Abstract
This article looks at ways in which the EU’s institutional representatives and individual civil servants of the Commission and the European External Action Service frame their discourse on the EU’s international role and values. It proceeds as follows. Firstly, it introduces the data and methodology employed in Discourse Historical Analysis. Secondly, it presents a section to illustrate the metaphors that have been adopted to organise collected material. It identifies three main patterns of discourse-making and associates them with metaphors coming from the Western European literature tradition: two figures coming from Voltaire’s Candide – Candide and Pangloss – and a character from a Mozart opera, Don Giovanni. Finally, the article focuses on perceptions of the EU’s international actions and its core underlying values.
Introduction: normality and normativity in international discourses
Public diplomacy can be defined as a one-way information flow aimed at reaching foreign publics (Melissen, 2005: 13). It seeks to ‘advance the interests and extend the values of those being represented’ (Sharp, 2005: 106). As this definition shows, political discourse at the international level pursues several strategies in parallel, ranging ‘from conceptualisation to manipulation of thought’ (Sharifian, 2009: 417), and strives to convey a positive image of an international actor by emphasising its ideals, ideas, culture, institutions, goals and policies (Tuch, 1990, quoted in Melissen, 2005: 12–13). International discourses – in both realms of public and traditional diplomacy – are therefore political acts of a particular kind (Hampton, 2008: 59), which tightly enmesh logics of production, presentation and representation. Through ‘narratives of production’ (Shepherd, 2008: 384), they contribute towards constructing the image, international posture, reputation, and position of a given international actor. They are acts of representation, in that they are mediated ‘social processes, by which someone is empowered to speak on behalf of (or “in the name of”) an entity, thereby making that entity an actor’ (Jackson, 2004: 287). The uttered word, in this context, embodies a twin logical fiction: on the one hand, it discursively constructs a self to be represented through diplomatic practices. On the other, it tightly enmeshes ‘individual’ (micro) and ‘political (macro) dimensions (Faizullaev, 2006: 516) of selfhood, establishing ‘extensive relationships built on strangeness and separateness […]’ where ‘representation and presentation are bound up together in the diplomatic act’ (Sofer, 1997: 182, 184). Reflecting this multiplicity of logics, functions and objectives, international discourses do not necessarily unveil an actor’s intentions; they might well dissimulate them. In this respect, no international actor constitutes an exception in patterns of international discourse-making: international discourse is primarily an act of self-representation, ‘the act of standing outside oneself’ (Sofer, 1997: 184) not necessarily associated with coherency.
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 the Special Issue 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). What discourse analysis aims to depict, therefore, is 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 (Barbe et al., forthcoming; Hülsse, 2006), this article focuses on the metaphorical construction of the EU’s international subjectivity. However, 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, for example ways of defining an international actor’s subjectivity, and connecting results to the general academic literature on the topic.
Like the Diez (2013) and Jørgensen (2013) contributions in this volume, this article looks at the EU’s international discourse ‘in context’. This article acknowledges at least four discursive levels: the individual level; the national (Andersen, 1983); the location of the system of governance; and the conceptions of EU governance options (Diez, 2001). The analysis proposed here mainly focuses on the conceptions of foreign governance options held by foreign policy actors. It proposes an analysis based on selected public statements made by high-profile EU representatives and on 30 semi-structured interviews with members of the Commission’s Relex Family (mostly from DG DEVCO and DG Trade) and the European External Action Service (EEAS). 1 The context, in this fashion, ‘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). 2
While having a similar focus to Diez and Jørgensen’s contributions, therefore, this article narrows down the scope of the analysis to utterances produced by institutional actors and relies on socio-linguistic and discourse historical analysis (DHA) strategies based on qualitative interviews. DHA explicitly relies on triangulation of different sources, data, methods, theories and background information to grasp the context in which discourses are embedded (Aydın-Düzgit, 2013; Reisigl and Wodak, 2009; Wodak, 2001; Wodak and Boukala, in press; Wodak and Meyer, 2009). 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 interdiscursivity also allows us to follow the ways in which a given discourse is recontextualised in different utterances.
The article proceeds as follows. Firstly, it identifies three main patterns of discourse-making and associates them with metaphors coming from the Western European literature tradition: two figures coming from Voltaire’s Candide – Candide and Pangloss – and a character from Mozart’s opera, Don Juan. 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 normative-oriented, inherently colonising, or strategically oriented international actors. Finally, the article focuses on perceptions of the EU’s international actions and its core underlying values.
Three metaphors for the EU’s 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. 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, le mot) to a ‘target domain’ (the signified, la realité), 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 webs of meanings among objects. As Spencer notes, metaphors not only establish webs of similarities, they also connect differences. In other terms, 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 article focuses on three sets of discourses and associated metaphors. The choice was made to select three metaphors from 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 bears recognition that the definition of both what is ‘European’ and ‘the how a European foreign policy ought to be’ are profoundly eradicated 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 Juan.
