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Journal of Language and Politics 14:1 (2015), –. doi 10.1075/jlp.14.1.04car
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e swinging “we”
Framing the European Union international discourse
Caterina Carta
Vesalius College, Brussels
is contribution focuses on the implications of the institutional reform advanced
by the Lisbon Treaty for the framing of discourses of European institutional
actors. e article adopts a focused linguistic strategy aimed at identifying
patterns of pronominal selection as useful tools to depict both the ways in which
dierent EU actors in Brussels elaborate their sense of belonging, and also
patterns of horizontal and vertical inter-institutional cooperation and conict.
e article rstly introduces the data and methodology employed in the analysis.
Secondly, it sheds light on the main institutional arrangements established
in the aermath of Lisbon. irdly, it illustrates how referential/nomination
strategies are on aggregate realised by interviewees. Finally, it presents an
analysis of pronominal selection and contextualises the diculties of individual
actors working for the EU’s institutions in dealing with the current institutional
structure.
Keywords: European Union; European External Action Service; European
Diplomacy; Critical Discourse Analysis; Pronominal Selection
1. Introduction: Individuals, institutions and the making
of EU international discourses
e entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009 provoked a major institutional
reorganisation, which caused major complications in both inter-institutional rela-
tions and in the organisational script of all the institutions involved in the process
of reform. While torn by institutional changes, all European institutional actors –
a maimed Commission, the newly established European External Action Service
(EEAS), the European Council and the Council of the European Union (EU) –
needed to rush to cope with troubling international events, such as the long-lasting
nancial crisis and political and economic instability among the EU’s immediate
neighbours to the south. Yet, both the new institutional and organisational set-
ting and the actual distribution of power within it dominated the discourse of EU
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Caterina Carta
actors. How do individual actors working for the EU’s institutions account for this
reorganisation? Do they believe that the new institutional structure serves well
the purpose of enhancing the EU’s ability to act in the international scene? And,
nally, in whose name are they contributing to frame international discourses?
Drawing on qualitative interviews and socio-linguistic and discourse historical
analysis (DHA) strategies, this article seeks to shed light on these questions.
is contribution places the EU’s international discourse in its institutional
“context” by examining the interplay between discourse and the institutional set-
ting in which it emerges and develops. Dening what “in context” means high-
lights the inherently polysemous character of terms such as “discursive ecology”
and “institutional structure”. Researchers have considerable discretion when den-
ing what is included under the heading “context”. As the following shows, not all
analyses of talk and discourse include an analysis of ethnographic data, i.e. partici-
pants’ attributes and specic patterns of social organisation that imbue discourses
(Cicourel 1987, 217). For the purposes of this article, the term “context” retraces
“an institutionalised framing of activities or ways that group-derived prescriptive
norms pressure and/or channel people with designated titles, presumed compe-
tencies, duties or responsibilities into certain physical spaces at certain times in
order to engage in a nite number of speciable activities” (Cicourel 1987, 218). In
this light, the context “represents an intermediate level between the human con-
tact that leads to the discourse and the broader characteristics of the society in
which it is embedded” (Agar 1985, 184).
In similar fashion, Zimmermann suggests that discursive levels are associated
with the multi-layered types of identities which can be found in talks and which
distinguish between: a discursive position (whether a person is talking, listening
and so forth); a situated identity (related to the “attributions that are made about
participants in a particular setting as a consequence of their actions”, Alexander&
Lauderdale 1977, 225); and a transportable (e.g. nationality or gender, profes-
sional) position (1998 quoted in Wodak 2004, 100). is contribution mainly
focuses on transportable identity-related discourses.
e article conducts a focused linguistic strategy aimed at identifying patterns
of pronominal selection. ese patterns can help highlight the ways in which dif-
ferent individuals working in Brussels, in the EU institutions in high ranking posi-
tions, elaborate their sense of belonging. It is argued here that these actors develop
their sense of belonging alternatively, in connection with their institutional unit,
i.e. the nature of their institutional role/diplomatic mandate and the entity they
primarily feel to represent (whether that be the EU in general or their own institu-
tion). e focus on pronominal selection allows us to depict the living dynamics of
horizontal and vertical inter-institutional cooperation and conict. erefore, this
analysis mainly focuses on institutional-related sets of discourses, as institutional
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e swinging “we”
belonging can be perceived as “labels [that] represent exogenous identities, that is,
identities that these individuals can be interpreted as “wearing” by virtue of their
positions within particular institutions of the EU (Wodak 2004, 99).
e article proceeds as follows. Firstly, it introduces the data and methodol-
ogy employed in the analysis. Secondly, it sheds light on the main institutional
arrangements established in the aermath of Lisbon. e contribution relies
on an analysis of interviews conducted with members of the Commission, the
EEAS and the Foreign Policy Unit (FPI). irdly, it illustrates how referential/
nomination strategies are on aggregate realised by the interviewees (Wodak 2011).
It nally presents an analysis of pronominal selection (Maitland & Wilson 1987;
Iñigo-Mora 2004; Postoutenko 2009) and contextualises the diculties of selected
actors in dealing with the current institutional structure.
