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Constructing Britain and the EU: a Discourse Theoretical Account of the EU Treaty Reform Process 2003-2007

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Constructing Britain and the EU: a Discourse Theoretical Account of the EU Treaty Reform Process 2003-2007 Constructing Britain and the EU: A Discourse Theoretical Account of the EU Treaty Reform Process 2003-2007 Benjamin Robert Hawkins PhD The University of Edinburgh 2009 1 Declaration I declare that this thesis is of my own composition, based on my own work, with acknowledgement of other sources, and has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. Benjamin Hawkins. Edinburgh, 25 August 2009. i Acknowledgements I would like to thank all those people who in various capacities have made this project possible. First and foremost, I would like to thank my parents for their incredible generosity and their almost boundless support, both financial and emotional. I would like to thank Dr. Lynn Dobson for her efforts in supervising this project from its inception as an MSc by Research dissertation, through its various transformations and shifts in focus, to the final draft of the thesis here. Her efforts in reading countless versions of the chapters which follow, and providing insightful comments and constructive criticism went way beyond what anyone could expect from a supervisor. Thank you also to Dr. Sean Molloy who acted as second supervisor in the later stages of this project, and to Dr. Richard Freeman who gave generously of his time to provide guidance and to read drafts of this thesis in both official and unofficial capacities. I would also like to thank those people – too numerous to name individually – whose friendship and company have made the development and execution of this project such a pleasure. In particular, I remember with great fondness the numerous conversations in the Pear Tree with my MSc cohort, which fired my enthusiasm for post-graduate study and built my confidence that this project could be realised. Thank you to all those teachers and scholars I have encountered along the way, who inspired me to love learning and gave me the confidence to pursue my goals. Finally, thank you Sandy for putting up with me for the last few years and for your boundless enthusiasm and affection; were it not for you love (and cooking), this project would certainly have stalled along the way. ii Abstract This study aims to address the longstanding questions surrounding the consistently low levels of support articulated towards the European Union (EU)by British citizens. Existing studies highlight that political identities are closely related to the levels of support citizens across the EU express for the process of European integration. Citizens who define their identity in exclusively national terms tend also to oppose the process of European integration and their country’s participation in this process. Present studies, however, fail to provide an adequate account of the emergence of exclusively national identities and their prevalence in member-states such as the UK. The citizens of the UK have expressed consistently low levels of support for the process of European integration and for British membership of what is now the EU, since Britain’s accession to the European Economic Community (EEC) over 30 years ago. Similarly, the UK has one of the highest proportions of citizens who define their identity in exclusively national terms of any EU member- state. The argument presented in this thesis is that the low levels of support for the EU and the prevalence of exclusively national identity constructions amongst UK citizens must be understood in the context of British discourses about the EU. I employ the conception of subjectivity developed by post-structuralist discourse theory in order to examine the emergence of an exclusively national form of British identity within media debates on the EU treaty reform process. Discourse theory offers a set of concepts and logics through which it is possible to investigate the structure of eurosceptic discourses. Furthermore, drawing on the insights from Lacanian psychoanalysis, it is able to account also for the strength and longevity of these constructions of national identity. This thesis identifies a eurosceptic discourse of British national identity characterised by an underlying logic of nationalism, according to which nations are seen as natural political communities and the nation-state the most logical unit of political organisation. This is evident not only in debates about the powers of the EU, but also in the relationship constructed between the UK and other member-states in the EU. In addition, the EU is itself constructed as a quasi-state and functions in these discourses as the ‘other’ against which Britain is defined. The former is seen as a hostile, foreign power bent on assuming ever greater control