The European neighbourhood policy as a process of imperial bordering in Eastern Europe

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THE EUROPEAN NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICY AS A PROCESS OF

IMPERIAL BORDERING IN EASTERN EUROPE

Student: Stephanie Kramer

Student Number: 0418080

Study Program: MSc Political Science, University of Amsterdam

Research Project: Europe, Boundaries, Orders: EU enlargement, Neighborhood and Foreign Relations

Master Thesis

Supervisor: dr. Julien Jeandesboz

Second Reader: dr. Otto Holman

Date: 27 June 2014

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Abstract

Through the European Neighbourhood Policy, that has its roots in the ´Wider Europe´ framework and the European Security Strategy of 2003, the European Union is bordering in Eastern Europe. In this thesis, the official documents of the European Neighbourhood Policy are taken as a case study for researching EU bordering in this region. Eastern Europe is the point of focus in this thesis, because there the ´final borders of Europe´ are the least clear. In the west, the border of the EU is made up of Iceland and Greenland, in the north Scandinavia forms the border, and in the south the Mediterranean Sea forms a natural border. In the east, however, the borders are more difficult to establish. Which countries are European and which are not? Are Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova European? And what about Russia? The question of where Europe ends in the east is a political one and the answer of the EU is formulated in the European Neighbourhood Policy.

The specific method of discourse analysis that will be used in this thesis, to study the ENP, is framing analysis. Understanding the problem definitions and solution strategies – which are the fundaments of frames – in the official documents of the ENP, enables the analysis of the way in which the EU defines its external borders in Eastern Europe. Central to the way the EU borders in the eastern neighborhood are the politics of inclusion and exclusion. Both are present in the ENP and in this thesis it will be argued that this mix of inclusion and exclusion of the countries in the eastern neighborhood leads to a fuzziness and uncertainty in the way the EU frames this region, creating fuzzy border-zones in Eastern Europe. In this thesis, it will be argued that the external borders of the EU in the east are characterized by a separation of its geographical and functional aspects. The geographical border of the EU can be defined as a delineated boundary around its Member States, but the functional border does not correspond with this boundary and can be understood as a border-zone rather than a linear border. The manner in which the EU defines its external borders follows from, but also shapes at the same time, the nature of the EU as a political entity. This thesis will argue that, based on the way the EU defines its external borders in Eastern Europe, the Union must be understood as a post-Westphalian imperial political entity.

Key Words: European Neighborhood Policy, bordering, Eastern Europe, framing analysis,

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List of Abbreviations

CES = Common Economic Space

CFSP = Common Foreign and Security Policy EaP = Eastern Partnership

EC = European Commission EES = European Security Strategy ENP = European Neighbourhood Policy EU = European Union

GAERC = General Affairs and External Relations Council IR = International Relations

NIS = Newly Independent States

List of Tables, Figures and Maps

Figures:

Front Page (Reuters): Poroschenko, the President of Ukraine (middle), Barroso, the President of the European Commission (left) and Van Rompuy, the President of the European Council (right), before signing the Association Agreement between the EU and Ukraine on 27/06/2014.

Tables:

Table 1: state model vs. empire model (after Zielonka, 2006) p.17 Table 2: state model vs. empire model (after Zielonka, 2006) p.42

Maps:

Map1: The European Neighbourhood Policy p.2

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Mapping the Eastern Neighborhood

Map 1: The European Neighbourhood Policy

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1. Introduction

The subject of this thesis is the external border of the European Union (EU) in Eastern Europe. The EU governs its eastern external borders through the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP).1_{This thesis looks at the way in which the EU frames the eastern neighborhood in the}

ENP and what kind of external borders this creates through analyzing the politics of inclusion and exclusion, which are present in this policy. The type of these borders could range from a delineated boundary to a ‘fuzzy’ border-zone. In turn, understanding the way in which the EU governs its external borders in Eastern Europe makes it possible to analyze what kind of political entity the EU is. Could the EU better be understood as a Westphalian or post-Westphalian political entity and why?

The research questions of this thesis are:

 How does the EU frame the eastern neighborhood in the official policy documents of the ENP?

 How do the politics of inclusion and exclusion, which are present in the ENP, play out with regards to Eastern Europe?

 What type of borders does the EU create through the ENP in Eastern Europe?  What kind of political entity is the EU?

The aim of this thesis is to complement the extensive range of publications on the ENP with an analysis that links together processes of bordering, that take place through the politics of inclusion and exclusion, to the debate on the nature of the EU. Essentially, the borders of a political entity and the way in which they are governed determine, for a large part, its identity. The contribution of this thesis is making explicit the underlying discourse of the way in which the EU perceives its neighbors in Eastern Europe.

The eastern border of the EU is taken as a case study for analyzing processes of bordering, because it is, in some respect the hardest external border for the EU to define. In the west, the border of the EU is made up of Iceland and Greenland; in the north it starts or ends with Scandinavia; in the south the Mediterranean sea forms a natural border that distinguishes the European continent from the African continent (Dinan, 2010:485). In the east, however, the borders are more difficult to establish. Russia and the southern Caucasus can either be European or not. And to what degree are Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova European? The question of where Europe ends in the east is a political one and the answer of the EU is formulated in the ENP, at least for now.

1_{The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) is the foreign relations instrument of the European Union with}

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Even though all the external borders of the EU are interesting to study, this vagueness in definition makes the eastern border particularly interesting to study. Besides that, the eastern neighborhood is also interesting to study considering the recent developments in the region, such as the Crimea situation, which is very relevant in the light of processes of imperial bordering between Russia and the EU. Thus, actuality also plays a part in the choice for this case. The data that is analyzed in this thesis consists of thirteen official policy documents of the European Commission regarding the ENP. Because it is an important document for the ENP, the European Security Strategy (EES), which was drafted under the responsibilities of the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), Javier Solana, and adopted by the European Council in 2003, is included in the data analyzed in this thesis. The evaluation of the EES, that was drafted as well under the responsibility of the High Representative for the CFSP in 2008, is also included. This makes the total of official policy documents analyzed in this thesis fifteen.

As a method for studying these policy documents I will use framing analysis. Framing analysis is a discursive approach and is classified as an interpretative method. The interpretative methods in the social sciences and humanities focus on meaning and in which way meaning is given in social contexts. One way of understanding this process is by analyzing frames and framing. Understanding frames helps grasping complex empirical and normative controversies in policies, mainly because framing directs attention to the details of the way in which policy documents can exert power (Entman, 1993:55-56). In my analysis, I will especially focus on which frames can be distinguished in the ENP, how the politics of inclusion and exclusion play out in this framing, how the framing changed over time, or remained the same, and how the bordering of the EU towards its neighbors gets its shape on a discursive level in these documents.

