACTIONS: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND
METHODOLOGICAL CHOICES ................................................................................ 33
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................... 33
2. Post-positivist turn in International Relations ................................................................ 33
i
3. Theoretical and conceptual framework: a brief overview ............................................. 35
3.1. The concept of identity ........................................................................................... 36
3.2. The role of the Other in identity formation ............................................................. 39
3.3. The concept of foreign policy roles in International Relations literature ............... 42
3.4. The concept of images in International Relations literature ................................... 44
3.5. Images and identities: the missing link ................................................................... 47
3.6. Perceptions and behavior ........................................................................................ 48
3.7. Analytical framework ............................................................................................. 49
3.8. Recognition as an essential component in the ideational Self-Other interactions .. 51
4. Methodological notes ..................................................................................................... 57
4.1. Role of the language in the emergence of discursive approaches........................... 58
4.2. Poststructuralist Discourse Theory: theoretical premises and methodological
deficiency ....................................................................................................................... 61
4.3. Discourse Historical Approach: analytical steps and methodological tools ........... 63
5. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 66
CHAPTER III. THE EU: ACTORNESS AND IDENTITY ........................................ 69
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................... 69
2. Identity of the European Union: fundamental questions ............................................... 69
2.1. Does the European identity exist? ........................................................................... 70
2.2. Whose identity? ...................................................................................................... 72
2.3. What kind of identity? ............................................................................................ 75
2.3.1. The EU as a civilian power .............................................................................. 75
2.3.2. Normative power EU ....................................................................................... 77
2.3.3. Ethical power Europe ....................................................................................... 78
2.4. Incorporating the Other’s perspective into the distinctiveness debate .................... 78
3. EU actorness: taking one step back ............................................................................... 81
4. The EU as an actor: theoretical debates ......................................................................... 83
4.1. EU actorness through the rationalist prism ............................................................. 83
4.2. Beyond the traditional approaches: looking for an alternative conceptualization. . 85
4.3. The EU actorness revisited: external recognition as an essential prerequisite for the
EU’s identity as an actor ................................................................................................ 88
5.Conceptualizing the EU identity as an international actor through the prism of external
recognition ......................................................................................................................... 91
5.1. Perceptions of the EU as an autonomous entity ...................................................... 92
ii
5.2. Assessing the European Union’s unity through the prism of external recognition 94
5.3. External images of the EU’s capabilities ................................................................ 96
5.4. Perceptions of the EU’s ideational content as an international actor ...................... 98
6. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 99
CHAPTER IV. IMAGES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION AS A MODEL OF
REGIONAL INTEGRATION IN RUSSIAN POLITICAL DISCOURSE .............. 101
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 101
2. The EU as a model of regional integration in literature: intentional and unintentional
influence ........................................................................................................................... 102
3. Recognition of images of EU autonomy in Russian political discourse ...................... 104
4. Russian (mis-) recognition of unity of the European Union ........................................ 114
5.Analysis of Russian discursive reactions to the images of capabilities of European
integration ........................................................................................................................ 123
6. EU ideational self-images through the prism of Russian (mis-) recognition ............... 126
7. Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 135
CHAPTER V. PERCEPTIONS OF EU IDENTITY AS AN ACTOR IN THE
COMMON NEIGHBOURHOOD IN EUROPEAN AND RUSSIAN POLITICAL
DISCOURSES ................................................................................................................ 139
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 139
2. EU-Russian policies in the post-Soviet Space: background and state-of-the-art......... 140
3. Comparative analysis of European and Russian images of EU autonomy as an actor in
the common neighbourhood ............................................................................................ 143
4. Images of EU unity through the prism of EU-Russian discursive ‘encounter’ ........... 152
5. Paradigm of Russian discursive resistance to the representations of EU instrumental
capabilities in the common neighbourhood ..................................................................... 158
6. Patterns of Russian discursive resistance to the ideational representations of EU
actorness in the common neighbourhood ........................................................................ 163
7. Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 171
CHAPTER VI. IMAGES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION AS A PROMOTER OF
HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY IN EUROPEAN AND RUSSIAN
POLITICAL DISCOURSES ......................................................................................... 175
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 175
2. The European Union as a promoter of human rights and democracy: state-of-the-art 176
iii
3. Russian discursive contestation of the EU’s self-understandings of its autonomy as an
actor.................................................................................................................................. 179
4. Russian misrecognition of the EU’s unity ................................................................... 189
5. Analysis of Russian discursive reactions to the EU’s self-images of its capabilities .. 194
6. Patterns of Russian (mis-) recognition of ideational representations of the EU as a
promoter of human rights and democracy ....................................................................... 197
7. Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 204
CHAPTER VII. PERCEPTIONS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION AS AN ACTOR
IN THE UKRAINIAN CRISIS IN EU AND RUSSIAN POLITICAL