over the UK. These constructions of Britain and the EU feed into fantasmatic constructions of subjugation and oppression, which help account for the strength and resilience of eurosceptic discourses. The final part of the thesis examines the pro-European voices in the British media. However, it is not possible to discern a coherent pro-European discourse in the same way in which it is possible to identify the eurosceptic discourse. I outline the extent to which these pro-European voices challenge the predominant eurosceptic discourse, and offer alternative constructions of Britain’s relationship with the EU which may form the basis of more inclusive identity constructions. iii Contents DECLARATION I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS II ABSTRACT III 1. INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Public Support for the EU 2 1.1.1 Explaining Public Support for the EU: The Existing Literature 3 1.1.2 The ‘Gap’ in the Current Literature 5 1.2 Contribution of the Present Study 8 1.3 Discourse Theory as a Research Tool 11 1.4 Research Methodology 12 1.5 Terminology 16 1.6 Thesis Structure 17 2. DISCOURSE THEORY, SUBJECTIVITY & NATIONAL IDENTITY 21 2.1 Conceptual Framework 21 2.1.1 The Concept of Discourse 22 2.1.2 Articulation, Elements and Moments 24 2.1.3 Equivalence, Difference and the Limits of Discourse 25 2.1.4 Hegemony 28 2.1.5 The Discursive and the Non-Discursive 31 2.2 Discourse Theory and the Subject 32 2.2.1 Lacan and the Subject 33 2.2.2 The Lacanian Object 36 2.2.3 Lacan and the Concept of Fantasy 37 2.2.4 Laclau and Mouffe’s Conception of the Subject 39 2.3 Discourse Theory & Nationalism 44 2.3.1 The Power of Nationalist Discourses 47 2.3.2 The Construction of Political Enemies 50 2.4 Concluding Remarks 55 3. DEPLOYING DISCOURSE THEORY 57 3.1 Logics of Critical Explanation 57 3.2 Validity of Research 65 iv 3.3 Time Frame 69 3.4 Sources Examined 73 3.5 Selection of Articles 76 4. THE NATIONALIST LOGIC OF EUROPEAN POLITICS 82 4.1 Nationhood and Political Community 85 4.1.1 The Primacy of National Identity 86 4.1.2 The EU as Artifice 86 4.1.3 Democracy and the Nation-State 87 4.1.4 The EU as Ideal 89 4.2 EU Politics as a Zero-Sum Game 92 4.2.1 Sport and War as a Metaphor for EU Level Politics 93 4.2.2 Defending the National Interest 96 4.3 Britain, France and the EU 99 4.3.1 Competing Visions, Competing Interests 100 4.3.2 The Costs and Benefits of EU Membership 101 4.3.3 Applying EU Law 104 4.3.4 Power and Influence within the EU 105 4.4 Britain, Germany and the EU 107 4.4.1 The EU as a German Plot 108 4.4.2 The Franco-German Alliance 111 4.5 The ‘Core’ and ‘Periphery’ of the EU 114 4.5.1 ‘Core’ Europe 114 4.5.2 ‘Old’ Europe v ‘New’ Europe 116 4.5.3 The UK’s Special Treatment 119 4.6 The Fantasmatic Dimension 121 4.7 Concluding Remarks 123 5. BRITAIN’S EUROPEAN ‘OTHER’ 125 5.1 Positioning Britain and ‘Europe’ 126 5.1.1 Brussels and ‘Europe’ 127 5.1.2 Secession from the EU 129 5.2 The EU as a ‘Foreign’ Power 133 5.3 The EU as Colonial Power 135 5.3.1 EU Interventionism 136 5.3.2 The ECJ: The Motor of Integration 138 5.3.3 The Commission 142 5.3.4 The British Opt-Outs 144 5.3.5 The Protection of the Veto 146 5.3.6 Fantasmatic Support Structures 149 5.4 The EU as Emerging Superstate 150 5.4.1 The EU and the USA 153 5.4.2 The Momentum of European Integration 154 v 5.4.3 Fantasmatic Support Structures 155 5.5 Europe as Cultural ‘Other’ 156 5.6 Concluding Remarks 159 6. THE BRITISH ECONOMY V THE ‘EUROPEAN’ ECONOMY 161 6.1 Britain and the Eurozone 163 6.1.1 The Eurozone as Equivalential Chain 165 6.1.2 The Euro as Threat 168 6.1.3 The Euro as an Anti-British Conspiracy 169 6.2 The British v The European Economic Model 171 6.2.1 Labour Market Regulation 172 6.2.2 Economic Reform 174 6.2.3 Free Trade, Free Markets 180 6.2.4 Europeanism v Internationalism 181 6.2.5 Equivalence, Difference and Fantasy 183 6.3 The Charter of Fundamental Rights (CFR) 185 6.4 Britain as Europe’s Saviour 189 6.5 Concluding Remarks 193 7. THE EU IN THE LEFT-WING PRESS 195 7.1 Constructing the EU 196 7.1.1 The EU as a Source of Peace, Prosperity and Democracy 197 7.1.2 The Constitutional Treaty and the Treaty of Lisbon 198 7.1.3 The EU and the USA as Global Actors 205 7.2 Britain and the EU 207 7.2.1 The Terms of the Debate 208 7.2.2 UK’s Semi-Detachment from the EU 210 7.2.3 The EU as Inter-National Conflict 211 7.2.3.1 The Fallout French Referendum 213 7.2.3.2 Reform of the EU Budget 215 7.2.4 Power and Influence in the EU 216 7.2.5 Logic of Difference 218 7.3 The European Economy 221 7.3.1 The Problems of European Economy 221 7.3.2 UK as Leader of Economic Reform 224 7.3.3 UK as a ‘Third Way’ Between Europe and USA 225 7.3.4 Challenges to the Idea of European Economic Failure 227 7.4 The Hegemony of the Eurosceptic Discourse 229 7.4.1 Euroscepticism Voices 229 7.4.2 Government Discourse 232 7.5 Concluding Remarks 234 8.
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