Abstract
ABSTRACTThe linguistic premises of European policy-making often remain hidden from public debate and the scrutiny of social scientists, despite the fact that ‘rhetorical framing’ is a widely recognized strategy and frame theory has dominated the way social scientists talk about ideas in social movements. Our concern is how the European Commission uses the ‘master frame’ of neoliberalism to establish a mandate for sector-specific policies that can be pursued via autonomous action by the Commission and/or collective action by adherents of Commission policies. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA) to decode the speeches of Siim Kallas, former commissioner for transport and advocate of an open market for port services, we demonstrate how rhetorical framing supports a strategy designed to ‘divide-and-conquer’ opponents of freedom of establishment and the right to provide services in the single European market.
Highlights
INTRODUCTION the importance of framing in shaping public policy is well established (Daviter 2011), only recently have systematic empirical studies examined the determinants of interest groups’ frame choices in European Union (EU) policy debates initiated by different Directorates-General (DGs) (Klüver et al 2015), the degree of ‘frame congruence’ between Commission officials and either business or civil society interests (Boräng and Naurin 2015), and how contextual factors affect the types of frames adopted by different interest groups (Eising et al 2015)
We focus on three Speeches delivered by Commissioner Kallas during a critical 12month phase of European port policy making, which initially anticipated the findings of an Impact Assessment of potential EU port reforms (Speech 1), subsequently amplified and embellished the initial findings (Speech 2) and final reports (European Commission, 2013a; and Van Hooydonk, 2013) of this Assessment (Speeches 3)
To some, including waterfront trade unions, the exclusion of cargo handling from the latest Regulation on Market Access to Port Services and Financial Transparency of Ports (European Commission, 2013b) might be read as another outright victory for organised labour, but rhetorical framing in the latest contest to determine the future of EU ports policy was designed to divide-and-conquer
Summary
The importance of framing in shaping public policy is well established (Daviter 2011), only recently have systematic empirical studies examined the determinants of interest groups’ frame choices in European Union (EU) policy debates initiated by different Directorates-General (DGs) (Klüver et al 2015), the degree of ‘frame congruence’ between Commission officials and either business or civil society interests (Boräng and Naurin 2015), and how contextual factors (national and European) affect the types of frames adopted by different interest groups (Eising et al 2015). While ‘talk is cheap’, it might cost some actors – in this instance dockworkers – their livelihood This latest episode in the long-running debate on European ports policy provides an opportunity to assess ‘rhetorical framing’ as the foundation for a ‘divide-and-conquer’ strategy in a highly contentious context. We focus primarily on three Speeches delivered by Commissioner Kallas to different (port-specific) audiences In these Speeches, what matters is not just the substantive content of ideas – cognitive arguments about their necessity and normative arguments about their appropriateness – but the interactive processes by which they are conveyed and the institutional context in which they are contested (Schmidt, 2007: 993). To understand the process, and outcomes, of any rhetorical framing strategy, what matters is not what is said, but where, when, why, by who and to whom
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