2. Method of analysis and data
2.1 Method of analysis
is article relies on the discourse socio-linguistic approach and the discourse-
historical approach (DHA). e DHA relies explicitly on the triangulation of dif-
ferent sources, data, methods, theories and background information (see Wod ak &
Boukala this issue; Wodak & Meyer 2009; Wodak 2001, 2011) to grasp the context
in which discourses are embedded. In so doing, the DHA takes into account four
levels of analysis: the level of the text, i.e. “a specic and unique realisation of a
discourse” (Wodak & Boukala, this issue); the relation between dierent texts and
discourses; an analysis of the context in which utterances are produced; the wider
historical and political context (Wodak 2001, 67). e DHA specically relies on
intertextuality (the relation between dierent texts) and interdiscursivity (the con-
nections between discourses) to establish a dynamic relationship between utter-
ances and the contexts in which they are produced. is focus on intertextuality
and interdscursivity also allows following the ways in which a given discourse is
recontextualised in dierent utterances.
Accordingly, the DHA situates the study of determined texts within a wider
analytical framework which includes extra-linguistic social/sociological variables,
the history of an organisation or institution, and situational frames (Reisigl&
Wod a k 2009, 90). e DHA relies on a wide range of linguistic devices in order to
shed light on linguistic strategies and the objectives they pursue (Reisigl & Wodak
2001, 44–84). In this context, strategies are dened as “more or less accurate and
more or less intentional practices” which allow social actors to pursue social,
political and psychological aims (Reisigl & Wodak 2001, 44; see also Winston &
Wodak 2012, 461; Wodak & Boukala this issue). According to Reisigl & Wodak,
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Caterina Carta
discursive strategies include: referential or nomination strategies, ‘which focus
on membership categorization devices’ (Wodak & Boukala, this issue); metony-
mies and synecdoches to frame in-group and out-group categories; predicational
strategies, which link ‘certain qualities to particular subjects through the use of
predicates and adjectives that modify them’ (Doty 1993, 306); and argumentation
strategies which justify categories and attributes connected to certain categories
(see Reisigl& Wodak 2001, 44–84; see also Wodak & Boukala, this issue).
is article specically focuses on: referential/nomination strategies; predi-
cation; argumentation; framing and discourse representation and the mitigation
or intensication of discursive patterns. is focus allows shedding light on the
dierent functions of discourse which carry socio-political connotations. Among
these functions, the DHA allows us to understand: the discursive construction of
categories of the group self and the dynamics of othering; the ways in which actors
are labelled; patterns of justication and blaming; the position of the speaker
towards given issues and the level of saliency of given issues for a given speaker.
is analytical strategy serves to organise civil servants’ interpretations of “who we
are” (composition of group identity, Risse 2004), in both institutional and inter-
national frameworks.
2.2 Data and aims of the interviews
is article relies on thirty interviews with members of the Commission (mostly
from DG DEVCO and DG Trade), members of the EEAS, and members of the
Foreign Policy Instrument (FPI). For the sake of the respondents’ anonymity, no
reference will be made to their nationality1 or institutional position. All the inter-
viewees presented here have been coded, and only a code refers to the identity of a
diplomat or civil servant. To relate interviewees’ declarations to the wider institu-
tional context, and thereby produce generalisable conclusions, the article relies on
intertextual and interdiscursive analytical strategies, as explained in detail below.
All interviews were audiotaped and transcribed. Codes for institutions and
member states’ diplomats are as follows: (1) Commission (plus the number of
the interview); (2) EEAS (plus the number of the interview); (3) FPI (plus the
number of the interview). Interviews were conducted in a semi-structured for-
mat, with mainly open-ended questions. In addition to a common battery of ques-
tions, interviews maintained a loose structure, to make sure that interviewees “had
1. e nationalities of respondents were as various as possible: they include Austrian,
Belgian, British, Czech, Danish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Maltese, Slovenians and
Swedish nationals.
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e swinging “we”
considerable freedom in developing the topics and steering the conversation as
they wish” (Wodak 2004, 102).
ere were two main aims of this enquiry. One was to collect information
about the opinions of all European actors on the new institutional arrangements
established in the aermath of the Lisbon Treaty. Questions related to ocials’
current and previous experience in order to: see how and whether individuals’
work was aected by the reorganisation of the EU’s external action architecture;
to obtain descriptions of their own role; to assess patterns of inter-institutional
cooperation and competition among all the actors involved. e second aim was
to highlight patterns of interaction among all the actors involved in the making,
coordinating and negotiating of common measures, in order to trace networks
of contacts under the current arrangements and to detect both formal and infor-
mal patterns of communication interspersed within the new inter-institutional
architecture. Questions related to: the number and frequency of contacts with col-
leagues in their own and other institutions; the how and when of these contacts;
the attitudes – whether cooperative, defensive or competitive – of all the actors
involved; the clarity and punctuality of formal guidelines on communication
exchanges; and the relevance of informal patterns of communication.
3. Dening the institutional context in Brussels
e Lisbon Treaty maintains a denition of foreign policy as an articially divided
policy domain. As follows, by adopting Maastricht terminology, former rst pil-
lar competencies are still managed under the Community method, and former
second pillar competencies follow an intergovernmental method of policymak-
ing. e role of all actors in the process is ultimately decided by the attribution of
competencies,2 even if contamination and a dynamic ow of information perme-
ate all policy elds (Carta 2013a).
