Petr Kratochvíl

The Discursive Resistance to EU-Enticement: The Russian Elite and (the Lack of) Europeanisation

Abstract This article explores the discourse of the Russian elite on foreign policy in general and on the European Union in particular, and identifies the main reasons for Russias resistance to Europeanisation. At a theoretical level, the article builds upon the study of discourse conceived in ‘structural’ terms, and argues that discursive incompatibility at a deeper discursive level prevents the socialisation of elite members to attitudes more sympathetic to Europe at a more superficial level. Methodologically, the research is based on content analysis of major Russian foreign policy documents, presidential speeches and, in particular, of a set of interviews with Russian foreign policy-makers and academics most frequently in touch with the European Union.

The EU as a Framing Actor: Reflections on Media Debates About EU Foreign Policy

This article explores the EUs ability to frame the public debates about its external policies. The article begins by broadening the current discussions about the three aspects of actorness legitimacy, attractiveness and recognition by introducing the EUs framing power as a fourth aspect of actorness. Then it proceeds to an empirical analysis of framing, which is based on a discourse analysis of the news coverage of Ukraine (2002-07) in print media in the three biggest EU Member States (United Kingdom, Germany and France).

“Nothing Is Imposed in This Policy!” The Construction and Constriction of the European Neighbourhood

The article argues that postcolonial, postdevelopment, Balkanist and East–West slope theories, which reflect the asymmetric relations between “Europe” and its former colonies or other regions on the periphery of the continent, are most likely to give an accurate analysis of the mechanism of the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP). We offer a new conceptualization of the European Neighborhood and suggest that the European Union (EU) constructs its neighborhood as an ambiguous and transitional other while masking the asymmetric and dominant structure of the ENP through a liberal-democratic discourse. A critical discourse analysis of official documents and speeches confirms the ambiguity, transitiveness, and concealed dominance of the policy and the not-so-benign normative character of the EU. It also suggests that the neighborhood of Europe is not a fixed place and its continuous recreation helps the core of Europe to control the regions and make them comply with its normative as well as geographic expansion. In this respect, the ENP shows striking similarities with policies of colonialism and neocolonialism.

Czech Republic: A Paradise for Eurosceptics?

The Czech Republic is a peculiar case of a persistently Eurosceptic country. Despite the fact that the country´s economy has been growing very fast in recent years and its unemployment rate is the lowest in the EU, recent Eurobarometer opinion polls suggest that Czechs express more wariness regarding European integration than the notoriously Eurosceptic Brits. Czech Euroscepticism consists of a mixture of the dashed hopes of a fast catching up process with the richer EU member states, the traditional Czech suspicion towards great powers, and a pinch of the general Czech dislike of grand visions of any kind.

Competing Ideational Orders and EU Politics

The analysis of the political discourses of the two actors in the previous chapters focused on the discourses separately, thus leaving aside two important questions concerning their mutual comparison. The first of these questions is related to the internal structure in the discourses. Are the EU’s fundamental values, which are discussed in the Union’s discourse, organized similarly to those propounded by the Church? Are there the same types of hierarchies in the EU’s and the Church’s approach to basic political principles? The second question pertains to the interconnections between the two discourses, the mutual influences of one on the other and on the translation of one discourse to the other. It is useful to repeat that our approach was largely inductive. In our analysis of each of the two institutions’ discourses, we started from a preliminary reading of the basic documents produced by the Church and by the Union. Based on this, we identified the four clusters which revolved around four basic concepts that loomed large in the discourse. This means that we did not start from the specification of any kind of relationship among the four concepts and the related values and principles advocated by either of the two actors. Our silence on this issue might mislead the reader to the erroneous conclusion that we implicitly assumed that the principles which we discussed are equally important. But we could have equally started from the assumption that there is a single key principle from which all the others are derived. For instance, we could ask whether the dignity of the human person and the principle of religious freedom are seen as equally important by the Church (or by the EU) or whether one of the principles is seen as inferior or derived from the other.