In the framing analysis I will focus on the problem definitions and solution strategies that are to be found in the policy documents. Studying these gives an understanding of which problems the EU perceives regarding its neighbors and the way in which they decide to solve it. Understanding the problem definitions and solution strategies – which are the fundaments of frames – in the official documents of the ENP, enables the analysis of the way in which the EU defines its external borders in Eastern Europe. Thus, through framing, the EU ‘shapes’ its neighborhood and ‘borders’ in Europe on a discursive level. Central to the way the EU borders in the eastern neighborhood are the politics of inclusion and exclusion. The first hypothesis of this research is that both the politics of inclusion and exclusion are present in the framing in the ENP and that this mix of inclusion and exclusion produces ‘fuzzy’ border-zones in Eastern

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Europe. The manner in which the EU defines its external borders follows from, but also shapes at the same time, the nature of the EU as a political entity. Thus, the way bordering in the ENP gets shape relates to the nature of the EU as a political entity and the results of the analysis of this research will be linked to theories on the EU as a political entity. The second hypothesis is that, based on the way the EU defines its external borders in Eastern Europe, the Union must be understood as a post-Westphalian imperial political entity.

Ideally, to completely understand the processes of inclusion and exclusion that are playing out in the relations between the EU and its neighborhood, an analysis should also be made of the perspectives the countries participating in the ENP have towards the EU (and towards Russia) and how this developed over time. Also, in-depth case studies of all the eastern countries participating in the ENP would contribute to a better understanding of the way in which the ENP works in practice regarding bordering in terms of exclusion and inclusion. Due to a time limit, a word limit and a language barrier, such an analysis is not included in this thesis, but I would like to underline the importance here of also understanding the ENP from the ‘other side of the border’. The time and word limits are also the reason why I will only analyze fifteen official policy documents and not more.

In the remainder of this introduction I will shortly discuss the origins of the ENP and the situation of changing borders in Eastern Europe in the 2000s. Before I will move on to the theoretical framework of this thesis, I will also give a short research outline.

1.1 The European Neighbourhood Policy

The EU has a number of policies that address issues beyond its borders. Examples are trade policies, development policies and humanitarian aid. The EU aims to promote in these policies what it also seeks at home: security, stability, democracy and sustainable development. In pursuit of these goals the EU entered “into a bewildering number” of bilateral and multilateral agreements (Dinan, 2010:483). In the early 2000s the EU designed a policy specifically for the countries that would be its new (and old) neighbors after the 2004 enlargement of the EU: the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) (Whitman & Wolff, 2010:3).

The ENP has its roots in the ‘Wider Europe’ framework that was published in 2003 by the European Commission (EC) (2003). The European Security Strategy (EES), that was drafted by the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, and adopted by the European Council in 2003, also forms one of the fundaments of the ENP. This year of publication is not random. With the enlargement of 2004, most of the countries in Europe would be a Member State of the EU (Whitman & Wolff, 2010:3). The ENP was a strategic

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reaction anticipating this enlargement, which would cause a redrawing of the boundaries between the ‘insiders’ of the EU and its ‘outsiders’. The goal of the ENP was – and still is – to build a secure neighborhood (Whitman & Wolff, 2010:3). The EU perceived the fact that some of the new neighbors did not live up to its standards as a problem. In the east, some of the new neighbors were seen as “unstable post-communist countries, grappling with low living standards, fragile political systems and widespread corruption and organised crime” (Whitman & Wolff, 2010:4). The EU has framed this as a risk for its internal security. The instability and impoverishment of the neighboring countries were seen as having negative implications for those who are on the “inside” of the Union (Hayoz, Jesién & Van Meurs, 2005:15). Also, the EU

had to deal “with the feelings of exclusion felt by several of these new neighbors” (Whitman &

Wolff, 2010:5). Thus, the ENP was designed to tackle these problems.

The ENP was eventually enriched with partnerships for the eastern and southern neighborhoods. The proposal for an Eastern Partnership (EaP) was launched in 2008, by Sweden and Poland in the General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC). The goal of this partnership was to “reinvigorate the relationship between the EU and a sub-group of countries covered by the ENP” (Whitman & Wolff, 2010:11). The countries that participate in the EaP at the moment are Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Belarus. The European Commission embedded the EaP into the already existing ENP. The partnership aims to build a closer relation with the eastern neighborhood and to enhance the external governance in this area, aimed at promoting the rule of law, good governance, respect for human rights, protection of minorities, free market principles and sustainable development (Dinan, 2010:494). It also added a multilateral approach to the neighborhood to the ENP, which was mostly bilaterally focused until then.

Early on, it became clear that the ENP was distinct from an accession process. Whitman and Wolff (2010:6) state that the EU, with the ENP, wants to “exert greater influence over the new neighbours in an attempt to mitigate potential instability, while making it clear that the Union was unwilling to consider offering the perspective of membership at that time”. It was only meant for neighboring countries that were excluded from EU membership (Whitman & Wolff, 2010:5). This goes against the wishes of some of these countries, that would wish to join the EU as a member. Primatarova (2005:19) argues that a Europeanization2_{agenda, explicitly}

linked to prospects for membership, would be highly desirable for European countries with EU aspirations. For now, the EU has not set up such an agenda with a prospect of accession.

2_{In this thesis, Europeanization will be understood as the spread of EU policies and institutions in the countries}

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Thus, on the one hand, the EU wants to rule beyond its borders to secure its own interests that are linked to a safe neighborhood, but on the other hand the neighboring countries cannot come too close to the EU. This is a tension that can be found in the ENP from its outset. The ENP has been called “enlargement lite” (Hadfield, 2009), referring to the way the EU conducted its foreign policy in the past – by enlargement. The purpose of enlargement is integrating countries in the EU until they become a Member State and they are no longer a foreign policy object. This has helped the EU in creating security, stability, democracy and sustainable development in the EU’s immediate neighborhood, of which parts are incorporated into the EU now (Dinan, 2010:484). This enlargement strategy still continues in a few countries, such as Turkey, but the EU has established a distinction between those countries and neighboring countries that are not part of the EU enlargement plans. Because enlargement is, however, not the purpose of the ENP, the policy can at this point in time better be understood as a new paradigm for EU foreign policy, in which membership is explicitly not on offer, but “the enlargement logic of normative conditionality is upheld” (Hayoz, Jesién & Van Meurs, 2005:14). At least for now, the countries participating in the ENP have no perspective of membership. Thus, with the ENP the EU has added a new layer to its foreign policy, rather than commencing another enlargement process.

