[ecrea] conference: Discourses on and of Europe Debates and controversies

status: CfP Call for papers
conference
Discourses on and of Europe Debates and controversies
17.12.2015-18.12.2015
Université libre de Bruxelles

European integration goes back over 62 years including the European Coal 
and Steel Community. For a long time it remained closed to popular 
concern, and was mainly a matter for the political class and a few 
professions directly affected such as civil servants, financial and 
industrial elites and exporters, and specialist lawyers. Everything 
changed when the political and economic elites decided to transform the 
common market, with its famous common agricultural policy, into an 
Economic and Monetary Union. This project and the adoption of a single 
currency made it necessary to change public attitudes and therefore to 
undertake an exceptionally far-reaching communication policy to convince 
as many people as possible of the benefits. Even before the signature of 
the Maastricht Treaty by heads of state and government in December 1991, 
Europe lost its public -anonymity', as new arguments and terminologies 
arose within public debates and fundamentally different positions were take
n up arou
 nd the meaning and direction of integration: neoliberalism versus 
social socially redistributive policies; national sovereignty versus 
supranationalism; a Europe of states versus a Europe of regions; and 
left versus right. A strong bipolarisation of attitudes emerged in the 
construction of straightforward choices for or against European 
integration either as a principle, or in the form it had taken since the 
Single Market of 1985. Even among advocates of European integration, 
debates have been intense: widening versus deepening; federalism versus 
confederalism; supranational versus intergovernmental; singlespeed 
versus multi-speed Europe. These debates are older but have become more 
urgent as integration has developed. Since 2010, the post-Lisbon shift 
towards new economic governance structures and policies has accentuated 
the contested nature of European power, symbolised for example by the 
highly controversial troika, as economic and social cleavages have 
hardened: rich v
ersus poo
 r, banks versus the people.
The conference will gather together academics from these disciplines in 
order to explore, whether synchronically or diachronically, the 
discourses of actors whose positions on European integration diverge and 
conflict. These controversies and antagonistic positions help us to 
understand the real nature of European nature. Which types of 
conflictual discourse endure, which fade away or become superceded? 
Which appear across countries and which are nation-specific? Which 
develop through mutual confrontation and may even be enriched by it? 
Which conflicts are particularly salient today? Which themes, styles, 
arguments, symbols and artefacts are most commonly used? Which actors 
and which social groups use which arguments? Who supports European 
integration, who rejects it? Who supports Europe, who rejects it ?
We will also be invited to ask ourself what is the role of the mass 
medias discourses in the construction of problems related to Europe 
(i.e. Integration of Turkey) and also in the mediatization of the 
debates, presented as controversies.
Conversely, how are pro-integrationist discourses mobilised by political 
actors in order to create consensus around European policy-making? How 
and why are -alibi' or -external constraint' discourses developed by 
national political actors in relation to the EU? How are discourses of 
economic rationality and -responsibility' presented? How are discourses 
of European integration presented in the context of economic 
globalisation? How does political and economic policy discourse relate 
the national and European levels of policy? How are political and 
economic discourses on Europe produced as ways of defining the sphere of 
political controversy and contestation, and demarcating it from the 
sphere of consensus?
As well as political and media discourse, the conference will also look 
at -profane' public spaces for contestation and debate such as 
discussion forums and social media. Civic discussion and deliberation, 
both formal (through surveys, online consultations) and informal and 
dispersed (such as through Facebook or blogs), will become more 
important as the EU purposively develops its own consultative and 
participatory tools and mechanisms. But civic voices may also become 
more contestatory, through the use of petitions or citizen initiatives. 
Polemical discourses may thus be seen as a means of democratisation.
Papers are invited from a wide range of perspectives, including 
discourse analysis in its multiple forms and methods, and political 
science approaches to understanding actors, institutions and policies, 
and not excluding other disciplinary approaches. The common focus will 
be the production of discourses on Europe whether in its present or past 
forms, and without any preconceived ideas about the type of discourse or 
corpus of text. As Europe is a multilingual space (the EU recognises no 
less than 24 official languages), papers on multilingual corpuses will 
be particularly welcome.

Contact person: Corinne Gobin
email: (cogobin /at/ ulb.ac.be)


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