Construction of European identity by the Pro-European Parties

Abstract

The political scene of the European Union (EU) presents a discursive field where identity construction becomes a vital tool for political parties to claim political credit and legitimize themselves. While pro-European parties utilize the narratives of an in-group of European identity, Eurosceptic parties problematize the gap between ‘us’ and ‘them’ by employing narratives of intergroup differentiation as an instrument to re/shape the political reality. The scholarly literature mostly focuses on Eurosceptic populist discourse and right-wing rhetoric relying on discursive socio-political exclusion to form in-group identification of national identities. By adopting a different stance, this article seeks to address the discursive strategies of the pro-European parties employed and mobilized during the 2019 European Parliament election campaigns through the discourse historical approach. It argues that it is of critical importance to reveal the pro-European discourse to reflect the pro-European stance over the debates on the existing identity cleavage within the turbulent European political scene.

Keywords

2019 European Parliament elections, Discourse Historical Approach (DHA), European identity, European crises, identity construction

Citation

Melek Aylin Özoflu, “Construction of European identity by the Pro-European Parties”, International Relations, Vol. 19, No. 74, 2022, pp. 73-87, DOI: 10.33458/uidergisi.1124976

Affiliations

• Melek Aylin ÖZOFLU, Ph.D. Candidate, Corvinus University of Budapest, International Relations and Political Science