The EU and Its Neighbourhoods: A Textual Analysis on Key Documents of the European Neighbourhood Policy

Abstract

International audienceOver the last twenty years, European Union (EU) actorness at both regional and global scales, has become a fruitful topic of analysis in the eld of political science, and more specically in international relations and political geography. Critical geopolitics dedicated many substantive papers on EU discourses and representations. Our paper aims at providing a complementary way to study texts issued by the EU and to question EU actorness by adopting an approach based on textual analysis. The corpus examined includes the seven communications on the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) issued between 2003 and 2013. These communications provide essential information regarding relations between the EU and its immediate neighbours. The textual analysis allows several relevant characteristics of discourses to be highlighted: stability and changes, actors, spaces and scales mentioned. The outcomes of the analysis conrm previous research on the subject: The ENP appears as a bilateral state-centric policy, missing global scale, and neglecting the role of regional powers like Turkey or Russia

Presidents’ discourses: Lags, leads or mere words?

“…IRAMUTEQ se ha utilizado a menudo para procedimientos estadísticos con texto de diferentes bases de datos en una variedad de campos y géneros. El programa se puede utilizar en la evaluación y análisis textual de programas de políticas públicas o partidistas, en el análisis comparativo del discurso y el análisis de ideologías políticas en diferentes contextos (Beauguitte et al, 2015;Borriello & Brack, 2019;Trimithiotis, 2018). Además, su capacidad de análisis léxico para clasificar palabras, clases y segmentos de texto permite un estudio más rápido y efectivo del contenido, especialmente como parte del análisis cualitativo y cuantitativo de los elementos lingüísticos utilizados, incluso en discursos pronunciados por políticos, candidatos políticos, y presidentes durante las campañas electorales (Curbelo, 2017; J. da S. G. Fernandes et al, 2014;Junior et al, 2018;Trimithiotis, 2018).…”

Visionary geographies and European Studies

“…More specifically, and in the context of the ‘big bang enlargement’ of 2004/2007, numerous studies engaged with the meaning of the EU and its international role after enlargement (Antonsich, 2008; Bachmann and Sidaway, 2009; Beckouche and Grasland, 2008; Bialasiewicz, 2008, 2011; Elden and Bialasiewicz, 2006; Pollard and Sidaway, 2002; Sidaway, 2006). Much of this work focusses on the spatial and semantic limits and demarcations of this ‘new’ Europe, including the processes and effects of the ‘big bang’ enlargement as well as the wider relations with its ‘old’ and ‘new’ neighbours (Armstrong and Anderson, 2006; Beauguitte et al, 2015; Bialasiewicz et al, 2005, 2009; Bialasiewicz and Minca, 2005; Kuus, 2004, 2007). Inevitably, this work critically scrutinizes the EU’s border and migration regimes (Amilhat-Szary and Giraut, 2015; Balibar, 2009; Celata and Coletti, 2019; Rouland, 2017; van Houtum, 2010; van Houtum et al, 2005; Walters, 2002, 2009).…”

Introduction: The Rise of Geopolitics in the EU’s Approach in its Eastern Neighbourhood

“…The last five years have seen the rise of traditional aspects if geopolitics in the vocabulary of EU policymakers (Juncker 2018(Juncker , 2017Mogherini 2017). While the EU has traditionally denied any type of geopolitical interest in dealing with other states and shied away from Realpolitik, its foreign policy has been partly influenced by a hybrid type geopolitical thinking (Beauguitte, Richard, and Guérin-Pace 2015). Firstly, the EU occupies a certain geographical space, and seeks to export the values and norms that have developed in this space to other regions (Christou 2010).…”