1.2 Changing Borders in Eastern Europe

The three former Soviet Republics of Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus are seen as the ‘lands between’ (Prusin, 2010) the European Union and the Russian Federation. This has shaped processes of identity formation in these countries since the fall of the Iron Curtain, influenced by both Russia and the EU, which have conflicting interests in this area, but also form interdependent trading blocs (Schmidtke & Yekelchyk, 2008; Hayoz, Jesién & Van Meurs, 2005; Buonanno & Nugent, 2013). This has its effect on the shared neighborhood. Russia is seeking, through exerting power and influence beyond its borders, to ‘build its empire’ (see, for example, the Crimea situation) and the EU is doing the same (by pushing for reforms in its neighborhood) (Zielonka, 2006).

The enlargement of 2004 has influenced the eastern neighboring countries of the EU on both a geopolitical as well as cultural level. Because of the re-bordering of the external boundaries of the European Union, the new neighbors find themselves in a new situation. Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine have always been close to Russia, because of their Soviet legacy, and that was a reality that the West, including the EU, did not question (Schmidtke & Yekelchyk, 2008:2). But over the last decades, the Eastern European countries have been growing closer, in

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some respect, to the European Union. Ukraine, for example, has challenged its Soviet legacy by the Orange Revolution and the Euromaidan protests.

The enlargement in Eastern Europe has had quite an impact in this region. It “has shaken the traditional political and cultural notions of “Europe” (Schmidtke & Yekelchyk, 2008:1). With the enlargements of 2004 and 2007, the new eastern neighbors of the EU are now Russia, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. None of these countries is likely to join the EU in the near future. Because of this, the Eastern European countries – or Europe’s “last frontier” – have become the subject of a power struggle between Russia and the EU. While the historic link between Russia and Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine is strong, the EU “has been successful in initiating a process of “Europeanization” on its eastern frontier” (Schmidtke & Yekelchyk, 2008:1). Europeanization is described by Schmidtke and Yekelchyk as: “setting benchmarks for legal-political reforms and promising lucrative access to the European markets and financial assistance from the EU” (2008:1). Although the successfulness, the degree of ‘Europeanization’ and progress of reforms can all be questioned, it is clear that the EU is trying to exert power and influence beyond its external border in these countries. The re-bordering of the eastern external border of the EU as the result of the 2004 enlargement has also, in some respect, distanced the eastern neighbors from the countries that are now the new member states. Bilateral contacts between the eastern neighbors and new member states became more difficult now that there is an external border of the Union between them.

Russia has devoted considerable effort to bringing parts of this border-zone under its tutelage. It has put pressure on politicians, tried to control the gas pipeline to the West, and pressured for example Ukraine to become a member of the Common Economic Space (CES) (Fraser, 2008:164). The European Union, on the other hand, has tried to liberalize and democratize this border-zone, through the ENP and the Eastern Partnership initiative (EaP), which is a part of the ENP. As Schmidtke and Yekelchyk (2008:1) state, “western ideas and institutions of liberal democracy and market economy have become major vehicles” for reform in the formerly Communist countries Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. The EU has provided a framework for the modernization of these countries and the ENP has played an important role in this. But where does Europe stop (in the literal sense geographically)? And how far does the power and influence the EU exerts beyond its external borders go (functionally)? With the ENP and EaP the EU is actively engaging in processes of bordering in Europe. This thesis will focus on the EU side of the ‘border-zone’ and will look at the ENP as a way of giving meaning to this border zone through its discourse.

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Central to the way the EU borders in the eastern neighborhood are processes of inclusion and exclusion. Both processes of inclusion and exclusion are present in the ENP and this mix of inclusion and exclusion of the countries in the eastern neighborhood leads to a fuzziness and uncertainty in the way the EU frames this region, creating ‘fuzzy’ border-zones in Eastern Europe. In the scientific literature regarding this debate, the ‘politics of inclusion’ and the ‘politics of exclusion’ are sometimes seen as different paradigms (Lavenex, 2005) or models (Smith, 1996:12). By seeing them as different paradigms, the nuance of what is actually happening is missing. The politics of inclusion and exclusion can be understood as two features that are both present in the ENP. The countries in the eastern neighborhood are included in the EU in some ways, but excluded in others. As a consequence, they are not insiders, but at the same time neither complete outsiders.

Schmidtke and Yekelchyk (2008:2) claim that “a new fault line has appeared much farther to the east of where the Iron Curtain used to be”. I will argue in this thesis that indeed new borders have appeared in this region, but that the eastern neighborhood can be understood in terms of a ‘frontier-zone’ rather than a ‘fault line’. The type of bordering that characterizes the EU cannot be seen as completely distinct from the nature of the EU. It very much relates to whether the EU can be understood as a Westphalian state or a post-Westphalian political entity, because the processes of bordering are the consequence of the way the EU operates as political entity in the global context. At the same time, through the discourse of the ENP the EU defines itself as a political entity. Studying the way in which EU bordering works, therefore gives clues about the identity of the EU as a political entity.

1.3 Research Outline

In the next chapter, the theoretical framework for this research will be discussed. The focus is on the theoretical debate on bordering, the way the politics of inclusion and exclusion play out in processes of bordering and the debate on the nature of the European Union as a political entity. In the chapter that follows, the methodology that will be used to analyze the ENP, which is framing analysis, will be discussed. In chapter four, the empirical results of the framing analysis of the official policy documents of the ENP will be presented. In chapter five will be discussed whether the two hypotheses formulated in this thesis are correct. The type of bordering that characterizes the ENP will be discussed there and this will be linked to the broader debate on the nature of the EU as political entity. In chapter six, the conclusions of this research will be presented.

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2. Bordering in Europe and the EU as post-Westphalian polity

There is an ongoing scholarly debate on the nature of the European Union as a political entity, about what the EU is and what it will become. The theory on International Relations, which is still rather state centered, does not, at the moment, have a readily available concept to describe the nature of the EU. It can be understood as an anomaly in the international nation-state system. Ruggie (1993) links the nation-state with its mutually exclusive concept of territoriality to modernity and sees the demise of the nation-state as building block for the international system and the occurrence of new forms of political entities with nonexclusive concepts of territoriality as postmodern. As Ruggie (1993) states, territoriality and modernity are linked together. In the theory on International Relations this translates into the Westphalian paradigm, with its territorial nation-states as the building blocks of the international community. The EU can, as an anomalous political entity, be understood as a post-modern political entity. This can also be termed post-Westphalian, in reaction to the dominant IR paradigm.

