Reinventing the Union: Narratives about Europe in State of the Union speeches from 2010 to 2020
(2021) STVM23 20211Department of Political Science
- Abstract
- Narratives about Europe are stories of shared European past, present and future, that provide meaning to the existence of the European Union and to the policy it pursues. In this thesis, narratives about Europe are analysed in nine State of the Union speeches, given by Commission presidents from 2010 to 2020, and situated in the theoretical framework of discursive institutionalism. A combination of deductive and inductive approaches was used in the process of detecting narratives, which proved to be very useful as it resulted in more narratives being detected than would have been the case if only one approach was applied. Thus, nine narratives about Europe were identified: six core narratives already well known in the academic literature... (More)
- Narratives about Europe are stories of shared European past, present and future, that provide meaning to the existence of the European Union and to the policy it pursues. In this thesis, narratives about Europe are analysed in nine State of the Union speeches, given by Commission presidents from 2010 to 2020, and situated in the theoretical framework of discursive institutionalism. A combination of deductive and inductive approaches was used in the process of detecting narratives, which proved to be very useful as it resulted in more narratives being detected than would have been the case if only one approach was applied. Thus, nine narratives about Europe were identified: six core narratives already well known in the academic literature (‘Europe as a peace project’, ‘Europe of common values’, ‘Economic Europe’, ‘Social Europe’, ‘Green Europe’, ‘Global Europe’) and three additional narratives (‘Stronger together’, ‘Democratic Europe’ and ‘Digital Europe’). Their purpose was either foundational, legitimising the EU’s existence, or functional, legitimising the EU’s political action. While the frequency of using these narratives varied over the years, though with a slight upward trend, a few points of discontinuity were detected and discussed. Some narratives also changed their meaning, depending on the context and the ideas of Commission presidents. Ultimately, this thesis argues that Commission presidents act as agents of reinventing the Union through narration of stories about Europe. Reinvention through narration entails changing the frequency of using narratives, reinterpreting their meaning and constructing new narratives about Europe. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9044959
- author
- Milosic, Tomislav LU
- supervisor
-
- Ian Manners LU
- organization
- course
- STVM23 20211
- year
- 2021
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- narratives about Europe, State of the Union, Commission president, discursive institutionalism, reinvention through narration
- language
- English
- id
- 9044959
- date added to LUP
- 2021-07-06 11:10:59
- date last changed
- 2021-07-06 11:10:59
@misc{9044959,
abstract = {{Narratives about Europe are stories of shared European past, present and future, that provide meaning to the existence of the European Union and to the policy it pursues. In this thesis, narratives about Europe are analysed in nine State of the Union speeches, given by Commission presidents from 2010 to 2020, and situated in the theoretical framework of discursive institutionalism. A combination of deductive and inductive approaches was used in the process of detecting narratives, which proved to be very useful as it resulted in more narratives being detected than would have been the case if only one approach was applied. Thus, nine narratives about Europe were identified: six core narratives already well known in the academic literature (‘Europe as a peace project’, ‘Europe of common values’, ‘Economic Europe’, ‘Social Europe’, ‘Green Europe’, ‘Global Europe’) and three additional narratives (‘Stronger together’, ‘Democratic Europe’ and ‘Digital Europe’). Their purpose was either foundational, legitimising the EU’s existence, or functional, legitimising the EU’s political action. While the frequency of using these narratives varied over the years, though with a slight upward trend, a few points of discontinuity were detected and discussed. Some narratives also changed their meaning, depending on the context and the ideas of Commission presidents. Ultimately, this thesis argues that Commission presidents act as agents of reinventing the Union through narration of stories about Europe. Reinvention through narration entails changing the frequency of using narratives, reinterpreting their meaning and constructing new narratives about Europe.}},
author = {{Milosic, Tomislav}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Reinventing the Union: Narratives about Europe in State of the Union speeches from 2010 to 2020}},
year = {{2021}},
}