The Eurozone crisis and the imagined geographies of the European Union : the representation of Geopolitical imaginations in Dutch ans Portuguese media.

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THESIS SUBMITTED TO OBTAIN MASTER DEGREE IN HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM

Date: June 23, 2014 Amsterdam

Jessica Verheij

Program: Msc. Human Geography jess.verheij@hotmail.com

Supervisor: Mw. Dr. Virginie Mamadouh

Department of Human Geography, Planning and International Development V.D.Mamadouh@uva.nl

Second Examinator: Leonhardt van Efferink, MA MSc. Part-time Lecturer at Department of European Studies leonhardt@geomeans.com

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Having lived half of my life in the Netherlands and the other half in Portugal, the decision to use these two countries as foundation for my research might seem very obvious to many. However, this was not at all the case when, around eight months ago, I had to start thinking about possible topics for this project. My interest in the European Union as a very particular political entity, located in the grey area somewhere between the nation-state and the intergovernmental organizations, and as a foundation for what many call ‘Europeaness’, was quite clear, as well as the interest in studying this at the background of the eurozone crisis. However, understanding how exactly to study this was not so simple.

I believe I can say I feel an equally strong connection with the Netherlands and Portugal, as the former is what defines where I come from, whereas the latter defines what I have become. Thus, using the two European countries I know best was always an option, but it was not what I wanted in the first place: I wanted something new, something different, something I did not knew much about. Studying the Netherlands and Portugal was almost like choosing the easiest way. It was during Christmas holidays, when I was having a beer with my brother on a terrace in Lisbon that the penny dropped: being fluent in both languages, having contacts in both places and understanding both contexts could only be an advantage. ‘There are probably not so many students at the University of Amsterdam who could do such a research in the same way you can’, he told me.

Without even imagining how much I would end up learning from this project, I made the decision to compare articles from Dutch and Portuguese newspapers, in order to study the representation of the European Union in both places. And I am glad I did: not only is it easier to keep motivated throughout the process while studying something closer to your heart; it also fostered a new and more critical perspective on a subject I thought I knew so well. As to give an example: lately I have been recalling how my mom quite quickly depicts something as typical Dutch or typical Portuguese. ‘Oh’, she says, ‘that’s very typical Dutch’ when Dutch people on television are again explaining how great their country is. Or ‘oh, typical Portuguese’, when she has to wait hours in line for bureaucracies. I used to very strongly disagree with her on this as, in my eyes, this was a much too simplified way of thinking: one could impossible ‘blame’ nationality for these behaviors. Today I am not so sure of my case

anymore. Naturally, being born in one place or another can never be a justification for whatsoever; nonetheless, I understand now that behaviors, ideas, opinions, perspectives, etc. are somehow rooted in a cultural context, being some more common or more acceptable in certain places than in others. Yes, geography also has a say in this.

While analyzing Dutch and Portuguese newspaper articles against each other, it became clear to me how many differences there actually are between these two places. Particularly when covering the eurozone crisis, the contrast became more and more evident to me, although there is now wrong or right in this. By seeing myself as somewhere in-between these two countries, this research made me grow not only in academic terms as well as on a personal level, and therefore I would like to thank some people who made this possible.

I want to thank Virginie Mamadouh, for being always ready to think along, to give new ideas and to suggest other ways. It definitely brought this research to a higher level, and, perhaps even more important, enhanced my critical thinking.

I want to thank Leonhardt van Efferink, for showing so much availability and a very contagious interest in critical geopolitics as well as in my research. Our conversations throughout the last months were more useful to my academic development than many hours spent in classrooms.

I want to thank my family in Amsterdam: Ana, Fernando, Paula and Rafael. Your existence made the process of writing this thesis much less painful and much more successful. You were (still are) an indispensable part of my happiness, and therefore part of this achievement.

And I want to thank my parents, for the infinite trust they have in me, and for their unconditional support to whatever I plan to do. It makes it easier to fight when knowing that this basis will always be there.

Jessica Verheij

Amsterdam June 2014

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It is undeniable that the European Union is today facing enormous challenges concerning its purpose, scope and legitimacy - the last elections for the European Parliament of May 2014 have emphasized this reality once again. Many of these challenges can be traced back to the eurozone crisis, which shed light on the many fragilities of the European project in general and the monetary union in particular. In this research, this crisis is seen in close connection to the imagined geographies of the EU, acknowledging its impact on how the EU and its member-states are imagined and represented. Given the significant role of media in producing and reproducing discourses, this research studies the imagined geographies of the EU by analyzing the discourses present in the coverage of the eurozone crisis in Dutch and Portuguese media. Therefore, a selection of written articles was collected from two Dutch and two Portuguese newspapers, according to two moments of analysis, namely December 2009 and April-May 2011. The discursive practices identified in the news articles represent the EU as a divided space, mainly through the reproduction of the north-south division in both national contexts. Also, the creation of Otherness directed towards ‘the Greek’ was identified in the Dutch newspapers, however not in the Portuguese ones.