The challenge is to find a theoretical description that is appropriate for the political entity the EU is and which covers the way in which the EU functions. Scholars do not necessarily have to touch all new ground in this. The European Union has been described in different manners: as an ‘unidentified political object’ by Jacques Delors, as ‘the first truly postmodern political form’ by Ruggie (1993), as a ‘condominio’ by Schmitter (2000), as a ‘regional state’ by Schmidt (2006) and as a ‘post-Westphalian neo-medieval empire’ by Zielonka (2006). The EU, however, is also still often and consistently in discussions referred to as a Westphalian super-state or a nation-state like entity, for example a federation or confederation (Koslowski, 1999). Thus, in the debate on the nature of the EU a general distinction can be made between the EU as a Westphalian political entity or as a post-Westphalian political entity.

How the EU can be defined is linked to the way the external borders of the EU are functioning. The idea of the EU as a Westphalian nation-state is linked to the idea of clearly delineated boundaries. But the EU can also be defined in other terms, for example as a post-Westphalian empire, where emphasis is put on the EU borders as a zone and where geographical and functional boundaries are not overlapping. In this chapter an overview will be given of the scientific debates on bordering and the nature of the EU, with the aim of formulating a theoretical framework for this thesis.

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Even though the last decades have seen a shift in the way in which the EU can be understood (Ruggie, 1993; Schmitter, 2000; Schmidt, 2006; Zielonka, 2006), conventional discourse consists of the assumption that any evolving political entity eventually assumes the characteristics of a nation-state. In the 1990s, the European Union was often seen as ‘Fortress Europe’: a clearly separable geographical entity with “recognizable, even impregnable, borders” (Christiansen, Petito & Tonra, 2000:389). These are characteristics that fit in the Westphalian paradigm of the EU as ‘state’. The terminology initially related to the establishment of the Single Market and the fear for a protectionist Europe (Christiansen, Petito & Tonra, 2000:389-390). It was expected that the EU would form a fort with an open internal market and closed borders. These fears appeared to be ungrounded. Later on, the framing of the EU as ‘Fortress Europe’ related to issues of migration and the free movement of people. In some regions there is tight border control and the number of people that may legally settle in the EU has been reduced over the years. Sometimes it is stated that the opening up of the borders within the EU, has led to a tighter closure of the borders for people outside the EU (Christiansen, Petito & Tonra, 2000:390). The borders for movement of people within the EU disappeared. This openness has been very beneficial for the countries that became Member States of the EU in 2004, when the Central Eastern European (CEE) countries joined the EU. They were included in the EU, with all the benefits that come with that. However, the countries that are now the eastern neighbors of the EU, might be worse off because of the enlargement. They often had close relations with the Eastern European countries that are now Member States of the EU and had bilateral agreements on, for example, visa policies. That changed when their partners joined the EU. The ENP played – and still plays – a role in establishing new agreements. These are more exclusionary, however, than the previous ones with the CEE countries. This short example shows that the non-EU European countries are sometimes the ‘victim’ of the politics of exclusion.

The external borders of the EU have also become more open over the years and are still opening up (Christiansen, Petito & Tonra, 2000:390). In the next paragraph I will argue that the state centered paradigm, of which ‘Fortress Europe’ is an example, is not taking into account the different processes that are at work at the EU’s external border. The ‘Fortress Europe’ paradigm puts too much focus on exclusion of non-EU Member States. But it seems to overlook that there are also strong links between the EU and its neighboring countries. The geographical borders of the EU, understood as the boundaries of its Member States, do not define the area where the EU exerts its power and influence. This separation between the geographical and

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functional aspects of the EU’s external borders has far-reaching consequences for explaining processes of bordering in Eastern Europe and for understanding the EU as a political entity.

Agnew (1994:53) identified the ‘territorial trap’, which is the assumption that geographical borders automatically imply functional borders. He states that “even when political rule is territorial, territoriality does not necessarily entail the practices of total mutual exclusion which dominant understandings of the modern territorial state attribute to it” (Agnew, 1994:53). Seeing territoriality as the most important way of defining borders, has become ingrained in IR theory. Agnew states: “It has been the geographical division of the world into mutually exclusive territorial states that has served to define the field of studies” (Agnew, 1994:53). This has had an effect on the initial definitions of the European Union, seeing it as a geographical entity that was expected to eventually evolve into a territorial state.

The EU is often described as a ‘soft power’ and as ‘weak’ or ‘uncertain’. Bialasiewicz (2008:71) states that the way the EU is perceived in terms of ‘weak’, ‘uncertain’ and ‘indeterminate’ is the consequence of highly normative assumptions regarding territoriality and ‘power’ in the international arena. She argues that “such geographical imaginations fundamentally miss the radical transformations taking shape at and well beyond Europe’s borders, thus failing to recognize the emergence of the EU as a very new sort of international actor” (2008:71). Taking the nation-state as the central building block of the international system, gives a mistaken understanding of the kind of power the EU would be. From within the state centered paradigm, the EU could be perceived as a ‘weak’ state, an ‘uncertain’ state or an ‘indeterminate’ state, because it is not doing what nation-states do. The power of the EU, however, should not be measured in terms of military spending or the global reach of its forces, but it can be understood as a ‘transformative’ power, trying to reshape the world in a slow manner instead of invading it (Bialasiewicz, 2008:75). The EU must not be understood in terms of a territorial state.

To give a better description of the EU than a ´weak´ territorial state like entity, we must leave behind the Westphalian paradigm of understanding the EU and progress to a post-Westphalian understanding of the Union. Understanding the borders of the EU is a part of that. I will start with explaining in what way the external borders of the EU can be understood from a postmodern perspective. After that I will go deeper into what kind of post-Westphalian entity the EU could be.

2.2 Boundaries, Borders and Frontier-zones

Boundary, border and frontier are terms that have overlapping meanings. They can all be understood as “complex institutions shaping the nature of polities they demarcate and to which

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they belong” (Zielonka, 2006:1). ‘Boundary’ is the most narrow one of these terms. It refers to “the line of delimitation or demarcation” (Anderson, 1996:9). The term ‘border’ refers to a zone, usually a narrow zone, or also to a line of demarcation (Anderson, 1996:9). The term ‘frontier’ can refer to “the precise line at which jurisdictions meet”, but it can also refer to a region (Anderson, 1996:9). As stated in the introduction, the first hypothesis of this thesis is that the external border of the EU in Eastern Europe can be understood as a border-zone rather than a delineated boundary. This will be researched by looking at the processes of bordering in the ENP. Whether this hypothesis is right, will be discussed in detail in chapter five.