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 of 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 incoherences, philosophies, contradictions, and miseries. Yet, he maintains his optimistic faith in reason. By the end of the journey, Candide progressively takes his distance from his master, by 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 Juan, in the libretto from 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 Juan 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 Juan at the end of the opera. Don Juan 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. As with Candide, Don Juan 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, 565-6 in Madsen, 2004: 70). In contrast to Candide, Don Juan is expression of an individual conception of freedom, an ‘[…] unrestricted aristocratic privilege to be defended if necessary by the sword – […]’ (Madsen, 2004: 70).
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 (Table 1). 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, they predicate a radically different international role and subjectivity for both the EU and other international players.
Metaphors and related EU tropes.
Figurative language and the analysis of the EU
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), ‘imperial’ (Zielonka, 2006), ‘militarised yet civilian’ (Stavridis, 2001), ‘ethical’ (Aggestam, 2008), ‘ideal’ (Cebeci, 2012), ‘pragmatic’ (Wood, 2011), ‘irrelevant’ (Bicchi, 2013) 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.
This putative normativity has been portrayed as based, respectively, on its foundation (legal agreement among a group of states to yield portions of sovereignty and give up to 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 (alternatively, 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. The metaphors adopted here can therefore be associated with the body of literature on the EU international actorness, whereas different strands of literature tap onto particular discursive components associated with the EU’s international role.
In this fashion, literature associated with the ‘Candide’ discursive pattern, tends to convey the message that the democratic pedigree of the EU makes (or ought to make) a difference in its conduct of foreign policy. Against the backdrop of the rhetoric of a ‘martial potency’, Manners contends that ‘we have built the EU precisely to escape great power mentality’ (Monnet, 1962: 26, as observed by Manners, 2006: 183). Thus, even if the EU progressively acquired some military capability, it could be regarded as a champion of ‘sustainable peace’, one that strives to (or ought to) ‘address[ing] the causes, rather than just the symptoms, of conflict and violence’ (Manners, 2006: 185).
The meta-discourse on Normative Power Europe (NPE) (see Diez, 2013) has been portrayed as having produced ambivalent outcomes (Sjursen, 2006). On the one hand, NPE proved beneficial as it raised questions on what kind of novel international role the EU can effectively play. Critically, NPE deserves credit for having identified a narrative (articulated around soft power and multilateralism) that allowed the EU to perfect its individuation by defining itself as the political other in a context framed by US hegemony and its identification with unilateral military power. On the other hand, it is contestable, not only because it taps onto the same discursive repertoire of the foreign policy actors that it is supposed to analyse, but also because it makes researchers ‘vulnerable to the charge of being unable to distinguish between their own sympathy for the European project and their academic role as critical analysts’ (Sjursen, 2006: 170–172; see also Diez, 2013).
These reflections question profoundly the heuristic validity of the NPE discourse. In the first place, NPE embodies a wishful thinking: one that we can refer to power by surgically eviscerating it of all coercive, violent, imposing components that it embodies. In that, the use of the NPE discursive frame somehow elides the strategic, power-seeking and self-involved components connected to the ambition of exerting international influence. In that, the definition of a ‘normative power’– that is, one that (mostly) relies on soft power to shape conceptions of what is ‘normal’ at the international level (Manners, 2002) – eclipses along the lines the EU’s ultimate goal: one of exerting influence. What are the benchmarks of a normative international conduct? And can an international actor indulge in normative behaviour regardless of the context of its actions?
As with these general reflections, growing body of literature attacks the EU’s ‘Pangloss’ attitudes in foreign policy, one that uses normative arguments, by replicating a mechanism of othering and masking its peculiar strategy to gain hegemony. Several metaphors have been deployed to elicit the rhetoric of the EU’s moral pedigree. The EU is blamed for its incoherence, for its garrulous attitude, and for its imperialistic posture. In this light, the normative component of the EU discursive posture is blamed not only because it conveys a deceptive view of the international role of the EU, but also for being strategically functional to the pursuit of its own self-involved objectives.
The EU’s way to exert hegemony relies on asymmetric partnership and on conditional disbursement of funds (Hettne and Söderbaum, 2005). Through this strategy, the EU has a remarkable ‘transformative power’. By not coercing, but rather by inviting others to become partners, the EU manages ‘to enlarge[d] not “Europe” but a particular economic and political system, or even a community of values’ (Leonard, 2005: 110, noted in Hettne and Söderbaum, 2008: 55). In the same direction, with reference to Doty’s seminal work (1996), Rumelili contends that any international discourse tapping onto democracy and human rights, intertwines with such ‘oppositional structuring’: ‘discourses on the promotion of democracy and human rights are inevitably productive of two identity categories, a morally superior identity of democratic juxtaposed to the inferior identity of non- (or less) democratic, thereby “constructing the very differences that transformation would ostensibly eliminate”’ (2004: 31).
