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Libera Università Internazionale Degli Studi Sociali LUISS Guido Carli Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali LUISS Guido Carli PhD Dissertation Doctoral Program in Political Theory XXVI Cycle From Policies of Fear to Politics of Values Human Rights on the Agenda of the European Union Candidate: A.C.L.M. Zwagemakers Supervisors: Prof. Francesco Cherubini Dr. Marzia Basili Academic Year 2013-2014 PhD Thesis submitted by A.C.L.M. Zwagemakers on 8 November 2013 and successfully discussed at LUISS University in 2 December 2013. The total or partial use of the PhD Thesis is subject to copyright restrictions. Table of Contents Synopsis 6 Acknowledgements 13 Introduction 15 The Politics of Attention 16 The Politics of Attention to Human Rights 18 Research Methods 20 Contributions of the Thesis 22 Plan of the Thesis 23 I Terms and Theory 25 1. Terms 25 1.1. Politics versus Policies 25 1.2. European Union 27 1.3. The Agenda of the European Union 28 1.4. Human Rights 32 1.5. Agenda-Setting in the EU 36 2. Theory 39 2.1. Theoretical Framework 39 2.2. Setting the Agenda 40 2.3. Why Does the Politics of Attention Change? 42 2.4. How Does the Politics of Attention change? 46 2.5. The Agenda-Setter 49 3. Agenda-Setting in Democratic Theory 54 3.1. An Empirical Theory of Democracy 55 3.2. The General Will Represented 56 3.3 Agenda-Setting by the People: a Nuanced Perspective 61 Concluding remarks 64 II Methodology 65 1. Quantitative Component 65 1.1. Empirical Data Collection 65 1.2. The Relative Attention to Human Rights 66 1.3. The Prominence of Human Rights Issues 68 PhD Thesis submitted by A.C.L.M. Zwagemakers on 8 November 2013 and successfully discussed at LUISS University in 3 December 2013. The total or partial use of the PhD Thesis is subject to copyright restrictions. 2. Qualitative Component 71 2.1. Unraveling Agenda-Setting Dynamics through Critical Discourse Analysis 71 2.2. Critical Discourse Analysis 72 2.3. Discourse analysis in European studies 73 2.4. Why Agenda Dynamics through Discourse? 74 - Politics, Power and Agenda-Control 74 - Issues, Conflicts, and Crises 75 - Policies and Politics 77 2.5. CDA to unravel Agenda-Setting Dynamics 77 Causality in Agenda-Setting 81 2.6. Contributions to Agenda-Setting Theory 82 2.7. Single Case Study 84 III Identifying Attention Patterns and Change 85 The Relative Attention to Human Rights 86 3.1. One among Many: Human Rights on the EU Agenda Since 1992 86 - Overall Attention Pattern 86 - Specific Changes 87 - Interconnectedness of Human Rights 90 3.2. The EU Human Rights Agenda 93 The Politics of Attention to Human Rights 98 3.3. The Politics of Attention in 1992 99 - Identification and Characterization 99 - Language 103 - The EU Legal Instruments 104 3.4. The Politics of Attention in 2012 105 - Identification and Characterization 105 - Language 108 - The EU Legal Instruments 109 3.5. A Comparison 109 Concluding Remarks 111 IV Beneath the Surface. Human Rights on the EU Agenda 113 4.1. The Prominence of Human Rights 114 - Fundamental Rights on the Internal Market 115 - Securitization of Human Rights 117 4.2. Change through Threat 119 4.3. Human Rights on the Expansion Agenda 125 4.4. Beneath the Surface of the EU Human Rights Speech 128 - Ideology 129 - Creating an Ideology 130 - The Foundation-Frame 132 - The EU Global Human Rights Speech 134 Concluding Remarks 137 PhD Thesis submitted by A.C.L.M. Zwagemakers on 8 November 2013 and successfully discussed at LUISS University in 4 December 2013. The total or partial use of the PhD Thesis is subject to copyright restrictions. V Framing Fears and Values 139 5.1. Actors behind Shifts in the Politics of Attention 140 5.2. The Foundation-Frame 142 5.3. A ‘Crisis of Values’ 146 5.4 Agenda-setting by the Council of Europe 150 - The Council of Europe as an Agenda Item 150 - The Council of Europe as an Agenda-Setter 154 5.5. Styles of Attention Allocation 157 - Allocation Style One – Strategizing Critique 158 - Allocation Style Two – Following the International Trend 159 - Allocation Style Three – Mainstreaming 159 - Allocation Style Four and Five – Setting the Agenda and Citizen’s Engagement 160 - Allocation Style Six - Where Politics is Policy 161 - Allocation Style Seven – Relocation of Attention 162 5.6. Citizens - Frame and Function 162 Concluding Remarks 165 VI From Shock to Shame. Female Genital Mutilation on the EU Agenda 166 6.1. The Case of Female Genital Mutilation 167 - A Problem without Solutions 170 6.2. From Shock to Shame 171 - The Shock 171 - The Shame 177 - The Politics of Attention to FGM 182 6.3. Setting the Agenda within the Agenda 183 - Passive Dynamics 184 - Responsive Dynamics 185 Concluding Remarks 189 Conclusions 191 Agenda for Future Research 193 Bibliography 195 Appendices I EU Policy Areas 204 II The Distribution of Attention among the Various Policy Areas