DISCOURSES ................................................................................................................ 207
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 207
2. State-of-the-art ............................................................................................................. 208
3. Russian (mis-) recognition of the EU’s autonomy ...................................................... 211
4. The images of the EU’s unity through the prism of Russian (mis-) recognition ......... 219
5. Patterns of discursive resistance to the images of EU capabilities in the Ukrainian
conflict ............................................................................................................................. 223
6. Paradigms of discursive contestation of the EU’s ideational self-representations in
Russian political discourse ............................................................................................... 230
7. Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 240
CHAPTER VIII CONCLUSIONS .............................................................................. 243
1. Recapitulating the research questions and the main analytical points ......................... 243
2. Main findings of the thesis ........................................................................................... 246
2.1. Identity of the European Union as an international actor: in its own eyes. .......... 246
2.2. Identity of the EU as an international actor in the eyes of Russia: patterns of (mis-)
recognition ................................................................................................................... 248
2.3. Implications of Russian (mis-)recognition for EU-Russian ideational
interactions ................................................................................................................... 257
3. Theoretical contribution to existing literature .............................................................. 261
3.1. Identity of the EU as an international actor .......................................................... 261
3.2. EU-Russian relations: ideational interactions, conflictual predispositions and
future prospects ............................................................................................................ 262
4. Future research ............................................................................................................. 265
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................ 269
iv
ABSTRACT

The principle object of this thesis is the analysis of the EU and Russian discursive
construction of four EU foreign policy roles. The main empirical question of the study is:
How can the interplay of the EU-Russian perceptions contribute to the explanation of the
strained EU-Russian relations at the ideational level and how did these dynamics
contribute to the climax of the conflict as presented by the Ukrainian events? In order to
answer this question this thesis proceeds with the analysis of how the European Union
constructs itself as a foreign policy actor, how these self-representations reverberate in the
Russian counter-discourse and what repercussions these mirror images have on the
interactions between both actors at the ideational level and foreign policy outcomes.
These empirical steps are based on the analytical and theoretical framework which is
closely linked with the core assumptions of the constructivist and poststructuralist
research agenda, namely the constitutive force of political utterances and the view that
identity is the result of the interaction between Self and Other. The analytical framework
accepts the all-embracing understanding of identity as ‘a feeling of Selfhood’ that consists
of the following criteria: autonomy, unity, capability and ideational representations that
are subject to external judgment.
The empirical part of the thesis revealed that Russian counter-discourse exhibited a wide
gamut of discursive reactions that go beyond the conventional recognition/misrecognition
dichotomy. However, Russia manifested a conspicuous tendency towards challenging and
contesting the EU’s self-ingratiating images as an established actor characterized by
distinctive identity. These misrecognition patterns prevalent in Russian political narrative
created conflictual predilections intensified by the EU’s reciprocal resistance to these
mirror images, which in turn cast into doubt Russia’s status as a ‘Significant Other’ and
‘strategic partner’. Therefore, in their ‘struggle for recognition of the status’ both actors
found themselves caught in the vicious and self-reinforcing cycle of mutual mis- and non-
recognition. The difficulty to avoid it originates from its framing in the terms of hierarchy
and securitization leading to extraordinary measures like the Russian involvement in
crisis in Ukraine.
v

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Figure 1. Research design of the discourse analysis .......................................................... 26
Table 1. Alternative conceptions of identity ...................................................................... 37
Figure 2. Perceptions, identity, foreign policy roles and foreign policy outcomes ........... 50
Table 2. Potential outcomes of recognition and mis-/non-recognition in the EU/Russia
interactions ......................................................................................................................... 56
Table 3. Perceptions of EU autonomy through the prism of Russian recognition .......... 106
Table 4. Summary of Russian discursive reactions to the images of EU unity ............... 118
Table 5. Discursive ‘encounter’ of EU-Russian perceptions of the EU’s capabilities .... 123
Table 6. Patterns of Russian discursive reactions to EU ideational self-representations 130
Table 7. Images of EU autonomy through the prism of Russian (mis-) recognition ....... 145
Table 8. Russian discursive reactions to the images of EU unity .................................... 155
Table 9. Paradigm of Russian discursive resistance to the representations of EU
instruments ....................................................................................................................... 161
Table 10. Paradigms of discursive contestation of the EU’s ideational representations in
Russian political narrative ................................................................................................ 168
Table 11. Images of the EU’s institutions as constitutive of autonomy in the EU and
Russian political discourses ............................................................................................. 183
Table 12. Russian non-recognition of the images of EU policies in the field of HRD ... 188
Table 13. Perceptions of EU unity through the prism of Russian (mis-) recognition ..... 192
Table 14. Patterns of Russian discursive reactions to the images of the EU’s capabilities
.......................................................................................................................................... 196
Table 15. Russian discursive resistance to the EU’s ideational self-representations ...... 198
Table 16. Paradigms of the discursive resistance to the images of the EU’s autonomy
(institutions) ..................................................................................................................... 213
Table 17. Russian (mis-) recognition of the EU’s images of autonomy (policies and
autonomy from external actors) ....................................................................................... 216
Table 18. Contestation of EU’s self-images of unity in Russian political narrative ........ 221
Table 19. Russian recognition and resistance to the images of EU capabilities in the
Ukrainian crisis ................................................................................................................ 226
vii