The EU construction process involves, along with legislative and administrative aspects, the building of a European identity, which represents the ultimate source of legitimation of a politically definite Union. Hence, the need for developing an awareness of European identity has been systematically supported by the European Union in its official and statutory texts, which are not only to be considered a mere transmission of information or norms, but can also be seen as ideological instruments of institutional power aimed at the construction of a political identity. As a matter of fact, constitutions and treaties themselves are not neutral but rather hold a position in the ideological and political structure of a given society. And, as the EU treaties are the primary documents which lay the foundations of the European Union, its peoples, institutions and policies, it is important to understand how beliefs about and attitudes towards the EU, in one word ideology, are constructed in them by means of discursive strategies. This book, by means of a multidisciplinary approach, investigates the creation of a European identity through the discourse analysis of the treaties constituting the Treaty of Lisbon, in order to corroborate the hypothesis that the European Union identity is a political and ideological construct whose development can be traced in its founding documents.

This book looks at the discursive construction of European identities in a variety of institutional and non-institutional contexts and through a variety of social and political actors. Its multilevel and interdisciplinary approach - rooted in the Discourse-Historical tradition of Critical Discourse Analysis - allows for a comparison of identity constructions at different levels of Europe's social and political organisation and in different modes of communication. The book analyses discourses as diverse as those of the EU politicians, of Europe's national media as well as of migrants living in Europe. It offers a set of integrated models and analytical procedures which bring to the fore the inherent dynamism and complexity of both 'bottom-up' and 'top-down' European identity constructions.

This volume brings together specialists from a range of disciplines to discuss the discursive construction of ethnic, national and regional identities and analyse how specific identity discourses condition and constrain knowledge and action with regard to various socio-political issues in Europe.

The authors assess not only the benefits, but also the costs of attempts to assert a European identity. Referring to debates about the respective merits of deepening and widening, they address the equally important associated tradeoffs between exclusion and dilution: they point to the risks on the one hand of a Europe that excludes foreign goods, immigrants and entire countries, and on the other of an unfocused definition of Europe that may dilute the very values that a "European identity" is intended to protect.

This book examines EU discourses on Turkey in the European Commission, European Parliament and three EU member states (France, Germany and Britain), to reveal the discursive construction of European identity through EU representations of Turkey. Based on a poststructuralist framework that conceptualizes identity as discursively constructed through difference, the book applies Critical Discourse Analysis to the analysis of texts and argues that there are multiple Europe(s) that are constructed in talks over the enlargement of Turkey, varying within and between different ideological, national and institutional contexts. The book discerns four main discourse topics over which these Europe(s) are constructed, corresponding to the conceptualization of Europe as a security community, as an upholder of democratic values, as a political project and as a cultural space. The book argues that Turkey constitutes a key case in exploring various discursive constructs of European identity, since the talks on Turkey pave the way for the construction of different versions of Europe in discourse.

This volume examines the construction of Turkey's possible European Union accession in French political discourse. In today's France, heated debates regarding Turkey's EU membership are turning into an essential part of European identity formation. Once again, the `Turkish Other' functions as a mirror for defining not only the `European Self', but also European values. By providing a genuine and multi-disciplinary approach for studying the Otherness attributed to Turkey, this book contributes to our understading of the Self/Other nexus in International Relations. Within a Critical Discourse Analysis framework, this study explores the socio-historical basis of the construction of Turkey's Otherness in an attempt to identify the processes through which past memories, representations, images and fantasies regarding Turkey are inserted into the French social imaginary. Focusing on these significations, which are (re)produced and become manifest through language, this book strives to uncover the link between discourse and political action. "Beyza Tekin's book helps us make sense of the complexities in an unusually detailed and explicit way by deploying the sophisticated techniques we now have for the analysis of discourse. This is a book with historical depth. It is also a book that offers precise analysis. Historians, sociologists, policymakers, as well as discourse analysts - all have much to learn from this book." Paul Chilton, University of Lancaster "This is an original and insightful study of the construction of Turkey in French political discourse and offers a valuable analysis of the formation of European identity." Gerard Delanty, University of Sussex "From the Saracen slayer to the ally of renaissance Kings to civilisation's apprentice to hotly contested EU applicant-here the changing social fact of Turkey in French discourse is given its fullest treatment to date." Iver B. Neumann, author of Uses of the Other `the East' in European Identity Formation