on the EU Agenda 205 III Female Genital Mutilation on the EU Output Agenda 206 IV Interviews 207 PhD Thesis submitted by A.C.L.M. Zwagemakers on 8 November 2013 and successfully discussed at LUISS University in 5 December 2013. The total or partial use of the PhD Thesis is subject to copyright restrictions. Synopsis Why have human rights been included on the agenda of the European Union (EU)? At the heart of this thesis is an analysis of the politics of attention1 to human rights in the EU institutions between 1992 and 2012. In expounding the reasons why and the way in which human rights have been included on the EU agenda, I present a critical assessment of the normative nature of the EU. I argue that the reference to human rights as constitutive of the founding principles of the EU is not genuine. Rather, the EU human rights agenda between 1992 and 2012 was a signifier of fear, meaning that the EU has resorted to include human rights on its agenda as an instrument to reinvigorate raison d’être, to mitigate perceived threats to the European internal market and to circumvent threats to the security and safety of EU citizens. Furthermore, the EU has allocated attention to human rights as a consequence of normative spill-over processes in order to eliminate the threat of a democratic legitimacy deficit. Democratic legitimacy matters because it gives the EU raison d’être and because it is a precondition for a well-functioning internal market. The main thesis therefore confirms both neo-functionalist and realist perspectives by asserting that the allocation of attention to human rights is a consequence of spill-over processes, but only because the attention to human rights is functional to fundamental EU interests. In addition, I argue that the politics of attention to human rights unveils how EU policies determine EU politics. To examine the extent to which, and why and how the politics of attention to human rights in the EU institutions has changed between 1992 and 2012 I adopt a mixed-method approach. This approach combines an empirical view of the relative attention to human rights and a qualitative analysis of the EU speech. The empirical data collection displays that the overall relative attention to human rights on the EU agenda decreased from ‘prominent’ in 1992 to ‘average’ in 2012. I use critical discourse analysis (CDA), existing agenda-setting theories, and interviews to analyze the changes in the relative attention and to explain why and how the EU includes human rights on its agenda. A single case study on the politics of attention to female genital mutilation (FGM) clarifies why and how the EU allocates attention to specific human rights issues. Human rights emerged as a prominent EU agenda item in 1989. The impact of internal market policies, aimed at facilitating the freedom of movement, compelled a politics of attention to the safety of workers and to security on the internal market. This politics of attention implied a politics of attention to human 1 The notion ‘politics of attention’ is indebted to Bryan Jones and Frank Baumgartner: B.D. Jones and F. R. Baumgartner, The politics of attention. How government prioritizes problems (Chicago and London 2005), 1. PhD Thesis submitted by A.C.L.M. Zwagemakers on 8 November 2013 and successfully discussed at LUISS University in 6 December 2013. The total or partial use of the PhD Thesis is subject to copyright restrictions. rights, needed to protect the citizen as the core element of the internal market. This indicates how EU policies influence EU politics. Moreover, the politics of attention to human rights is a consequence of normative spill-over. Berthold Rittberger and Frank Schimmelfennig coined the notion of ‘normative spill-over’, indicating that functional integration at the EU level has shown to attenuate democratic and human rights institutions at the national level, which in turn caused a democratic legitimacy deficit at the EU level.2 Normative spill-over illustrates that the EU responds to perceived threats to EU integration by allocating attention to human rights. Indeed, the empirical data collection exposes that the relative attention to human rights increased at times when the EU reported on ‘negative’ developments to the integration process. The relative attention to human rights decreased when the EU reported on ‘positive’ developments to EU integration. In consequence, the successful elimination of threats to security and the internal-market led to a more modest human rights discourse. I attest that, even though EU enlargement as a ‘positive’ development to EU integration engenders a decrease of the attention to human rights, emerging concerns over transparency, legitimacy, and democracy after the accession of new member states constitute threats that urge the EU to allocate more attention to human rights.
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