At the executive level, within the EU, the management of foreign policy issues
is entrusted to three sets of institutional actors who intervene in the building up of
foreign-policy measures on the ground of attributed competencies. ese sets of
actors are: (1) the European Council and the Council of the EU, which negotiate
2. Four sets of competencies converge in the EU external policy field: exclusive EU powers,
where member states are no longer allowed to act autonomously; collective foreign policy
actions, which are pursued via an intergovernmental method of policymaking; and mixed
competencies, where both the Union and member states share competences. Finally, there are
competencies of the exclusive pertinence of member states.
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Caterina Carta
common positions in Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and ulti-
mately decide on all common decisions; (2) the Commission, which has the right
of initiative in so-called low foreign policy competencies, such as trade and devel-
opment; (3) the High Representative/Vice-President of the Commission (HR/VP)
in charge of traditional foreign policy dossiers, assisted by EEAS. In addition to
these, the rotating presidency – with the exception of the European Council and
the Foreign Aairs Council (FAC) – still applies to all Council congurations that
refer to the General Aairs Council (GAC).
In organisational terms, the system does not dier dramatically from the
organisation of foreign policy at the national level, whereby the Ministry of
Foreign Aairs (MFA) liaises and coordinates with several specialised ministries
in charge of both external aairs (development, trade) and domestic policy sectors
of international impact. In this light, the EEAS works as an MFA – with functions
of foreign-policy impetus and coordination – while the Commission’s dierent
Directorates General (DG) are in charge of specialised dossiers. From an organ-
isational point of view, the EEAS is structured as an MFA, within the limits of the
EU foreign policy system (Carta 2013a).
From an organisational perspective, within the Commission, four Director-
ates General (DG) contribute systematically to the making of external policies,
analogous to what ministries of international trade and development do at the
national level. DG for Development and Cooperation- EuropeAid (DEVCO), DG
Enlargement (DG ELARG), DG International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid
and Crisis Response (ECHO) and DG Trade share competencies to deal with spe-
cic macro policy areas.
Post-Lisbon arrangements also changed the composition of the RELEX Fam-
ily, the Commission’s DGs that specically deal with the EU’s external action: for-
mer DG RELEX has been absorbed by EEAS (together with some units from DG
AIDCO and DEV); and there was a merger between former DG DEV and AIDCO,
which previously were separate entities (Carta 2011). Coordination among these
DGs and between these and the EEAS is ensured by the Commissioners’ Group
on External Relations and the Commission’s Secretariat General. e Commis-
sioners’ Group on External Relations intervenes systematically in the making of
common policies, together with the President of the Commission and the DG for
Economic and Monetary Aairs (DG ECFIN). Consistency between dierent rst
and second pillar competencies is ensured by the presence of the HR/VP in the
Commissioners’ Group on External Relations.
As the Commission maintained control over the budget for external action, a
new hybrid Service – the FPI – was created. e FPI is an institutional part of the
Commission, but functionally it serves the EEAS. It is mainly in charge of nanc-
ing CFSP actions.
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e swinging “we” 1
4. e swinging we: e new institutional context and diplomats’
narratives
A wide societal and institutional discursive ecology constitutes the platform upon
which institutional actors frame their discourses about institutional “groupness”
and imposes upon actors “categories of social dierentiation implicit in social rela-
tions” (Silverstein 2010, 342). A group is therefore a collection of individuals “who
perceive themselves to be members of the same social category, share some emo-
tional involvement in this common denition of themselves and achieve some
degree of social consensus about the evaluation of their group and their member-
ship of it” (Tajfel & Turner 1979, 40). While no institutional actor has control over
specic institutional circumstances (Agar 1985, 156), both institutional actors’
resources (e.g. knowledge or level of hierarchy) and institutional eciency dene
the material context that inuences individual actors’ discourses on the institu-
tional group. In parallel, actors also reexively create their own group sense, i.e.
“people in society feel themselves to share something with certain others in the
way of participatory co-presence in an aggregation of individuals, such feeling fre-
quently being understood as shared history and/or fate, a common trajectory that
denes a mutual sense of belonging to something that unites them” (Silverstein
2010, 342). is sense of being a group, or groupness, is, in Silverstein’s parlance is,
…experienced through communicatively salient messages of belonging, drawing
upon shared knowledge (both inside and sometimes outside of the group) of
what cues – what behavioural or attitudinal indexes, we now say – to look for
in someone’s modes of self-presentation that would identify that individual as a
member of a particular group. (Silverstein 2010, 343)
Groupness, therefore, marks out the borders of social identity, it ascribes “that
part of [the] individual’s self-concept which derives from his knowledge of his
membership of a social group (or groups) together with the value and emotional
signicance attached to that membership (Tajfel 1981, 255).
In analysing the discourses of EU ocials and member states’ diplomats,
it becomes clear that pronominal selection incurs an always-changing process
of denition and redenition of groupness. In this context, both the feeling of
being part of a group (sharing some sort of common mission and destiny) and the
feeling of belonging to dierent entities (being tied to a specicity which cannot
be entirely absorbed by the group) converge in institutional actors’ discourses.