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Prologue 2

Abstract 4

Content 5

1. Introduction 7

1.1 A Time of Challenges for the European Union 7

1.2 The Role of the Eurozone Crisis 8

1.3 Studying the Imagined Geographies of the European Union 9 2. The Geopolitical Imagination of the European Union and its Discursive Practices 14

2.1 Concept of Geopolitical Imagination 15

2.2 Popular Geopolitics and the Role of Discourse 19

2.3 The Geopolitical Imagination of the European Union 23 2.4 The Eurozone Crisis and the Imagined Geographies of the European Union 25

2.5 Research Question 27

3. Methodology 29

3.1 The Search for Data 29

3.2 Selection Criteria for News Articles 31

3.3 Discourse Analysis: An Analytical Framework 33

3.4 Search Results: A Description of the Data 38

3.5 Other Concerns 42

3.6 Position of Researcher 43

4. The Context: The Eurozone Crisis in Portugal and the Netherlands 46

4.1 The Sovereign Debt Crisis 46

4.2 Portugal and the Eurozone Crisis 52

4.3 The Netherlands and the Eurozone Crisis 56

4.4 Two Different National Contexts 59

5. Media Coverage of the Eurozone Crisis 61

5.1 Which Actors Are Involved? 62

5.2 The Naming of the Bailouts 66

5.3 Portuguese Media 67

5.5 Conclusive Remarks 72 6. The Representation of the Geopolitical Imagination of the European Union 74 6.1 The Creation of Spatial Divisions and Boundaries 75

6.2 The North-South Division 78

6.3 Creation of Otherness 82

6.4 Conclusive Remarks 85

7. Conclusion 87

7.1 Story-lines 87

7.2 The Representation of the Geopolitical Imagination of the European Union 90 7.3 The Challenges of the European Union as Integrated Space 91

7.4 Suggestions for Research 93

1. I

Despite being home to the most integrated trans-state union in the history of the modern nation-state, divisions are an inherent and inevitable part of Europe’s geography. The last elections held for the European Parliament, in May 2014, emphasized this reality once again, as never in the history of European suffrage so many people voted against integration (The Economist, 2014). The European Union is facing fundamental challenges, and many see this time as a decisive point to determine which way the European project should be going. The financial crisis that hit several member-states throughout the past years has only contributed to a growing uncertainty, as it brought to light the many still-existing deficiencies of the European construction: the inability to act of the European institutions became more and more visible, while economic divergence among states and regions became more and more significant. This culminated into a political crisis that followed the lack of an effective response on European level. It is at the background of these events that this research seeks to study the imagined geographies of the EU, as referring to the spatial representations that construct the EU in people’s mind. Understanding its current reality and the challenges it is facing entails, among other things, understanding the way its space is represented and imagined, assuming that all representations of space have political effects (Bialasiewicz, 2008; 71). It is precisely this connection between reality and imagined geographies on which this research is based. It aims at analyzing the spatial representations of the EU present in the coverage of the eurozone crisis in media, acknowledging the importance of these representations for the past, present and future of the EU. This research then attempts to make sense out of the imagined geographies of the EU in times of crisis.

1.1 A Time of Challenges for the European Union

A report issued in the beginning of 2014 by an initiative led by the King Baudouin Foundation and the Bertelsmann Stiftung to promote a pan-European public debate on the EU’s future, identifies the key challenges that the EU is facing nowadays by organizing them into four ‘dimensions’: a socio-economic dimension, resulting from the indignation and despair caused by the eurozone crisis; a political-institutional dimension, due to a lack of public support for the EU and of a legitimate leadership; a societal dimension, as referring to a missing vision and common understanding of ‘Europe’; and an external-global dimension, based on the

problems linked to the EU’s role as a global player (New Pact for Europe Project, 2014; 2). This is quite something. Across the EU and outside, voices questioning the nature, the meaning and the purpose of the EU have become more common throughout the last years, and it is widely acknowledged that the EU needs to change - in which way is, however, not part of the consensus. What is evident is that the times in which Europe was seen as an ever-closer union, one that could only go further in integration, have passed by, and despite decades of attempting to overcome the obstacles set by the internal borders, these borders do not seem to disappear out of people’s minds any time soon. In his study on the national and post-national narratives of Europe, Antonsich (2008) concludes that, despite attempts ‘from above’ to construct a European identity and a common sense of ‘we’ among citizens, “Europe still remains subordinate, in people’s minds, to the sentiment and the logic of national belonging” (Antonsich, 2008; 517). Europe is not (yet?) post-national. A continuous dominance of the national instead of the European is, however, not the biggest problem in times in which less and less people believe that such a European element should even exist.