Political authorities have physical – and non-physical – limits. The location of these limits, which can be defined as borders or frontiers, influences the lives of the people that are separated by them (Anderson, 1996:1). In the contemporary world, these limits almost never form clear dividing lines between two political authorities. Instead, frontiers often raise discussion about “citizenship, identity, political loyalty, exclusion, inclusion and the end of the state” (Anderson, 1996:1). The exclusive and linear state frontier, the classic definition of a ‘modern border’, is becoming a more and more less frequent phenomenon in the globalizing world. Anderson (1996:1) states that since the French Revolution a frontier has been defined in terms of a legal sovereign authority and a national claim to identity. Where the sovereignty of one political authority would end, another’s would begin. In this way, frontiers are institutions. Anderson (1996:2) stated justly that radical changes in the perceptions of frontiers were apparent and that they could better be seen in terms of a process. Understood as a process, frontiers have four different dimensions. First as instruments of state policy of governments to change the function and location of borders. Second, the policies of governments are “constrained by the degree of de facto control” over the state frontier. In the contemporary world, governments are incapable to “control much of the traffic of persons, goods and information across their frontiers”. This is changing the nature of states. Third, frontiers are markers of identities. In this sense, frontiers are “part of political beliefs and myths about the unity of the people, and sometimes myths about the ‘natural’ unity of a territory”. Fourth, meanings are given to frontier in general and to particular frontiers, which change from time to time. In that sense the ‘frontier’ is a term of discourse (Anderson, 1996:2). These four dimensions are all relevant for studying the way in which the European Neighbourhood Policy works.

Anderson (1996:8) states that the western liberal view has been the most influential when it comes to how frontiers are understood. This western liberal perspective is characterized by vagueness and ambiguity. He states: “In the absence of a world state and universal liberalism, the territorially bounded state protects liberal values from internal and external enemies” (1996:8).

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This counts for the European Union as well. The external borders of the EU are there to protect the European liberal values. Anderson (1996:179) states that one of categories of frontier issues facing the European Union concerns its immediate neighbors. He notes that “the economic and security interests of the Union are directly engaged in neighboring countries. All great concentrations of economic or political power tend to have satellite powers around them” (Anderson, 1996:179). This is something the EU itself also realized. I will come back to this in more detail in the framing analysis of the ENP in chapter four.

2.3 ‘Fuzzy’ Borders

As explained earlier in this chapter, an example of a territorial definition of the EU is the ‘Fortress Europe’ framework. By now, however, the research on the external borders of the EU shows a different perspective. The external borders of the European Union are not as delimited as would be expected if the EU could be seen as evolving into a territorial state. Mau (2006:122) states that a common idea for understanding the changing border-regime of the EU is that while the borders within the EU disappear, the external borders become stronger. He argues justly, however, that instead of a stricter external border-regime, buffer-zones have arisen that surround the EU (Mau, 2006:124). The external borders of the EU can be understood as ‘soft’ borders and ‘fuzzy’ borders. This has as implication that the distinction between geographical and functional borders has to be made. The EU cannot be seen as a political entity in which these types of borders overlap. The geographical borders of the EU are generally defined by the boundaries of its Member States, but the functional borders are harder to grasp.

This is the consequence of the European Union’s export of policies towards states that do not have EU membership. This engenders a ‘fuzziness’ when it comes to the functional external borders of the EU, which become increasingly difficult to delineate. This fuzziness of the external borders has an impact on the neighbors of the EU. Because the borders are ‘fuzzy’, the EU is “surrounded by regions that can be regarded as intermediate spaces between inside and outside of the Union” (Christiansen, Petito & Tonra, 2000:389). The EU is exerting power and influence in these zones, while they would strictly be seen as outsiders of the EU. These zones can be understood as ‘frontiers’ or border-zones. By accepting the laws, rules and ideologies of the EU, they also grow towards the ‘inside’. This type of bordering can be understood as “an extension up to the periphery of the decentralized and multi-layered nature of the ‘horizontal’ dimension of a metaphorical empire” (Christiansen, Petito & Tonra, 2000:393).

It is proposed by Christiansen, Petito and Tonra (2000) to make an intermediate category of ‘near abroad’ for the EU neighbors between the categories of insiders and outsiders. This way

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of dealing with the inaccuracy of the insider/outsider dichotomy confronts us with the underlying problem: that the politics of inclusion and exclusion are both at work in the EU neighborhood. Categorizing countries as insiders or outsiders comes from a belief that the world consists of mutually exclusive territorial states and that policies deal with other states in terms of this dichotomy, but it could be stated that the goal of the ENP is exactly creating this ‘fuzziness’. The policy is aimed at countries the EU does not perceive at this point in time as an insider nor as an outsider. In the bordering with regards to these countries both the politics of inclusion and exclusion are at work. The way in which the process of bordering takes place and fails to provide this binary division tells us something about the nature of the EU. I will come back to this in chapter five.

2.4 The EU as post-Westphalian polity

Barroso (2007), the President of the European Commission, likened the European Union to a “non-imperial empire” in answer to the question of what the EU will be in the future, asked at a press conference in the European Parliament in Strasbourg in 2007. What does such a definition of the European Union imply for processes of bordering in Europe? And is Barroso right in comparing the EU to an empire?

As stated in the introduction to this chapter, a general distinction can be made between the EU as a Westphalian political entity or as a post-Westphalian political entity. This distinction forms the basis of the debate on the nature of the EU. An example of a Westphalian paradigm for explaining the EU as political entity, the ‘Fortress Europe’ paradigm, was discussed earlier in this chapter. Now, after explaining the way in which the external borders of the EU could also be understood, other than delineated, it is time to move to explaining what a post-Westphalian paradigm for understanding the EU as political entity would entail. The characteristics that this thesis will concentrate on are border-zones or ‘frontiers’ at the external borders, in opposition to delineated boundaries, and ‘fuzzy’ borders, where the geographical and functional aspects of the borders are separated.

The state centered paradigm in IR theory is still dominant, but there have been attempts to study the EU from a postmodern perspective. Understanding the EU as a ´regional state’ (Schmidt, 2006), ‘cosmopolitan Europe’ (Beck, Grande & Cronin, 2007) or an empire (Zielonka, 2006) are examples of this. In this thesis I will use the work of Zielonka (2006) to explain in more detail what the characteristics of a post-Westphalian political entity are.

