United we stand in metaphors: EU authority and incomplete politicisation of the crisis in Ukraine

Abstract

This article analyses the dynamics of the politicisation and depoliticisation of the EU response to the 2014 crisis in Ukraine through the perspective of metaphorical framing. This crisis constituted an unquestioned priority in EU foreign policy, requiring the mobilisation of many actors articulating divergent positions, but the EU adopted a robust response to the crisis. This paper explains how early polarization of EU member states' positions about response to the Ukrainian crisis has been neutralised and depoliticised through the adoption of collective EU positions towards Ukraine and Russia in 2014, in the ENP Review in 2015 and European Union Global Strategy in 2016. This paper attributes the neutralisation of politicisation moves to the consistency of metaphorical frames employed in the EU response to the crisis in Ukraine with the overall framing of the European Neighbourhood Policy.

Democracy, the West and the Crisis of the Arab World: Arab Intellectuals of Al-Jazeera.net as Drivers of Change

“…These images centre on a construction of the West as supporting dictatorships in the region, supporting Israel, and perpetuating a state of poverty, stagnation and subordination to Western interests. The linguistic triggers for this emerging topic can be observed in expressions in Table (2 The most interesting linguistic structure from the table is that most of the specific references about the West invoke the image-schematic metaphor of a container (see, for example, Charteris-Black, 2006;Colakovac, 2019;Drury, 2002;Kovecses, 2005;Lakoff and Johnson, 1980;Natorski, 2020) through the conception of the Arab Islamic world as one community that is being penetrated by external, foreign threat, as instantiated in expressions such as 'hegemonic powers', 'Western schemes', 'enemies of Islam', 'imperialist West', 'Crusade', 'weaken the Ummah', 'thrust Israel;, 'put his hand', etc.…”

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“…These images centre on a construction of the West as supporting dictatorships in the region, supporting Israel, and perpetuating a state of poverty, stagnation and subordination to Western interests. The linguistic triggers for this emerging topic can be observed in expressions in Table (2 The most interesting linguistic structure from the table is that most of the specific references about the West invoke the image-schematic metaphor of a container (see, for example, Charteris-Black, 2006;Colakovac, 2019;Drury, 2002;Kovecses, 2005;Lakoff and Johnson, 1980;Natorski, 2020) through the conception of the Arab Islamic world as one community that is being penetrated by external, foreign threat, as instantiated in expressions such as 'hegemonic powers', 'Western schemes', 'enemies of Islam', 'imperialist West', 'Crusade', 'weaken the Ummah', 'thrust Israel;, 'put his hand', etc.…”

Introduction: the politicisation of permanent crisis in Europe

“…The dominant crisis construction, in other words, necessitated fiscal consolidation and structural reform. Similarly, Natorski (2020) illustrates how in the light of the crisis in Ukraine the continuity of frames defining the situation in the EU neighbourhood constrained the politicization of the crisis response. Brändström and Kuipers (2003, 280) suggest that the politicisation of events happens when these are framed as 'blameworthy violations of crucial public values'.…”

“…Schoen and Rein 1994;Laws and Rein 2003). As in the case of the crisis in Ukraine analysed by Natorski (2020), when EU institutions actively employ existing frames, they both avoid the politicisation of the issue and protect their status in EU foreign policy.…”

“…It thus offers the possibility of cross-policy and cross-methods comparison across different policy domains. We seek to provide a balanced view of the different types of crises that the EU has been facing over the past decade, including articles on the migration crisis (Castelli and Zamponi 2020;Hadj-Abdou 2020), the Eurozone crisis (Kutter 2020;Moreira Ramalho 2020), identity and/or culture crises (Coutto 2020;Ganesh and Froio 2020;Voltolini 2020), and external crises (Natorski 2020;Voltolini 2020;Ikani 2020). This broad empirical and methodological reach, we hope, adds to the existing literature which to date has focused predominantly on the Eurozone and the refugee crises.…”