Overall, there are two macro-categories which bring together all the ocials inter-
viewed: they are European, insofar as their native nations share membership of
the EU, and they are fonctionnaires, i.e. people “endowed with a specic mission,
rather than employees” (Stevens & Stevens 2001, 36). In Breakwell’s terms, the EU
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2 Caterina Carta
as a prism which orients individuals’ group identity is “both a social category (i.e.
comprising its member states and their citizens) and a set of institutions (i.e. a
mechanism for government)” (Breakwell 2004, 33). is ambivalence reverberates
clearly in ocials’ discourses.
On the one hand, EU ocials’ imagined sense of community requires a great
deal of imagination! Already, at the national level, national identities are inherently
pluralistic, volatile and fragile social constructions. eir architrave is abstract and
impersonal, apt to be imitated and learnt over time and space (Andersen 1983,
2006, 155–158). In a similar vein, Billig warns that nationalism “operates with
prosaic, routine words, which take nations for granted, and which, in so doing,
inhabit them. Small words, rather than grand memorable phrases, oer constant,
but rarely conscious, reminders of the homeland, making ‘our’ national identity
unforgettable” (1995, 93). What should ‘supranationalism’ draw upon? Empiri-
cal studies on the development of a European social identity among both elites
(Stevens & Stevens 2001; Shore 2000; Hooghe 2001; Carta 2011; Wodak 2004)
and public opinion (e.g. Gaxie, Hubé & Rowell 2011 for a qualitative analysis of
perceptions of Europe) show that the EU is an “unnished” social category, which
is “in many ways dened by other categories with which it is oen in conict”
(Breakwell 2004, 33–35).
Drawing on such a minimalistic script, several representations of each nation-
ality (and, as we may argue, of supranationality) coexist, which are “discursively, by
means of language and other semiotic systems, produced, reproduced, transformed
and destructed” (De Cillia, Reisigl & Wodak 1999, 150, emphasis in the text).
Following De Cillia etal., there is no such thing as a “national [and supranational]
identity” inected in singular terms: representations of national identity are habiti,
to use Bourdieu’s term, constantly adapted to the context and the perception of
what is constructed as dierent. e sense of belonging to the EU group therefore
relies on the ever-changing intersections among multiple group identities, which
can be conceptualised in dierent ways, whether nested, cross-cutting or separate
(Hermann & Brewer 2004, 8–10).
On the other hand, the EU’s ocials’ own sense of mission, the feeling of
Building Europe (Shore 2000) through their own direct engagement, varies pro-
foundly, both as an eect of their personal understanding of what Building Europe
is about and as an eect of their role in this process. Beyond the traditional distinc-
tion between “intergovernmental” and “supranational” denitions of ocials’ dis-
cursive postures, a wide range of factors intervene to shape ocials’ discourse on
their mission. For a start, these categories stem from a complex process of sense-
making (Weick 1995) and change according to circumstances, the distribution of
competencies and responsibilities, policy areas, and the belief in the nal aims of
the EU project, to quote some elements.
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e swinging “we” 3
In addition to this, the new institutional structure creates dierent missions,
endowed with dierent institutions or services. A mission is “a clear statement
of purpose universally understood” which reveals an “organisation’s true com-
mitments” (Selznick 1957, 66–73). e separation between the Commission and
the EEAS adds dierent nuances, being both “intergovernmental” and “suprana-
tional”, as stereotypical ways to describe inclinations towards European integra-
tion. Within this overall framework, the mission and role of the Commission and
EEAS dier considerably. With a strong symbolical ethos, Commission ocials
have been portrayed as performing six functions: policy innovator, lawmaker,
law enforcer, manager of Union policies, diplomat and political broker (Delors,
quoted in Shore 2000, 43). Accordingly, Spence (2000, 33–47) pointed out that the
Commission has a bicephalous political role, “as a civil service in the classic sense
and yet a policy initiator, the motor of integration and guardian of the European
interest”. e Commission’s role therefore draws on a dual mandate: it is required
to perform as both a mainly administrative actor and as a political actor. e role
of EEAS – which is a Service rather than an institution – can be derived from the
mandate of the HR/VP. e mandate of the HR/VP requires her: to conduct CFSP
and to represent the EU in CFSP matters; to contribute by her proposals to the
development of CFSP and consequentially to implement measures agreed upon
by the Foreign Aairs Council of Ministers. In parallel, she is Vice-President of
the Commission and ensures consistency in the EU’s external actions. As with this
bridging role between two dierent pillars of the EU’s external actions, the EEAS is
primarily mandated to concur in the making of CFSP and to ensure overall consis-
tency and coordination in the EU’s external actions. As with the label of ‘Service’,
the role of the EEAS is far more hybrid, suspended as it is between the two pillars
of EU external action.
While the Commission in its eld of competence enjoys exclusive power of
initiative, the EEAS’ role is one of facilitating agreement among member states,
while also being able to advance its own policy initiatives (which must then be
unanimously agreed by member states). As the following shows, further distinc-
tions emerge. Among EU ocials, a line of demarcation between ocials work-
ing with exclusive competencies (Commission ocials) and ocials siding with
member states in intergovernmental competencies (EEAS and Council Secretar-
iat ocials) emerges. is organisational dierence sees the shaping of a dier-
ing working ethos, together with a feeling of empowerment and ownership that
ocials feel about common policies. e division of competencies, in this light,
nally results in a margin of manoeuvre/freedom to pursue initiatives and actions
on behalf of the EU. Finally, the role descriptions of ocials converge to shape not
only their performance, relative power and position in the institutional structure,
but also their organisational culture, i.e. a collection of ways of “shared doing and
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4 Caterina Carta
saying” (Sathe 1983) that “are generated in an organisation both through the feel-
ings and actions of its founder and through the amalgam of beliefs, ideology, lan-
guage, ritual, and myth [that] we collapse into the label of organisational culture”
(Pettigrew 1979, 572).