Finally, as in Thucydides dialogue between the Melians and the Athenians, a third stream of literature – here associated with Don Juan’s metaphor – contests profoundly the idea that ‘Gods help the goods’. Quite on the contrary, this stream of literature seems to suggest that goods help the stronger. As such, any rhetoric on the EU’s role should simply serve the purpose to enhancing the EU’s position in the international scene, if it does not want to fuel the tragic outcome of being simply irrelevant at the international level. With this goal in mind, some authors note that change in the EU’s rhetorical patterns can be strategically informed (Rogers, 2009). In his realist critique of NPE, Hyde-Price argues that the EU – as one of the possible foreign policy venues of its member states – was mainly deployed to pursue their ‘second- order normative concerns’ (2008). This, ‘in addition to the charge of hypocrisy’ and ‘temptations of moralistic crusades’, poses major problems,
The first is that placing undue emphasis on the pursuit of an ethical agenda may leave the EU a weak and ineffective actor, unable to further the economic and strategic interests of its member states. As Machiavelli noted, ‘the fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous’ (2008: 34–35).
In a plea for a stronger role, Simón (2012) argued that the EU’s emphasis on effective multilateralism and ‘soft crisis management’ could work in the 2000s, when it was useful to highlight Europe’s contrast with a markedly criticised unilateral and militaristic US administration. From the late 2000s, however, the US adopted an increasingly multilateral approach to foreign policy and began to signal its reluctance to directly uphold order in the European neighborhood. In this changing context, the EU’s softness may have proven to be strategically hollow. Have these changes served to expose an idiocy that was hitherto masked by a polarising administration in Washington? On this ground, the best advocacy that could be given to the EU is one of ‘ton[ing] down its “ethical” discourse, recognize the complexities and moral dilemmas of international politics, and stop assuming that what is good for Europe is good for the world’ (Hyde-Price, 2008: 35).
The next sections will further elaborate on the three discursive patterns and organise textual evidence accordingly.
Candide: the EU as an idiot power in search of a world garden
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’. 3 In this connotation, the words ‘candid’ or ‘idiot’ do not assume any derogatory meaning: they aim to represent a subject who ignores evil. For its particular genesis, the EU is required to pursue a foreign policy based on compromise among its constitutive parties. The constant pursuit of an 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 common good. As will be argued, emphasis on discourse is, therefore, an 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 superseding international conduct (Smith, 2000a: 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, 4 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’. 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 (Íñigo-Mora, 2004; Maitland and Wilson, 1987; 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 pronominal ‘I’ is often connected to her role as VP/HR: she discursively locates herself as a medium to an end, a porte-parole.
5
‘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; then she 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.
6
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 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. In Table 2, reported below, this discursive pattern highlights that the beneficiaries tend to be identified with people, whether Europeans or third-country citizens. As a figure of speech, reference to people – rather than to states or international partners, as is the case for predication of partners – emphasises the wished-for universality of the EU action (the numbers presented in brackets explain the order of each reported discourse).
Some related examples in Catherine Ashton’s speeches.
Remarks by High Representative Catherine Ashton following the Foreign Affairs Council, 21 March 2011.
Remarks by High Representative Catherine Ashton, quoted in note 6.
Interview with Catherine Ashton, released in Godollo, Hungary, 24 February 2012, available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt8nU4NluCU, retrieved 20 June 2012.
Interview with Catherine Ashton, released in Godollo, Hungary, quoted in table footnote (a).
Officials reflecting this discursive position intensify the potentially benevolent role of the EU, to the detriment of its own interest. 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 – special attention is 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’. […]. When we see how it acts on the international scene, I do not believe that this counts everywhere and in every case. […] 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 […]. […] 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).
The EU therefore ‘acts’ and ‘speaks’ not always in a coherent manner. On the one hand, through its agents, it concretely does positive things and can – by means of its good intentions and resources – help its patterns to achieve their own goals. On the other hand, the EU does not always contribute positively or, for that matter, coherently to making the world a better place. The EU is therefore entrapped in its own rhetoric, a rhetoric that not only proves to be deceptive, but also raises doubts on its double-dealing, or even racist posture. The EU, therefore, should rather give answers to concrete problems; should not indulge in any self-celebratory posture. And again,
The role of the EU … your question assumes that there is a role to play […]. You easily fall into an imperialistic speech when you assume that. […] 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 around the world. This is what we are trying to do […] especially in those countries where we provide development assistance: trying to support human rights, free market economy…, […] This implies a political judgment as well. Is that what we are supposed to do? In [the country I was posted in] […] the mindset of the people was not ready [to absorb all EU’s requirements]; the economy is in a limbo, because they came out from a 10 years civil war. […] We use financial incentives to convince them, which I don’t think is a good thing to do (1.21).