According to Zielonka (2006:vii), the characteristics of an empire are a polycentric system of government, multiple and overlapping jurisdictions, striking cultural and economic

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heterogeneity, fuzzy borders and divided sovereignty. An important aspect of Zielonka’s theory regarding bordering is the evolving nature of borders in Europe. Especially the eastern enlargement had much impact on that. The borders in the EU are not simply lines on maps “where one jurisdiction ends and another begins” (Zielonka, 2006:1). This is also something that will become clear in the analysis of the ENP.

Different political entities have different types of borders. Zielonka (2006:3) states that “Westphalian states have relatively fixed and hard borders” and that “their geographical and functional borders usually overlap”. This means that there is “no disjunction between administrative boundaries, military frontiers, cultural traits, and market transaction fringes” (Zielonka, 2006:3). The EU, however, as discussed earlier in this chapter, is characterized by a separation of the geographical and functional aspects of its external borders. The enlargement of 2004 made this separation even wider. It is unlikely this trend will change in the short or even mid-tern and therefore it is unlikely that the EU will have fixed, relatively hard, and centrally governed borders in the near to medium near future (Zielonka, 2006:3). Instead of that, Zielonka (2006) argues, the EU is more likely to end up with soft, flexible borders that are changing relatively fast. The consequence is that “not a ‘fortress Europe’, but a ‘maze Europe’ is likely to emerge” (Zielonka, 2006:4). In a ‘maze Europe’ “legal, economic, security and cultural spaces are likely to be bound separately, cross-border multiple cooperation will flourish, and the inside/outside divide will be blurred” (Zielonka, 2006:3).

Zielonka contrasts the characteristics of a neo-medieval empire to that of the Westphalian state. There are, according to Zielonka, three main characteristics of the Westphalian paradigm. The first is that the institutional structures are emphasized rather than the nation, politics, or markets. The second is that it proposes giving the European Union more responsibility for market, money, security and solidarity in member states. Ultimately, the EU should have a central government in charge of a given territory with clear-cut borders. And third, it would like the Union to provide an overlap between its functional and geographical borders This last point is the most important one for this thesis, which will argue, in line with Zielonka, that at the moment the EU does not have an overlap in functional and geographical borders. The analysis of the ENP will show that functionally, the EU is exerting power and influence beyond the borders of its member states.

Thus, in short, Zielonka claims that the EU resembles, in some respects, a medieval European empire. The neo-medieval empire is an ideal-type in which the medieval patterns of political control and influence are the central focus. Zielonka states that these medieval patterns resemble the patterns of control and influence of the EU. As already stated, the neo-medieval

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ideal type is characterized by soft or ‘fuzzy’ borders and polycentric governance structures. He contrasts this ideal-type with that of the Westphalian state, which has been an influential model for studying the EU as political entity.

With regards to bordering, Zielonka states that the borders of a neo-medieval empire are not seen as static and fixed and are not associated with one sovereign entity. Borders are not lines or boundaries, but zones where the influence of the empire is extended in a gradual manner. The empire does not gain new territory through coercion or violence, but through the exportation of its laws and through external governance on an incentive basis. In this way, new territories are slowly integrating into the empire. Zielonka argues that the greater flexibility coming from this way of external governance, where clear borders are not drawn, is needed for a stable and secure European region.

Looking at the theories above, there are two main models on the nature of the EU, that relate to the processes of bordering discussed above: a Westphalian model and post-Westphalian model. The characteristics of these models regarding borders are summarized in the table below. In chapter five, I will look at these models again, and link them to the way the EU borders in its eastern neighborhood through the European Neighbourhood Policy.

Westphalian Post-Westphalian - Impregnable borders

- Control by coercion - Hard power

- Clear inside/outside division

- Geographical and Functional Overlap - Linear borders rather than

border-zones

- Interpenetration rather than control - Fuzzy borders

- Soft forms of external power

- The inside/outside divide will be blurred

- Borders are treated more like geographical zones than lines and are fairly open

- No functional and geographical overlap

- Diversified types of citizenship with different sets of rights and duties - Incentives (in opposition to coercion) Table 1: state model vs. empire model (after Zielonka, 2006).

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2.5 Bordering in the European Union: Inclusion and Exclusion

There are two major debates in the theory on bordering in Europe. The first debate is about the internal bordering and entails the internal borders of the EU. The second debate is about the external bordering of the EU. This debate is on who is European and who is not, which countries can belong in the Union and which countries should be excluded and how far the European neighborhood can extent. This second debate is of relevance for this thesis. There are two main features through which the external borders of the EU take their shape: inclusion and exclusion. Understanding the politics of inclusion and exclusion is important for analyzing processes of bordering in the European Neighbourhood Policy. To be able to do a framing analysis (or discourse analysis in general) it is important to understand in which way the politics of inclusion and exclusion must be understood. This will be discussed in this paragraph, before moving on to explaining the framing analysis methodology and then the framing analysis itself in the next chapters.

Thus, bordering takes place by excluding and including people or groups of people. Simply put, borders can be very open, when the line between people that are included and excluded is barely operational, with no border control and for example, no visa needed to cross the border. An example of this is, of course the internal borders of the EU or the borders between the different states in the US. Here, the politics of inclusion are dominant. The opposite of that is a tightly closed border. Here, the line between people that are included and excluded is highly visible, sometimes literally. Think about the border between the United States and Mexico or the Iron Curtain in Europe until 1991. In this case, the politics of exclusion are the dominant bordering process. Often, borders are something between these two extremes. They are near-open, semi-open or almost closed. This is because, in most cases, both the politics of exclusion and inclusion are at work in processes of bordering at the same time. This tradeoff between exclusion and inclusion is central to policymaking in the European Union (Neumann, 1998:414) and therefore it will also be present in the ENP.

Lavenex (2005) states that the European Union deals with its new external boundaries in two ways. Namely, “on the one hand, the ‘politics of inclusion’, as enshrined in the ‘Wider Europe’ strategy, aims at the closest possible association with neighbouring countries below the threshold of membership; on the other hand, the ‘politics of exclusion’ aims at externalising risks from the enlarging Union”. So, Lavenex (20005) has a more positive view on the way the EU uses the politics of inclusion, with a serious aim for a close relation with its neighbors. But she is right in that the EU is also indeed trying to keep the risks it perceives ‘outside’. Lavenex (2005:123) states that from the 1990s up until the ‘Wider Europe’ initiative, the EU practiced a

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‘politics of exclusion’. In that respect, the ‘Fortress Europe’ paradigm was not wrong in its analysis of the EU two decades ago, but over the years the EU has changed in many respects and the concept of ‘Fortress Europe’ is not any longer sufficient to describe the nature of the EU. The ‘Wider Europe’ initiative can be seen as an attempt from the EU to be more inclusionary. In her conclusion, however, Lavenex (2005:135) states that even though there are some initiatives that have an inclusionary goal, the protective agenda of Justice and Home Affairs emphasizes a ‘politics of exclusion’. The ‘Wider Europe’ initiative, that later became the European Neighbourhood Policy, then, does not only practice a ‘politics of inclusion’. For example, there is no accession to membership for the neighboring countries.

