EUropean Identity Construction After the Russian Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine: Dialogic (Re)construction of Self and Others

Abstract

By conducting Bakhtinian dialogic discourse analysis, this article shows how the EU (re)constructs its sense of the Self vis-à-vis two constitutive Others – Russia and Ukraine – since the Russian full-scale invasion in February 2022. It argues that the EU has been able to renew its Self-image as a ‘peace project’ and a ‘normative power’, whilst also embracing more fully the idea of a ‘geopolitical’ EU. Its relations with Ukraine continue to be characterised by the ‘politics of ambiguity’, whereby Ukraine is kept in a liminal state despite its new role of a ‘frontier’ that contributes to EU security. The EU may be said to be facing a dilemma between solidarity and inclusion versus securitisation and re-bordering. In terms of identity construction, this denotes a tension between a Self that depends on securitised binaries and a Self that transcends this dialectic via a dialogic celebration of alterity.