The EU should be dialogic in the conduct of international relations, not only in order not to run the risk of being perceived as imperialistic, but also to finally represent a different model of an international actor. The EU should rather behave differently, not speak differently, according to this pattern. Emphasis on ambiguities – 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 with 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. Therein, 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 word 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 that 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 vision 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 adopt a recent video from Directorate General (DG) Enlargement. 7 The video portrayed a ‘Kill Bill-like’ young 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’s 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’. 8 Beyond these intentions, reference to a martial vs. peaceful discourse is difficult to deny.
The presupposition underlining 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.
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, whereas, ‘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 race’ for the environment with or without consideration of 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. 9
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 with a cautious attitude on behalf of civil servants and with 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 attitude in acting as a Pangloss. The tendency to see the EU as somehow above other international actors, however, is there. As, for instance, in the vivid words of this official:
What I really appreciate, […] is that the European Union is trying to support other countries and try – let’s say – to tutor them. I don’t want to say that it is teaching, but tutoring them. A way of speaking says: 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. A somehow distinctive role is recognised in the EU’s international role. This role stems from the lessons learnt by its own history and from the institutional system that its member have engineered: the EU has learnt from its mistakes, and now it does act as a novel entity on the international system. What associates civil servants discourse to this trope, therefore, is a form of ‘otherness’, of specialty that detaches the EU from others, whether grounded in the level of economics, 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 Juan 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 Juan 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 notation brings us directly to the Don Juan metaphor: that of an actor with the ambition to leave its stage of infancy and acquire genuine power to pursue its goals.
Don Juan: a global power in its infancy
Don Juan 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, whereas Don Juan 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: 66–67). 10
The idea of a world informed by conflicts both shapes the contours of actors in the international scene and sheds light on the anarchical, 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 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 conditions 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: 31–32). 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 Juans, 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:
We have real diplomacy when we get angry at people and people get angry at us. For instance, in the transports sectors. Recently they were all very angry because 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).
Without arriving at the definition of the others as aliens, interviewees tapping onto this discursive pattern tend to acknowledge the need of a reality check in designing the EU’s international conduct and discourse. Not only – as in the Candide’s discursive patterns – there is the belief that the EU might act in an incoherent way, but there is also room for questioning the strategic validity of rhetoric based on values. Interviewees refer constantly to reality; to concrete situations; to possible mismatches that need to be taken into account to reconcile values with interests.
Values? […] it 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 […]. So, it’s difficult to generalise. […] The real problem, in 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.).
Finally, this pattern tends to be accompanied with a cautious posture, based on the awareness that the power distribution at the international level is changing fast. In a changing international environment, where the EU is progressively losing terrain, a more strategic posture is required. This posture should draw strategically on the ‘power of numbers’. In reverse terms, the member states should use the EU to counter their relative decline in the international scene.
I tend to escape abstract definitions, such as ‘actor’, ‘power’ and their ability to define values… In a world that 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 […]. (1.25, author translation from Italian).
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.
Conclusions – not necessarily normative discourse, but discourse on normativity
In line with the theoretical challenge of this special issue, this article 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 article explored tropes of international discourse and revealed coexisting discursive patterns. It showed that the peculiar nature of the EU does not prevent strategic discourse or posture. As any other international actors, the EU flexibly combines both normative and strategic elements in a pragmatic fashion in the pursuit of its international conduct (Wood, 2011). In the same direction, this contribution showed that the peculiar nature of the EU does not prevent strategic discourse or posture. However, while, as argued, EU’s discursive patterns do not markedly differ from those adopted by other international players, the constitutive nature of the EU reveals the centrality of normative discourses, whether to celebrate the EU’s normative pedigree, to highlight its incoherence, or to deny its existence.
The EU is unequivocally recognised as being an atypical foreign policy actor, with limited resources, but with the ambition to be a global player. Three metaphors stemming from Western European culture were selected. All these metaphors, in a way, reflected the centrality of the Enlightenment in the formulation of EU’s international discourses and 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 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 affirm 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, the EU is perceived and narrated in extremely abstract terms: incoherencies are wisely minimised, and there is neither a benevolent nor a strategic posture in defining both the international context and other international actors.
The third metaphor, that of Don Juan, 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 perceived as hostile and as leaving 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.
Footnotes
Funding
This research acknowledges the support of the FP7 integrated research project GR:EEN - Global Re-ordering: Evolution through European Networks (European Commission Project Number: 266809).