The European Neighbourhood Policy is in a way paradoxical. At the same time, the EU aims for closer relations with its neighbors and opens its borders to “lessen the contrast between states who are ‘in’ or ‘out’ of the Union” (Hadfield, 2009:65), and aims for a secure European region, so it fortifies the EU borders and uses conditionality to stimulate reforms in the neighboring countries (Hadfield, 2009, 65-66). The EU includes and excludes groups of people and nation states by its policies. The politics of inclusion and exclusion play an important role in the relationships between the EU and the rest of Europe (Smith, 1996:12). As stated before, Christiansen, Petito and Tonra (2000:408) call the process where both the politics of inclusion and exclusion are at work the ‘near abroad’ logic. This logic is at play in the European Neighbourhood Policy.

In the European Neighbourhood, countries are constantly confronted with this ‘near abroad’ logic. It could be argued that “the EU seems to consciously produce a fuzzy space between inclusion and exclusion” (Boedeltje & Van Houtum, 2011:142). This gives way to “neo-colonial frontier-like aspirations in defining the border both as a security and buffer zone as well as a zone to ease up and construct the neighbours it desires” (Boedeltje & Van Houtum, 2011:142). This is a radical different viewpoint from seeing the EU as a state-like political entity, with impregnable, closed borders. Important to note here, is that Boedeltje and Van Houtum (2011:132) see the production of this fuzzy space as a unilateral EU efforts, whereby EU interests are the driver behind it. They see Europeanization as the main concept of the ENP and as a quite aggressive way of creating this fuzzy space. Boedeltje and Van Houtum (2011:140) interpret the term ‘Europeanization’ differently than usual in studies of the European Union. They state that Europeanization in the ENP, suggesting the existence of “a foundation from which Europe is justified and enforced”, seems like “a new colonisation mechanism presented by a new empire called the European Union”. This goes against Europe’s intended open meaning as a continent that is not strictly defined. The ENP can be seen as the Europeanization of Europe’s

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periphery, and in that case it is a normative process. It is often stated that the external governance of the EU outside its border is ‘soft power’. On a discursive level, however, the Europeanization of the EU neighborhood happens the hard way. Conditionality and socialization are demanded from the EU neighbors and their performances are judged and measured on an index that is unilaterally made by the EU (Boedeltje & Van Houtum, 2011:143). Boedeltje and Van Houtum (2011) take a too extreme stance implying that only the EU benefits from this policy. But seeing the ENP as ‘an attempt to be more inclusionary’, as Lavenex (2005) does, underestimates the kind of self-interest the EU has in the ENP.

As stated in the introduction of this thesis, in the scientific literature regarding this debate, the ‘politics of inclusion’ and the ‘politics of exclusion’ are sometimes seen as different paradigms (Lavenex, 2005) or models (Smith, 1996). But in fact, they are two processes that are often at work at the same time. The Eastern Neighbourhood countries are included in some ways, but excluded in others: they are not insiders, but at the same time they are also not complete outsiders. By seeing these processes of inclusion and exclusion as different paradigms, the nuance of what is actually happening is missing. Both the ‘politics of inclusion’ and the ‘politics of exclusion’ are at play in the European Neighbourhood Policy. Different dynamics are at work in different functional fields. Some are more comprehensive and some more restrictive. Because not only the politics of inclusion are at play in the ENP, rather than inclusion, external governance could result in the long run in “patterns of differentiated integration with negotiated partnerships in selected policy fields of mutual interest” (Zaiotti, 2007:152). Zaiotti states this is what seems to be occurring with the ENP. This mixture of the politics of inclusion and exclusion is understood by Zaiotti (2007:144) as the ‘Gated Community Syndrome’. Zaiotti (2007:144) argues that the ENP is reproducing some of the barriers that are already there between the EU and its neighbors and that it is also creating new ones. He argues there is an inherent tension between ‘friendship and fences’ in the ENP. The European Commission aims for a ‘ring of friends’ around the EU, but at the same time it is constructing ‘fences’. This tension between ‘friendship and fences’ is strongly present in the framing of the eastern neighborhood in the ENP. I will discuss this in detail in chapter four, but first in the next chapter the methodology of this thesis will be presented.

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3. Framing Analysis as a tool for understanding the ENP

In this chapter, the methodology that will be used to analyze the official policy documents of the ENP and EES will be discussed. The documents will be analyzed through framing analysis. I will focus thereby on the problem definitions and solution strategies, which are the basic elements of a frame, the European Commission presents in its document with regards to the eastern neighborhood.

3.1 Bordering as Discourse

Borders are a social construct and are formed through discursive practices. The European Union governs in its neighborhood through discourse. Discourse is not the same as rhetoric or ideology, but “discursive articulations (statements) are analyzed at their own manifest level rather than as surface expressions of something else” (Malmvig, 2006:350). These articulations should be taken at face value and treated as constitutive actions, bringing subjects, objects and concepts into being (Malmvig, 2006:350). The ENP is in essence a discursive structure that attempts at bordering through processes of inclusion and exclusion. Pace (2004:292) argues that foreign policy – understood as a discursive activity – constructs the ‘self’ and the ‘other’. She states that “when analysing foreign policy, analysts are not only concerned with the strategies devised to utilize a nation-state’s capabilities to achieve the goals its leaders set, they are also in effect looking at constructions of identity” (Pace, 2004:292-293). This is something that plays out through the politics of inclusion and exclusion.

The basic proposition of constructivists is that actors give meaning to their environment through ongoing processes of social construction (Rosamond, 1999:658). This means that the interests of actors are not structured by their environment, but that these interests are endogenous to interaction through discourse (Rosamond, 1999:658). In the previous decades there has been a shift from a discourse of the ‘state’, which can be understood as “the social construction of a world built around unit interaction with no overarching authority” (Rosamond, 1999:659), to a discourse of ‘globalization’, which is “a discourse of change and uncertainty” that opens up possibilities for “the social construction of ‘nonterritorial functional spaces’” (Rosamond, 1999:658). The ENP can be understood as a policy that is creating such a ‘nonterritorial functional space’. The implication of this is that the inside-outside dichotomy should be rejected and that the line between who is inside the EU and outside the EU is blurry.

