In the recently heightened debate on Georgian national identity, ultranationalist discourse has instrumentalised pragmatism to legitimise a pro-Russian stance, previously confined to the political margins in post-2008 Georgia. This article examines how global and regional transformations, particularly the Russian invasion of Ukraine, have shaped local identity negotiations, centring external geopolitical spaces – Russia, Europe and Ukraine – as key reference points in national identity discourse. The findings suggest that within nationalist radical-right discourse, pro-Western alignment is increasingly depicted as naive, being rooted in the belief that Western integration is both unattainable and detrimental to Georgia’s sovereignty. In contrast, a pro-Russian stance is framed as a pragmatic recognition of regional power dynamics, with Russia portrayed as an unavoidable and invincible geopolitical force. This discursive opposition – pragmatism versus naivety – serves as a key legitimising tool in radical-right discourse. The article showcases the incorporation of external geopolitical categories in the national identity discourse, on the one hand, and illustrates the instrumentalisation of pragmatism in the context of normative political proceedings, on the other. In doing so, it provides a deconstruction of shifting identities amid the cross-national crises and security alterations shaping contemporary European politics.

This article explores the role of framing theory in understanding the European Union’s (EU’s) institutional approach to Ukraine’s EU candidacy, focusing on the European Commission, European Council and European Parliament. By applying framing theory to the discursive practices of these institutions, the study highlights how such values as democracy, solidarity and human rights are strategically emphasised in the framing of Ukraine’s accession. The article argues that these values, central to the EU’s self-conception, have shaped the logic of appropriateness guiding institutional responses, presenting Ukraine’s membership as a moral and ethical obligation rather than a pragmatic decision based solely on political or economic interests. Through this lens, the EU’s engagement with Ukraine is framed as an expression of its commitment to European unity and its normative foundations. The study contributes to the broader discourse on EU foreign policy by examining the intersection of values, institutional discourse and enlargement policy, offering insights into the evolving dynamics of EU enlargement in the context of geopolitical crises.

The official discourse of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) lacks clarity with regard to the topics of heritage and values. While common ethnic and religious values and heritage are emphasized, the dimension of political values is absent. This article finds that the intention of the OTS is to build a common Turkic identity and promote related cultural values and heritage, without a shared political identity and related political values. This leads to the formation of a Turkic archipelago of individual Turkic states with a strong actual emphasis on national sovereignty, not Turkic integration, which is a main stated goal of the OTS. Broader empirical evidence and historical cases have shown that common cultural heritage is important but not sufficient for effective integration. Shared political values are inevitably and utterly needed for an ambitious integration to materialize.

This article argues that the ruling Georgian Dream party promoted populist-conservative discourse to set value borders with the European Union (EU). The populist rhetoric denounces the liberal project of Europe as inconsistent with the traditional-conservative and Orthodox-religious values of Georgia and synchronises its policy with the populist-conservatists within the EU on the issue of sovereignty. The article analyses the transformation of the foreign policy of the Georgian Dream towards the EU through applying the demarcation–integration cleavages crystallised by the Georgian Dream party to the populist radical right-wing direction. The article grounds populism as a discourse created by the ruling Georgian Dream party through the strategy of radicalisation, setting the new demarcation–integration cleavages. The conservative-populist discourse constructs the Georgian people as a cultural unit confined within the Georgian nation-state and is used as a strategy to selectively oppose or undermine the idea of European integration. The article uses a discourse-historical approach, collecting and analysing information related to particular past events and allowing predictions for the future. A process-tracing method, in its causal inference line, reconstructs the changing political tendencies through an analysis of the public speeches and state-of-the-union addresses of leading figures of the Georgian Dream party, as well as commentaries and policy papers. The article demonstrates that populist-conservative rhetoric enabled the ruling Georgian Dream to hijack the domestic discourse and left opposition parties with the choice of whether to respond to its populist-conservative messages before the parliamentary elections of October 2024.

The intricate geopolitical entanglement between the European Union (EU), Ukraine and Russia unfolds not merely as a conflict of interests but as a dynamic, multi-voiced narrative where history, power and ideology converge in an ever-evolving struggle for meaning. This study examines how dialogical narrative analysis, unnatural narrativity and slipstream narrativity illuminate the competing discourses, hidden tensions and paradoxical dynamics shaping the EU–Ukraine–Russia geopolitical conflict. The analysis reveals that the EU’s engagement with Ukraine is marked by polyphonic and often contradictory narratives, where rhetorical commitments to democracy and solidarity are undermined by strategic hesitations and internal divisions. Examining unnarrativity highlights the strategic silences and omissions in diplomatic discourse, exposing the tensions between public declarations and concealed geopolitical calculations. Additionally, slipstream narrativity frames the conflict as a destabilizing blend of reality and constructed myth, where competing narratives continuously blur the boundaries between fact and fiction in international relations. Adopting a qualitative, interdisciplinary approach, the study integrates dialogical narrative analysis, unnatural narrativity and slipstream narrativity to deconstruct the multilayered discourse surrounding the EU–Ukraine–Russia relationship. By applying these narrative frameworks to key geopolitical events, official statements and shifting alliances, the study reveals the tensions, paradoxes and competing narratives that shape contemporary international relations.

This article analyzes speeches from Day 1 of the 2023 United Nations General Assembly general debates to identify a rhetorical model of place-based argumentation that recognizes the impact of talking from and about a place. Such rhetorical strategies may enhance public deliberations on the international stage. Examples are used to highlight place-based arguments that recognize the inextricable linkages among economic, environmental, and cultural practices that influence and are influenced by global factors, how the rhetoric of differentiated inclusivity can articulate intercommunity and intracommunity relations, and how the inclusion of rhetoric of displacement can enhance speakers’ credibility when talking about places.

The academic study of rhetoric has grown as a field of scholarly concern as politicians face increasingly diverse and inquisitive audiences. The political and intellectual significance of language is linked to a wide range of fields of scholarly interest, covering leadership studies, ideological analyses and theories of rhetorical realities, as well as its capacity to deconstruct the forms of political language covering rhetoric as entertainment, scrutiny and/or accountability. Thus, this article sets the scene for a selection of analyses that examine political rhetoric and democratic discourse within a range of contexts. It examines democratic discourse in Europe, the Americas and beyond while seeking to position rhetorical studies within their long-standing theoretical and historical contexts. I aim to set the scene for the special edition by discussing rhetoric as a scholarly concern while highlighting its importance within healthy democratic societies. This necessitates concise yet important discussions of rhetoric within their ancient theoretical contexts while seeking to position them more firmly within their modern political environments.