4.1 Pronominal Selection in the EU: Some general ndings
Within this general institutional and organisational framework, pronominal selec-
tion is of great importance among members of the EU group, both in Brussels and
in third party organisations. e analysis conducted below shows that selecting
pronouns, such as “I”, “we” and “they”, follows a polysemous path.
In term of the rst person singular, via a very vivid metaphor, George Herbert
Mead alludes to a ‘Parliament of Selves’, in which individuals’ selves are constantly
constructed, reorganized and re-elaborated according to dierent hierarchies
through social interaction (1934). As in all narratives, “I” can be a reference to
oneself and to one’s own experience. Not all particular identities are activated in
speeches; rather, they are “handled in use” (Antaki & Widdicombe 1998, 15). In
other words,
…the functioning of [the] social self-concept is situation specic: particular
self-concepts tend to be activated (‘switched on’) in specic situations producing
specic self-images as a function of interaction between the characteristics of the
perceiver and the situation.
(Turner etal. 1987, 44 in Antaki & Widdicombe 1998, 17)
‘I’, therefore, in ocials’ speeches, can refer to the perceptions associated to some
specic segments of their individual identity. ‘I’ can stand as the armation of a
personal view on a given arrangement, i.e. whether the interviewee feels satised,
frustrated or concerned about the arrangement. ‘I’ can also refer to an individual’s
position in a given organisation or institution. As we will see, in times of institu-
tional enactment, this is a quite diuse attitude. Given the very weakness of the
new institutional structure, an ocial can also use ‘I’ to refer to part of the wider
EU project, by minimising the importance of a particularistic institutional belong-
ing. ‘I’ can nally refer to the attitude that on ocial has regarding his/her own
nationality, on whether he/she feels more attached to his/her own nationality or to
the EU as a whole.
Concerning pronominal inection of the self in the plural, the borders of ‘we’
are extremely porous. On the one hand, in times of institutional struggle, ‘we’ can
clearly refer to collective institutional aliation. On the other, ‘we’ can also refer
to the whole EU group, including not only EU institutions, but also the ocials
of member states. In parallel, ‘we’ can refer to a political sense of belonging. In
times of institutional fragility, an individual can share ideas on how to overcome
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e swinging “we”
As an
individual
As a
member of
my
organization
I
As member
of the
European
group
As European
or mostly
national of
my country
Figure 1. Four ways of inecting the pronoun “I”
As the
whole EU
group
As a EU
subgroup
As
European
vs. the
others
As an
ideological
group
We
Figure 2. Four ways of inecting the pronoun “We”
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Caterina Carta
the institutional impasse with others, regardless of their institutional belonging.
Above all, for those ocials serving in the delegations, ‘we’ can have a strong iden-
tity component vis-à-vis the non-EU group (Carta 2013b). In this sense, ‘we’ con-
veys a sense of identity of the EU towards the rest of the world.
Patterns of dierentiation follow the same path, they can alternatively be con-
jugated in terms of function, organisational position or dierent mindsets on the
current institutional structure. According to the functional reorganisation of the
external relations machinery, ocials – whether from the Commission or EEAS–
need to liaise constantly to ensure the smooth management of external policy dos-
siers. Accordingly, the pronoun ‘they’ can simply refer to homologues in other
institutions.
As diusely reported, reorganisation of the external policy sector brought led
to great deal of acrimony both within the EU institutional group and between this
group and member states. On the one hand, the creation of a new Service, EEAS,
fuelled anxiety and tensions both within the Commission and the newly estab-
lished service. e Commission lost its role as the fundamental driver and coor-
dinator of external action in the form of DG RELEX, which formerly provided
guidance for the Commission’s external actions, plus entire units from other DGs.
On the other hand, an impression emerged that member states – in particular
some member states – used the reform to weaken, rather than strengthen, the EU’s
external actions in general and the Commission’s in particular. As we shall see, this
consistently explains some ways of framing both groupness and dierentiation.
In parallel, ‘they’ can be used to refer to non-EU subjectivities. Postures
towards external, non-EU partners can change dramatically among interviewees.
