Suchergebnisse

The article analyses the way narratives are constructed in EU external relations and their relation to policy practices. Five overarching narratives are identified: the EU as a security provider, the EU as a democratizer and spreader of 'good' norms, the EU as an actor that contributes to or assures global peace, the EU as an entity that contributes to the well-being of peoples around the world and finally the narrative of EU good neighbourliness. After a brief section that details the links between discourses, narratives and political practice, the article will systematically explore the five narratives. The rationale for this endeavour is based on the often huge discrepancy found between the ambitious goals set out in narratives and the poor policy track of the EU in its external relations. Continuous policy and discursive redefinition and reconsideration provide a dynamic context in which goals are renegotiated when political reality deviates from them. A clear pattern of downgrading ambitions when policy outcomes do not match them can be observed in the EU's external relations. Adapted from the source document.

The discussion about the public sphere only began to have significant relevance within the setting of the European Union in the middle of the 1990s when a growing degree of attention was directed towards European integration and the role of national and transnational media in providing thrust for it. Since then, the notion of the public sphere has been seen as a central feature of European democracies, shaping the coherence of political systems and decision-making processes. There has also been a tendency in the literature to perceive the European public sphere (EPS) as having positive effects on the EU by endowing it with legitimacy and providing a space where its institutions and leaders can be made more transparent and accountable. What is disputed throughout this scholarship is the possibility of creating an overarching European public sphere that would act as a transnational discursive space uniting various communication fluxes and actors from all strata of society. However, the answers provided by scholars for this puzzle are at most ambiguous or undecided and seem to be torn between viewing the EPS as aspiration, myth or reality. Adapted from the source document.