CONCEPTS OF STRATEGIC SOVEREIGNTY AND AUTONOMY AND THE IMAGE OF THE FUTURE IN THE OFFICIAL DISCOURSE OF THE EU
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17072/2218-1067-2024-1-103-111Keywords:
image of the future; European Union; strategic sovereignty; strategic autonomy; critical geopolitics; chro-nopolitics; discourse; transition plotAbstract
The concept of sovereignty has not been popular in the official EU’s discourse for a long time, but this has changed in recent years since representatives of the Union have turned to the categories of European sovereignty and strategic autonomy. Through the prism of critical chronopolitics, F. Polak’s concept of the image of the future and discourse analysis of EU’s official discourse, the author explores how new categories influenced the image of the future in Brussels’ worldview. Three points are of particular importance. Firstly, new concepts establish primary focus on the areas of technology/digitalization, environment protection, foreign policy / defense. The development of each of these areas helps to strengthen the sovereignty / autonomy of the EU within such a narrative. Secondly, the new categories work within the framework of transition plot, constituting a symbolic world map of Brussels through a combination of orientalism and historicism. Thirdly, the categories contribute to the optimistic and pessimistic half of the image of the future, representing rather a temporal discursive prolongation of the current status quo than utopia and dystopia.References
Коцур, Г. В. (2020) ‘Дискурсивная фигура «движения» и стрессоустойчивость как элементы организации символической карты мира: пример нормативного взаимодействия России и ЕС’, Вестник Пермского университета. Серия: Политология, 14 (3), сс. 73–81. [Kotsur, G. V. (2020) ‘The discursive figure of “tran-sition” and resilience as the pillars of symbolic mapping: the case of the nor-mative interaction between Russia and the EU’ [Diskursivnaja figura «dvizheni-ja» i stressoustojchivost' kak jelementy organizacii simvolicheskoj karty mira: primer normativnogo vzaimodejstvija Rossii i ES], Bulletin of Perm University. Political Science, 14 (3), pp. 73–81. (In Russ.)].
Петрова, В. Н. (2009) ‘Изучение образа будущего: методологические проблемы и пути их решения’, Сибирский психоло-гический журнал, 32, cc. 6–10. [Petrova, V. N. (2009) ‘Studying the image of the future: methodological problems and ways to solve them’ [Izuchenie obraza budushhego: metodologicheskie prob-lemy i puti ih reshenija], Syberian Jour-nal of Psychology, 32, pp. 6–10. (In Russ.)].
Романова, Т. А. (2017) ‘Категория “стрессоустойчивость” в Европейском союзе’, Современная Европа, 4 (76), cc. 17–28. [Romanova, T. A. (2017) ‘Resilience cat-egory in the European Union’ [Kategorija “stressoustojchivost'” v Evropejskom sojuze], Contemporary Europe, 4 (76), pp. 17–28. (In Russ.)].
Романова, Т. А. (2021) ‘Дискурс о суверенитете Европейского союза: содержание и последствия’, Современная Европа, 5, cc. 32–44. [Romanova, T. A. (2021) ‘The EU's Discourse on Sovereignty: Content and Consequences’ [Diskurs o su-verenitete Evropejskogo sojuza: soderzhanie i posledstvija], Contemporary Europe, 5, pp. 32–44. (In Russ.)]
Чадаева, К. Д. (2013) ‘Образ будущего в разных возрастах’, Известия Тульского государственного университета. Гуманитарные науки, 2, cc. 294–305. [Cha-daeva, K. D. (2013) ‘Image of the future at different ages’ [Obraz budushhego v raznyh vozrastah], Izvestiya Tula State University. Humanitarian sciences, 2, pp. 294–305. (In Russ.)].