is interesting topic has been analysed elsewhere (Carta 2014). Here we can sum-
marise these dierent discursive patterns by highlighting the more or less inclusive
attitude that the EU is perceived to have towards third-party actors. Paraphrasing
Buber, Ish-Shalom refers to two dierent patterns of communication. On the one
hand, there is an “I–ou relationship – a relationship based on unmediated lis-
tening and unity of existence. I–ou relationships create an interpersonal sphere
that Buber called the Between, which enables a community of We to emerge”
(2011, 825). is discourse recalls the notion of ‘ethical power Europe’, and rests
on a “conceptual shi in the EU’s role and aspirations from what it ‘is’ to what it
‘does’” (Aggestam 2008, 2). On the other hand, the discourses of third parties can
also assume a quite dierent stance, which emphasises dierentiation, rather than
similarity (Carta 2014). Referring to Ish-Shalom’s interpretation of Buber, the kind
of dialogic pattern inherent in this approach can be dened in terms of an I-It rela-
tion, whereby, “members of the society perceive each other instrumentally and are
alienated from each other. I–It maintains the alienated conditions of human soci-
ety, preventing the constitution of the dialogical community as We” (Ish-Shalom
© 2015. John Benjamins Publishing Company
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e swinging “we”
2011, 285). is pattern clearly explains both the presumed distinctiveness of EU
international discourses and a common perception of the EU as a preaching, colo-
nising international actor, both towards external partners (Hettne & Söderbaum
2005) and to its own member states (Polat 2011).
As holding
different
mandates
As
organizational
units
As other than
the EU
As holding
different
mindsets
ey
Figure 3. Four ways of inecting the pronoun “ey”
As we shall see in what follows, these general patterns inform patterns of pro-
nominal selection and reveal new cleavages emerging from the newly established
institutional structure.
4.2 Brussels arrangements: Friends or enemies?
Despite the long and turbulent post-Lisbon institutional adaptation, all interview-
ees tend to minimise any negative eects of the reorganisation. e “machine”, as
many interviewees call it, tends to work, although in an imperfect manner.
In this sense, the necessity to guarantee viable coordination of all EU services
when dealing with external relations is not new for the EU. e Commission has
always faced the need to ensure consistency between the interlinked activities of
the six Directorates-General (DGs) (Carta 2012). Along with dierent sectorial
specialisations, each DGs has historically developed its own organisational iden-
tity (Abélès, Bellier & McDonald 1993), routines (Ongaro 2010), ideas of Europe
© 2015. John Benjamins Publishing Company
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Caterina Carta
and sense of mission (Hooghe 2001; Carta 2012). e Commission itself, there-
fore, was not and is not a unitary actor. Fragmentation impacts on all aspects of
its institutional life, thus creating tremendous potential for conict ( Christiansen
1997) due to the national composition of each DG, the sectorial and political
approaches implied and the exposure to interest groups, to mention but a few ele-
ments (Hooghe 2001).
erefore, regardless of whether an interviewee works for the Commission or
EEAS, he/she tends to acknowledge that, “before the Lisbon treaty we were already
split, so it [the new institutional arrangement] doesn’t make much dierence in
the way we work” (DEVCO, 21). In sum, “cooperation remained good where it
was good; it didn’t improve – or maybe has slightly worsened – where it was not
particularly brilliant. So, there was no substantial change in terms of cooperation”
(EEAS, 01). “I mean – another interviewee from the FPI adds – we are the same
colleagues: they are now in the EEAS and I am now in the FPI. But we have been
working together for twenty years, so…”. is account of a common Commission
ethos is soon dissipated by the need to remark on certain dierences in terms of
organisational culture: “DEVCO is dierent. Because DEVCO does and has done
dierent work, and has a dierent culture” (FPI, 01). Admittedly, therefore, even if
the ‘machine’ is working well, there is a widespread feeling that the compartmen-
talisation characterising the Commission has broadened:
Given the complexity that such a sort of separation – which is kind of articially
created – we [all European civil servants] faced a number of diculties […].
In some cases this created only some nonsensical diculties. I think it [the
institutional structure] is now running reasonably well. I mean, we have done the
job last year: the funds were committed, the programmes were launched: we did
what we were supposed to do. It’s a bit tricky, in the sense that … in some cases
it was not entirely clear: we had people moving from one institution to the other,
and then there is this decisional chain where you have to nd out who decides,
who commits money and who manages them. All these people, in general, have
to be Commission people … So, they [the chain of command] have created a
bureaucratic absurdity. (FPI, 01)
Interviewees are, in sum, unied by a feeling of confusion, derived from an unclear
and dynamic process of doing things while learning ‘who does what’. Above all,
during the rst stages of implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, the denition of
‘who does what’ required a great deal of eort on the part of the ocials to under-
stand the new machinery. Reportedly, EEAS was removed from the Commission’s
intranet, a real shock for former Commission ocials. All of a sudden, they did
not have easy access to the contact details of Commission homologues; and they
could not rely on familiar devices to perform their job eectively. In the account
of this civil servant,
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e swinging “we”
e EEAS started on the 1st of January 2011. It was rather dicult and funny
because we became an autonomous institution and, also on the legal basis, an
independent body. So until the 1st of January, we had lots of operations working
in cooperation with other Commission’s DGs; and they were seeing us as part of
the Commission. Suddenly we were on our own. e Commission realised that
we were not providing any more services, so it was a big jump into a black hole.
(EEAS, 8)
A feeling of separation is mostly attributed to “personal reasons”, although some
colleagues changed their attitudes: the EEAS was associated with the attempts of
some Euro-sceptic member states to infringe the autonomy of the Commission
(see below for the declaration of a DG Trade ocial). Patterns of exclusion, there-
fore, were pursued via a switch from informal to formal patterns of communica-
tion (in the account of this ocial, who refers to the change in attitudes of some
Commission’s colleagues thus: “Come on, you’re on your own, why do you wanna
know? Send me an ocial note.”, EEAS, 8).
