Normative Power Europe as an Ingroup Projection? The EU’s Response to the Arab Uprising

Juan José Tapia-León,Emilio Galdeano-Gómez

doi:10.3390/socsci9050082

Abstract

This paper aims to understand the social-psychological dimension of the Normative Power Europe discourse using ingroup projection as a discursive/cognitive practice of othering. It takes issue with most poststructuralist studies that conduct analyses of Normative Power Europe based on the dependence of identity on difference through the discursive tendency to construct reality by opposites. Ingroup projection is based both on the need for differentiation to obtain positive distinctiveness and on the natural tendency for categorization processes by which groups share a common higher-order category. In this way, groups tend to project (ingroup projection) their traits and distinctive values onto this higher-order category to legitimate intergroup status differences. The EU’s response to the Arab uprisings serves as an empirical test for this argument, insofar as the uprisings implied a cognitive change of the EU’s “other” in the construction of the Mediterranean. Through ingroup projection, the EU (ingroup) differentiates itself from this new Arab Mediterranean other (outgroup) and projects EU’s idealized identity onto the Mediterranean region (higher-order category) to legitimate its new policies after the uprising.

Highlights

The literature on international relations regarding the EU’s actorness with critical lenses has grown in recent decades (Cebeci 2012; Cebeci and Schumacher 2017; Diez 2005; Neumann 1998; Nicolaïdis and Howse 2002; Rumelili 2004).These studies are largely grounded in a poststructuralist tradition that treats foreign policy as a discursive practice that builds social reality
The last section, focusing on the EU’s response to the Arab uprisings as an empirical test, intends to demonstrate that the EU’s ingroup projection as a discursive/cognitive practice of differentiation embedded in the Normative Power Europe (NPE) discourse explains and legitimates the EU’s policies towards the Mediterranean region after the uprising
The unforeseen cognitive change that the Arab uprisings brought about questioned most of the myths that the EU built to legitimate its asymmetrical policies in the Mediterranean

Summary

Introduction

The literature on international relations regarding the EU’s actorness (as a civilian, normative, transformative, realist or market power) with critical lenses has grown in recent decades (Cebeci 2012; Cebeci and Schumacher 2017; Diez 2005; Neumann 1998; Nicolaïdis and Howse 2002; Rumelili 2004) These studies are largely grounded in a poststructuralist tradition that treats foreign policy as a discursive practice that builds social reality. The last section, focusing on the EU’s response to the Arab uprisings as an empirical test, intends to demonstrate that the EU’s ingroup projection as a discursive/cognitive practice of differentiation embedded in the NPE discourse explains and legitimates the EU’s policies towards the Mediterranean region after the uprising

Normative Power Europe

Ingroup Projection

Normative Power Europe as an Ingroup Projection?

Eu’s Response to the Arab Uprising

Conclusions