The Discipline of International Relations and European Integration (original) (raw)
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2014
Leading scholars in discourse analysis and European foreign policy join force in this book, marking a real breakthrough in the literature. Not only do they offer original perspectives on European foreign policy, but they bring together various theories on foreign policy discourses that remain too often isolated from each other. This theoretical diversity is clearly reflected in the book’s four-pronged structure: Part I - Post-structuralist Approaches (with contributions from Thomas Diez, Henrik Larsen and Beste Isleyne). Part II - Constructivist Approaches (with contributions from Knud Erik Jørgensen, Jan Orbie, Ferdi de Ville, Esther Barbé, Anna Herranz-Surrallés and Michal Natorski) Part III - Critical Discourse Analytical Approaches (with contributions from Senem Aydin-Düzgit, Amelie Kutter, Ruth Wodak, Salomi Boukala, and Caterina Carta. Part IV- Discoursive Institutionalist Approaches (with contributions from Ben Rosamond, Antoine Rayroux, and Vivien A. Schmidt).
The first section of this introduction arranges the four theoretical approaches and methods presented in the special issues – namely interpretative constructivism, post-structuralism, discursive institutionalism (DI) and critical discourse analysis (CDA) – along two dimensions: a) the role of discourse in the constitution of the world, depending on whether approaches perceive social structure as being constitutive of or constituted by discourse; and b) interpretation of the weight of material and ideational elements in discourses. This model helps us make sense of the profound theoretical diversity that characterises analytical approaches to International Relations discourse. The second section tackles the question of ‘who does the speaking.’ It identifies the different voices that converge in the EU's international choir and problematises the discursive environment that forges international discourses through the theoretical lenses of selected approaches. In the last section, the contributions to this special issue are presented.