In parallel, given the composition of EEAS – which now comprises 1/3 of o-
cials coming from the Commission, 1/3 from the Council Secretariat and 1/3 from
member states – did, at the time of enactment, produce an inherent dierentiation
among colleagues, based on professional culture. For instance, this diplomat from
a member state working in EEAS states:
I am not like other colleagues here. ey come from the Council Secretariat
General or from the Commission … is role [dealing with diplomacy] was
a new one for them. As I said, mainly for DG RELEX colleagues, who did not
have much experience in working with other member states before, it might be
dicult. I am a diplomat, so in some way, I understand their concerns [of other
colleagues coming from member states]. (EEAS, 3)
EEAS ocials also have the feeling that EEAS – working mainly in the area of
CFSP – mostly deals with less tangible and ‘intergovernmental’ dossiers. ese
excerpts synthesise well the dierent reasons that cause a swing in the framing of
rst plural pronominal selection:
As an international actor, beyond declarations and participation to big summits,
the EU exists because it deploys some instruments. ese instruments are trade
and nancial cooperation and some instruments concerning migration. anks
to these instruments, we are able to access the life of a country … If you do not
use these instruments or if you do not have them, you lose your ability to know
how things go in a given country. Consequentially you lose your ability to exert
inuence. Today the Commission manages all these instruments; therefore it has
great power. is is the fundamental question, the key: e Commission is the
entity that, at the end of the day, is able to say: “We do this; we don’t do this.”
(EEAS, 01)
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Caterina Carta
is perception of the Commission as the nerve centre of the EU’s external actions
is widespread among the ocials interviewed ocials, whether from the Com-
mission or from EEAS. In terms of functions, a DG Trade ocial made clear the
unique status of DG Trade as the “bastion” of Community power:
e EEAS does “diplomacy” … ey “welcome”, “regret” “deplore”. ey do
not manage the substance of les; they are coordinators, like RELEX before. In
sum, they do ‘blah de blah’. You can imagine the EEAS was created for this! We
[TRADE] still hold strong competencies: the member states couldn’t catch us:
trade is protected, we are on the safe side and this helps us to deliver our policies
… We need to defend the Commission’s position. (Interview DG Trade).
is seems to reinforce the view that DG Trade holds inuential institutional sta-
tus. In the words of this EEAS ocial,
DG Trade doesn’t forget that it has been DG1 … For y years DG1 led both
political and commercial external action. DG RELEX came only later … as a rib of
DG1, as its younger sister. is is because commercial policy – that is an exclusive
EU competence – is the noblest part of European architecture. It is only and
exclusively for its commercial policy that the EU has been able to do something
over the last y years, certainly not through the CFSP or the European Security
and Defence Policy [ESDP, now CSDP]. ose are small business, both in terms
of operations and money. Small business that are expanding, but still small
things… At the end of the day, it is mainly strategic commercial business that has
a direct impact on European lifestyle, on the European economy, on European
international trade and on the EU’s economic future. e noblest part is, in the
end, the material part … Now, with the CFSP and CSDP we are playing on the
future, neither with the past nor the present. We play on the future and we hope
to have something to say, but the nancial crisis is wiping out our capabilities, our
margins of interventions: we do not have money to do anything. (EEAS, 18).
e general idea is, therefore, that “it is the Commission that gives the money”
(EEAS, 8). As these excerpts show, the Commission and EEAS are implicitly por-
trayed as dierent. Whereas the former is still the engine of integration and enjoys
a wider capability to place the EU on the map, EEAS is still searching for its role.
More or less explicitly, interviewees share the concern that the EU is progressively
undergoing a process of ‘intergovernmentalisation’, whereby member states – or
rather some member states – have managed to regain power over previously com-
munitarised competencies. Member states, in this sense, are perceived as limiting
a stronger role for EEAS:
My very personal opinion is that we [EEAS] have been given the task but not the
competencies. We have been entitled by the Lisbon Treaty to be the Service that
conducts EU foreign policy: but the member states, they, still want to hold their
own responsibilities and power. (EEAS, 8)
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e swinging “we” 1
. Conclusions – discourse analysis and the swinging we
is article has attempted to shed light on two interrelated questions surrounding
the discursive practices of the EU’s ocials when dealing with external actions.
On the one hand, it has depicted the institutional environment that contributes
to setting out the ground for the denition of a swinging group identity. On the
other, it has traced the discursive patterns associated with the content of this group
identity.
When studying identity at the collective level, membership to a group or an
organisation has to be treated as additional layers in the constitution of the self
(Tajfel & Turner 1979; Tajfel 1981, 1982; Huddy 2001). Membership of a given
group does not neutralise, rather it builds upon and interacts with other constru-
als of individual selves involved within the group (Huddy 2001). Membership, and
ows from it the denition of groupness, is subjectively dened and experienced
(Turner, Oakes, Haslam & McGarty 1987, 454), and it is activated at dierent times
and in dierent contexts for dierent individuals.