Щербак, И. Н. (2020) ‘Стратегическая автономия ЕС и проблемы формирования внешнеполитической повестки в эпоху пандемии’, Современная Европа, 6, cc. 29-40. [Shcherbak, I. N. (2020) ‘Strategic Autonomy of the EU and Problems of Formation of the Foreign Policy Agenda in the Time of the Pandemic’ [Strate-gicheskaja avtonomija ES i problemy formirovanija vneshnepoliticheskoj povestki v jepohu pandemii], Contempo-rary Europe, 6, pp. 29–40. (In Russ.)]
Chakrabarty, D. (2000) Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial thought and historical differ-ence. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Csernatoni, R. (2022) ‘The EU’s hegemonic im-aginaries: from European strategic auton-omy in defence to technological sover-eignty’, European Security, 31 (3), pp. 395–414. DOI: 10.1080/09662839.2022.2103370.
Diez, T. (2004) ‘Europe's Others and the return of geopolitics’, Cambridge Review of In-ternational Affairs, 17 (2), pp. 319–335, DOI: 10.1080/0955757042000245924.
Howorth, J. (2019) ‘Strategic autonomy: Why it’s not about Europe going it alone’, Eu-ropean View, 18 (2), pp. 254–254, DOI: 10.1177/1781685819883195.
Klinke, I. (2013) ‘Chronopolitics: A conceptual matrix’, Progress in Human Geography, 37 (5), pp. 673–690, DOI: 10.1177/0309132512472094 .
Laclau, E., Mouffe, C. (2001) Hegemony and so-cialist strategy: towards a radical demo-cratic politics. London: Verso.
Onar, N. F., Nicolaïdis, K. (2013) ‘The Decen-tring agenda: Europe as a post-colonial power’, Cooperation and Conflict, 48 (2), pp. 283–303, DOI:10.1177/0010836713485384.
Polak, F. (1973) The image of the future. Amster-dam: Elsevier Sdentific Publishing Com-pany.
Prozorov, S. (2011) ‘The Other as past and pre-sent: Beyond the logic of ‘temporal oth-ering’ in IR theory’, Review of Interna-tional Studies, 37 (3), pp. 1273–1293, DOI: 10.1017/S0260210510000586.
Said, E. W. (1995) Orientalism: Western concep-tions of the Orient. London: Penguin.
Waever, O. (1996) ‘European security identities’, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Stud-ies, 34 (1), pp. 103–132, DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-5965.1996.tb00562.x.
Wendt, A. (1999) Social theory of international politics. London: Cambridge University Press.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
The author grants the Publisher of the journal (Perm State University) the right to use their article in the journal, as well as to include the text of the abstract, the full text of the article and information about authors in the "Russian Science Citation Index" (RSCI).
The author agrees to the processing of personal data.
The right to use the journal as a whole belongs to the Publisher and acts indefinitely on the territory of the Russian Federation and beyond in accordance with cl. 1260 of the Russian Federation Civil Code.
There is no author's fee paid for providing the above rights by the author.
The author of the article included in the journal retains the exclusive right to it, regardless of the Publisher's right to use the journal as a whole:
a. The authors retain their copyrights to the article and transfer the right of the first publication along with the article to the journal, while also licensing it on the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows others to distribute this article with the obligatory indication of authorship of the article and reference to the original publication in this journal.
b. The authors retain the right to enter into separate, additional contractual agreements for the non-exclusive dissemination of the version of the text published by this journal (for example, post it in a university archive or publish it in a book), with reference to the original publication in this journal.
c. d. Authors are allowed to post their text on the Internet (for example, in a university archive or on their personal website) before and during the review process by this journal, as this can lead to a fruitful discussion and to higher number of the references to this published work (Please refer to The Effect of Open Access).
Submission of an article by the author implies that they agree for it to be used by the Publisher on the above conditions and to be included in the RSCI system. It also implicates that the author is aware of the terms of its use. The information about the author sent to the Publisher, including by e-mail, is also considered as such consent.
The editorial board posts the full text of the article on the Perm State University site: http://www.psu.ru and in the OJS system at http://press.psu.ru
The publication fee is not collected and fees are not paid. The author's copy is sent to the author to the address provided by them.