Discourse of the European Union and the Catholic Church

The analysis of the discourse of the European Union (EU) is more complex than the analysis of the Catholic documents on European integration. First, although there can be no doubt about the existence of a multiplicity of Catholic bodies with sometimes very different views of the integration process, the Church’s institutional structure is rather straightforward in terms of the subordination of these bodies and the hierarchical nature of their relationship, which allows one to discern which views should be considered more relevant, authoritative, and representative of the Church as a whole. Unfortunately, such a hierarchical order is not present in the EU where we can consider both the supranational institutions as most representative (in particular the European Commission) and the member states. The internal hierarchies in the EU also vary in specific policy domains, with the Commission playing a very important role in some (such as the common commercial policy), while being virtually irrelevant in others.

Discourse of the Catholic Church and European Integration

Recently, much attention has been dedicated to issues like the references to God and Christianity in the Constitutional Treaty, the rejection of the nomination of the conservative Catholic Buttiglione for the post of a commissioner and the controversy of the “cross in the classroom” (Schlesinger and Foret 2006; Kerry 2007; Barbulescu and Andreescu 2010). Although these issues are undoubtedly legitimate objects of academic research, the excessive focus on differences leads to a rather static and purely reactionary picture of the Church which does not reflect the complexity of the institution and the theological and political plurality it covers. The real question is, hence, whether these relatively minor controversies are the tip of the iceberg of much more fundamental differences between the Church and the EU that are based on the widely different value systems of the two institutions, or whether the Church and the EU are rather two largely compatible entities that support each other most of the time.

Institutions and Embedded Ideational Orders

Part I of this study focused on the historical evolution of the ties between the Catholic Church and European integration. Part II presents the results of our own study on “political theology of European integration.” Before we discuss our empirical results, we will elaborate on the theoretical background of our study, namely the connection between institutions, ideational orders, and political theology. Three basic questions concerning the relation between institutions and ideas lie at the core of all recent debates about the role of institutions in (international) politics. The first is the perennial question whether institutions are shaped by interests or by ideas; the second asks whether ideas connect institutions to the wider normative concerns of the societies that give rise to these institutions; and the third pertains to the causal effects of ideas on institutions (Keohane 1988). While all three of these questions are directly relevant for our study, our answers to these questions are somewhat different from the mainstream institutionalist theory (cf. Hall and Taylor 1996).

The Study of Religion and European Integration: The State of the Art

More than anywhere else in political science and international studies, the students of European integration were, until recently, remarkably silent on the contemporary role of religion in EU politics. While it is true that until today, no monograph has been written specifically on the political relations between the EU and the Catholic Church, the situation has been changing: a quickly growing host of studies which analyses various links between the EU and religion or Christian churches has recently started to appear. This growing body of literature is comprised of a very diverse spectrum of perspectives ranging from legal studies and politico-philosophical essays about religion in the (European) public space to conceptual discussions of religious lobbying, the link between religion and European identity or Euroscepticism. Other studies cover the chronology of the dialogue between the EU and the churches, the relation of specific aspects of Catholic theology to the integration process and many other particular topics. Some authors innovatively explore the theological motivations of political actors or the theological justification of various political structures and institutions, sometimes directly pointing to the overlap between the sacred and secular orders a society upholds. Many other authors, however, stick to the older conceptual tools and focus on the religious agency in world politics, searching for religious actors who influence politics within particular states, who constitute independent quasi-states (the Holy See), or who act as non-state actors or even transnational institutions or networks.

Catholicism and European Integration: A Historical Overview

Immersion into the study of the interactions between Catholicism and the European integration takes us to a very rich and diverse area of interest with breath-taking depth of historical context. The complexity of the topic also brings a number of conceptual challenges. One of these necessary decisions that the student of the topic has to make deals with the delimitation of the time frame of the study. Since this book as a whole puts emphasis on the current situation, this chapter not only concentrates mainly on recent developments but also gives an overview of those of the whole post-war era. In spite of this general time frame, we also link each section of the chapter to the broader historical context whenever it is useful and possible. The other conceptual difficulty is related to the way of understanding the focal objects of our analysis as both European integration and Catholicism represent multifaceted phenomena difficult to conceive in their entirety. Even when focusing only on their central institutional embodiments,1 we still face the problem of their complex structure and multiple identities. The EU is represented by the ever-changing and still growing assortment of common institutions, legislation, and decision-making, which influence both the EU as a whole, its constituent units (the member states) and their citizens. On the contrary, the institutional triangle of the Catholic Church/the Vatican State/the Holy See, all interconnected by the person of the Supreme Pontiff, constituting the central institutional forms of Catholicism, is no less complex.