Already, b efore the entry into force of t he Lisbon Treaty, empirical investigation
showed that the “the EU destiny is to carry together two antagonistic perspectives
such as Unity and Diversity, which constitute its motto” (Bellier 2002,85). ese
studies revealed that fragmentation within the Commission impacts on all aspects
of institutional life (Coombes 1972; Abélès, Bellier & McDonald 1993; Shore 2000;
Stevens & Stevens 2001; Hooghe 2001; Cini 1996). Studies of the Commission as
a bureaucracy have, therefore, revealed “un universe riche et complexe”, in which,
“la diversité des langues et des cultures nationales … introduit massivement l’altérité
au sein d’un organisme qui vise à intégrer, à unier, à harmoniser, selon les termes
les plus couramment employés par ses responsables”3 (Abélès, Bellier & McDonald
1993, 7). Segmentation and intrinsic plurality have been widely regarded as an
integral part of the ethos and organisational culture of the Commission (Abélès,
Bellier & McDonald ibidem: 34).
Factors such as the distinctive administrative cultures across DGs, the national
composition of each DG, the sectoral and political approaches implied and the
exposure to pressures from interest groups have been regarded as having tremen-
dous potential for conict within the Commission. In parallel, in highlighting the
unique position of the Commission in the Union’s architecture, empirical studies
3. is could be translated as: “the diversity of languages and national cultures … dra-
matically introduces alterity within an organism which aims at integrating, unifying, har-
monizing, according to the terms most commonly used by the Commission’s managers”. My
own translation.
© 2015. John Benjamins Publishing Company
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2 Caterina Carta
have also pinpointed the immense potential of the Commission to have an inte-
grative eect on its ocials, i.e. to foster a feeling of groupness. Factors such as a
peculiar Euro-jargon, similar working conditions, strong sectoral aliation and
an atypical political mandate have been identied as some of the most powerful
determinants contributing to the development of a new form of allegiance towards
the institution.
e establishment of EEAS not only builds on similar fragmentation and plu-
rality, but also amplies them. e dispersion of authority caused by the reform,
with the establishment of a new institutional body potentially in conict with the
Commission, makes for an account of groupness which swings due to dierent
aliations. At times, the denition of ‘we’ includes all actors involved in the pro-
cess of European integration, from member states to the EU’s bureaucratic and
institutional actors; at other times, it serves as a dividing curtain, which clearly
establishes a dierent sense of belonging. In this general picture, a process of dif-
ferentiation has emerged, which involves dierent levels.
In the rst place, dierentiation involves the relationship between previ-
ously unied organisational units. As with the separation of former DG RELEX
from the Commission and its merger with EEAS, a strong process of otherness
has tarnished the organisational culture and a sense of belonging to the EU insti-
tutional group. Patterns of communication have altered since the reform. ey
have imposed a distance between previously unied working units. is pattern
came with a further functional dierentiation between those who ‘manage the
budget’– the Commission – and those who coordinate the general actions of
the EU, as a mix of intergovernmental and supranational sets of activities. is
functional dierentiation leads to a process of othering which, apart from setting
out the borders of ‘who does what’, also denes ‘who is where’ across the power
chessboard. Afeeling of general disempowerment pervaded former DG RELEX
ocials working for EEAS. In parallel, Commission ocials started developing a
sense of being ‘bastions of the process of integration’, a role that needs to be pro-
tected from attacks by member states.
In second place, the organisational composition of EEAS makes up for a dier-
entiation in terms of expertise, know-how and a network of contacts among EEAS
members. It suddenly became clear that civil servants bring dierent added values
to the process of integration. On this ground, ‘a shared way of saying and doing
things’ is more dicult to achieve. Time becomes an indispensable asset to dene
the outcome of the process of institutionalisation, whether dierent sets of exper-
tise will t well together or will evolve along parallel organisational cultural lines.
In third place, a wider divide now demarcates the border between ‘us’ (per-
ceived as the EU institutional group) and ‘them’ (perceived as the member states).
Some actors still favour nding a pragmatic way forward which tries to take on
© 2015. John Benjamins Publishing Company
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e swinging “we” 3
board member states’ concerns. is attitude leads to a ‘wait and see’ discursive
posture, which takes on board all the dierent attitudes towards EU integration.
Other actors assume a defensive attitude, which still sees in the Commission the
main repository of the EU’s integration ethos. In this case, new walls are erected
against possible attacks on the Community’s competencies. e defence of well-
established competencies gives the impression that new lines of demarcation
emerge. is further division does not make any easier the nal aim of cementing
a new esprit de corps among the EU’s institutional actors. While the new institu-
tional structure is still in its infancy, above all, EEAS still faces the ‘problem of
becoming’ (Claude 1956, 9), and the tensions seem to outweigh the benets.
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Caterina Carta
Author’s addresss
Caterina Carta
Vesalius College (VUB)
Pleinlaan 5, 1050 Brussels,
Belgium
Ccarta@vub.ac.be
About the author
Caterina Carta is an assistant professor at Vesalius College (VUB). She holds a Ph.D. in Com-
parative and European Politics from the University of Siena. She is an associate researcher at the
Institut d’Etudes Européennes at ULB, Brussels. In the framework of FP GR:EEN, she is working
on a research project on the EU as a discursive actor. She published e European Union’s dip-
lomatic Service: Ideas, Preferences and Identities (Routledge, 2012). is research acknowledges
the support of the FP7 integrated research project GR:EEN – Global Re-ordering: Evolution
through European Networks (European Commission Project Number: 266809).
