Uncovering the emotion-memory nexus by analyzing visions of peace in EU Defence Policy Debates

A core aim of the EU, derived from its raison d’etre, is to safeguard peace and security within and beyond its borders. The framework of the European ‘peace-project’, awarded with a Nobel Peace Prize in 2012, rests on references to emotions (Koschut 2018), recalling of past events and imagining ideal futures. Especially, EU foreign policy debates around the concept of peace carry a wide range of emotion and memory discourse. Previous research on the EU and peace analyzed the role of the EU as a peacemaking actor (Bergmann & Niemann 2015, Øberg 2006, Stivachtis et al. 2013, Visoka & Doyle 2016). The EU as an institution has also been described as an influential normative power (Manners 2002, Jenichen 2021) with a history of promoting ‘peaceful’ norms including foreign intervention (Zupančič & Pejič 2018). From this perspective the EU’s vision of peace matters, as the character of ideas may contribute to the shaping and legitimation of political action. Furthermore, political actor’s use of emotion and memory discourse may inform persuasive communication aimed to achieve policy objectives and gain public support (Loseke 2009). Gürkan (2021) shows that in this EP context, narratives of collective memory are profoundly intertwined with emotional references. However, research on political discourse, emotions and memory still predominantly focuses on war instead of peace (Seaton & Wu 2021). Taking the presence of the word ‘peace’ as the prime focus, this paper asks what kind of visions of peace are present in European Parliament Defence Policy debates and how they differ across key players and policy areas. As a next step, it explores how references to emotions and memory support these visions of peace over time. Our methodology combines a qualitative content analysis with a critical discourse analysis. Data collected include European Parliament debates published between 1994 and 2022. This timespan encompasses several major international events, including the September 11 terrorist attacks (2001), the annexation of Crimea (2014), Donald Trump’s election (2016), and Russia’s war against Ukraine (2022). It allows our research to contrast the concept of ‘peace’ with discourse around war and threat and test whether EU norms around peace change accordingly.