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The theory about discourse shapes a general framework for the analysis, but does not make clear how the discourse(s) in the European Neighbourhood Policy will be identified. This will be done in this research through framing analysis, focusing on the problem definitions and solution strategies that are formulated in the thirteen official documents of the European Neighbourhood Policy and the two EES documents that are analyzed in this thesis. What framing analysis entails and the way in which it is operationalized in this thesis will be explained in the remainder of this chapter.

3.2 Framing Analysis & Frames

Central to framing analysis is the premise that there is not one ‘true fact’, but that there are always interpretations of and views on facts that lead to how a problem, and following from that a solution, is defined. In its simplest form, a frame consists of a problem definition and a solution to the problem that follows from that definition. In its ENP and EaP, the EU has formulated a problem with regards to the eastern neighborhood and comes with a solution.

As already stated in the introduction of this thesis, framing analysis is a discursive approach and is classified as an interpretative method. The interpretative methods in the social sciences and humanities focus on meaning and in what way meaning is given in social contexts. One way of understanding this process is by analyzing frames and framing. Understanding frames helps grasping complex empirical and normative controversies, mainly because framing directs attention to the details of the way a communicated text (regardless the form it is in, written or spoken) exerts its power (Entman, 1993:55-56). In this thesis official policy documents will be analyzed. These exert power through their discourse. In the analysis the focus will be on in what way the eastern neighborhood of the EU has been given meaning for the EU and how this works out in the solutions that are formulated with regards to this neighborhood.

Gamson and Modigliani (1989:2) refer to frames as ‘interpretive packages’ that give meaning to an issue. They state: “A package has an internal structure. At its core is a central organizing idea, or frame, for making sense of relevant events, suggesting what is at issue” (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989:3). Benford and Snow (2000:614) define framing as: “an active, processual phenomenon that implies agency and contention at the level of reality construction”. Rein and Schön (1993:146) define framing as: “a way of selecting, organizing, interpreting, and making sense of a complex reality to provide guideposts for knowing, analyzing, persuading, and acting”. According to them, a frame is: “a perspective from which an amorphous, ill-defined, problematic situation can be made sense of and acted on” (Rein & Schön, 1993:146).

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What is visible in the definitions of framing is that it is a way of giving meaning to reality and shape it at the same time by doing that. Reality is thus socially constructed. Through framing, multiple socially constructed realities come into being. The problem that follows from that is that “individuals in different contexts of everyday life have different frames that lead them to see different things, make different interpretations of the way things are, and support different courses of action concerning what is to be done, by whom, and how to do it” (Rein & Schön, 1993:147).

Framing analysis is a method that falls in the wider paradigm of discourse analysis. The common denominator in the different strands of discourse analysis is that they all aim to show how language shapes reality (Hajer, 2003:103). Framing theory is a complex matter. It is a widely used theory in the social sciences and various disciplines in the humanities. Most definitions of frames and framing are similar, but nowhere is there to be found a general statement of framing theory that shows precisely the way in which frames become embedded and are made manifest (Entman, 1993:51). There is also no general interpretation of how framing influences thinking (Entman, 1993:51). Framing theory is scattered and often used in a way that suits a particular research. It is a tool that can be used in diverse and various ways. There is a significant inconsistency in the way framing is used in scientific literature (De Vreese, 2005:51). It is often defined casually, with much left to an assumed tacit understanding of reader and researcher (Entman, 1993:52). So it is important in this thesis, to elaborately describe these various ways in which framing theory can be used and how it relates to processes of including and excluding. Because frames, framing and framework are common words outside formal scholarly discourse, it is even the more important to “identify and make explicit common tendencies among the various uses of the terms and to suggest a more precise and universal understanding of them” (Entman, 1993:52).

All framing theory and analysis, however, takes the use of language as the organizing framework for understanding society (Hajer & Laws, 2006:256). So, generally speaking, framing in the most broad sense offers a way to describe communication (Entman, 1993:51). Hajer and Laws (2006:256) state that the popularity of framing analysis is rooted in their intuitive appeal. The concept of framing makes sense to scientists and practitioners that deal with policies, which are often characterized by ambiguity and dynamicity. Framing analysis makes sense in ambiguous and dynamic situations, because it “highlights the communicative character of ordering devices that connects particular utterances (a speech, a policy text) to individual consciousness and social action” (Hajer & Laws, 2006:256). Hajer & Laws (2006:257) define a frame as “the internally coherent constellation of facts, values, and action implications”. Important to note here, is that

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facts are often seen as part of frames, but it is crucial in framing that these facts are never value free and are used differently in different frames.

Framing analysis, according to Entman (1993:51-52), “illuminates the precise way in which influence over a human consciousness is exerted by the transfer (or communication) of information from one location – such as a speech, utterance, news report, or novel – to that consciousness”. Entman (1993:53) states that selection and salience – making a piece of information more noticeable, meaningful, or memorable to audiences – are central concepts to framing. He defines framing as selecting “some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation” (Entman, 1993:52). A frame, then, defines problems, diagnoses causes, makes moral judgments and suggests remedies (Entman, 1993:52).

On the location of frames – the communicator, the text, the receiver and the culture – Entman states the following:

“Communicators make conscious or unconscious framing judgments in deciding what to say, guided by frames (often called schemata) that organize their belief systems. The text contains frames, which are manifested by the presence or absence of certain keywords, stock phrases, stereotyped images, sources of information, and sentences that provide thematically reinforcing clusters of facts or judgments. The frames that guide the receiver’s thinking and conclusion may or may not reflect the frames in the text and the framing intention of the communicator. The culture is the stock of the commonly invoked frames; in fact, culture might be defined as the empirically demonstrable set of common frames exhibited in the discourse and thinking of most people in a social grouping. Framing in all four locations includes similar functions: selection and highlighting, and use of the highlighted elements to construct an argument about problems and their causation, evaluation and/or solution.” (Entman, 1993:52-53)

3.3 Framing as Process

De Vreese (2005:51) states framing is a process, because communication is not static, but “a dynamic process that involves frame-building (how frames emerge) and frame-setting (the interplay between media frames and audience predispositions)”. He links the locations of frames that Entman (1993) describes – communicator, text (written or spoken), receiver and culture – to different stages of framing: frame-building, frame-setting and individual and societal level consequences of framing (De Vreese, 2005:51-52). Frame-building refers to factors that influence structural qualities of frames. This is an interplay between actors. The outcomes of the

The European neighbourhood policy as a process of imperial bordering in Eastern Europe