The psychology of international norm promotion and contestation: EU’s (emotional) response to the crises in its neighborhood

In the last decade, individual players in the European neighborhood such as Russia or Turkey have increasingly contested the EU’s norms. This contestation has manifested itself not only in domestic politics, as these non-democratic players offered alternative (autocratic) governance models, but also in their external relations since these actors pursued a distinctive foreign policy line characterized by a more assertive foreign policy inclined to use force instead of diplomacy or multilateral forums. The vast literature on norm promotion/contestation has analyzed various aspects of the EU’s response to these challenges, ranging from EU-induced political transformation of these autocracies to the forms of norm contestation in the neighborhood. However, the political psychology of this phenomenon, in particular, the role of emotions in the EU’s responses to the contestation of its norms has remained an unstudied domain. This paper argues that studying the contestation of international (EU) norms from an emotions/political psychology angle is important for two reasons: First, by investigating the existence (or absence of) collective-level emotions involved in EU’s reaction to the breach of its norms, one can gain a better understanding of which norms matter the most for the EU and when. Second, by examining which emotions lead (or fail to lead) to action in the EU’s external relations, it is possible to uncover the performative role of emotions in EU foreign policy. This is important because in the light of the recent emotional turn in IR, the literature has widely accepted that emotions do matter in international relations. Yet, little is known on the causal role of emotions, i.e., whether and when emotions lead political entities to take action in the international realm. Against this backdrop, the purpose of this paper is twofold. First, by analyzing the emotional language used by the EU policy-makers, the purpose is to map different emotions articulated by the EU in cases of norm contestation in the European neighborhood in times of crises (which emotions are articulated and when?). Second, by studying “emotions-action” cycle (K. Smith 2021), the objective is to develop a matrix which will link emotions to action/non-action in EU foreign policy (which emotions lead to what type of action in EU diplomacy?). In order to do so, this paper analyses three recent regional crises where the EU has taken diplomatic action at varying degrees, namely the Ukrainian crisis in 2014, the weaponization of migrants by Belarus in 2021 and the tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean following the drilling activities conducted by Turkey in 2019-2020. The data for this study comes from the comparative qualitative content analysis of European Parliament plenary debates on these crises. European Parliament plenary debates are key in understanding different players’ views on a foreign policy crisis not only because all the key actors (the European Commission, European External Action Service, Council and European Parliament, including different political groups) are represented, but also, unlike official statements issued by the EU (such as Council conclusions or press communiqués), public deliberation provides an entry point to the analysis of emotions.