Furthermore, these years might very well be the EU’s deepest point when it comes to popular support and legitimacy. According to data of Eurobarometer, mistrust in European institutions has been growing among citizens during the last years, especially in the countries which were most severely hit by the eurozone crisis; however, even in core-countries such as France and Germany, trust in the European institutions is not that obvious anymore. Some have even argued, ironically, that this mistrust is finally bringing Europeans closer together, as ‘it is likely that the growing mistrust made the European institutions be one of the few things that has generated consensus among the European citizens’ (Orriols, 2013 - author’s translation). Besides, the outcomes of the last elections for the European Parliament are quite straightforward: euro-skeptic parties grew significantly in France, the United Kingdom and Greece, and their presence in the Parliament can no longer be ignored. It is worth noting that even euro-skeptics are divided due to a split between left-wing and right-wing movements (The Economist, 2014). But perhaps even more worrisome is that, again, the voter turnout did not even reach 50% (BBC, 2014) - although European leaders have argued that it was slightly higher than the turnout in the 2009 elections, not even half of the more than 300 million European citizens decided to participate in the process, revealing a lack of interest, concern or knowledge regarding affairs on European level. Slovakia broke every record, as 87% of the eligible voters did simply not show up at the polling stations (EUObserver, 2014), symbolizing

a decreasing enthusiasm for Europe even in the eastern European countries - the same countries which, a decade ago, were responsible for the ‘renaming’ of Europe as ‘New Europe’. At the end, these elections confirmed that the European Union is not on the right path.

1.2 The Role of the Eurozone Crisis

So what has the eurozone crisis have to do with all of this? Everything, as many of the identified challenges arose due to this crisis. First of all, it should be noted how, since the very beginning, the nature of the single currency itself has been strongly related to the integration of the European space. On the occasion of the unveiling of the euro banknotes in the European Central Bank, in August 2001, Wim Duisenberg, the President of the ECB at that time, stated that “the euro is much more than just a currency; it is a symbol of European integration in every sense of the word” which will “help to change the way in which we think about one another as Europeans” - at the end, “Europeans will realize that they are at home throughout Europe” (Duisenberg, 2001). In other words: this single currency, shared among citizens of, by that time, twelve different countries, would bring the people of Europe closer together by creating yet another symbol of unity, one that would be used by millions on a daily basis. Likewise the sense of a common identity across these countries would grow. Naturally, the implementation of the euro also had a significant financial and economic dimension by promoting the creation of a genuinely integrated market; nonetheless the political dimension should not be underestimated.

In the same speech, Duisenberg also noticed that “their place [of the different countries of Europe] in an increasingly interdependent world could only be assured by a single currency” (Duisenberg, 2001). This highlights the idea of inevitability that accompanied the creation of an Economic and Monetary Union together with the implementation of the new currency itself: for several decades, Europe’s elites saw this as the next and only possible great step to advance the European project towards closer integration (Shore, 2012; 6-7). Despite the warnings and questions raised regarding the risks of creating a monetary union without a political union (Shore 2012; 8), advocates of the project saw these risks as “minor when compared with what they saw as the upsides of a common currency, including fostering a common sense of collective identity in Europe as people, goods, and capital moved ever more seamlessly across national borders” (Murphy, 2013; 708). Or, more succinctly, “political union

was the goal; money was the instrument of its attainment” (Shore, 2012; 6). However, when, from 2009 on, several eurozone countries started to suffer severely under the pressure of the financial markets, as a consequence of the global financial crisis of 2008, the future of the euro, and therefore the future of the European project, did not look so bright anymore: if the euro was meant to enhance a sense of unity and collective identity, then a crisis directly related to this currency meant a growing skepticism against this unity.

Weaker economies of the eurozone, mostly located in southern Europe, showed themselves more vulnerable regarding external pressures; however, due to a common currency, this affected other economies as well, and likewise the problems of some member-states became a problem of the eurozone in general. This resulted into a fraction as many started to see the monetary union as nothing else than a ‘transfer union’ where money is transferred ‘from the north to the south’ (Shore, 2012; 8), in which the north was often depicted as rational, organized and responsible, whereas the irresponsible and chaotic south was to blame. This had significant implications for the European project: on the one hand, the imposition of austerity measures on the states with worrying public finances revealed the weaknesses of the EU institutions and proved the sill existing democratic deficit (Shore, 2012; 9). On the other hand, it made the gap between ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ economies within the eurozone even wider. Unemployment figures are often used to illustrate this gap - only a couple of months ago, the European Commission released a statement regarding the “growing North-South divide in EU labour market”, stating that “diverging job prospects in Northern and Southern Europe underline mismatches in the European labour market, linked also to Eurozone asymmetries” (European Commission, 2014).

1.3 Studying the Imagined Geographies of the European Union

Recently, Klaus Dodds has identified the geographical as well as the geopolitical aspects of the eurozone crisis by stating the following:

“Geographically, the impact and scope of crisis and austerity remains resolutely uneven with some communities and localities more exposed to debt, liability, loss and dispossession. (…) Geopolitically, the financial crisis brought to the foreground the

manner in which some countries were represented and understood as financially reckless, political weak and incapable of reforming their economies.” (Dodds, 2014)

It can thus not be denied that the eurozone crisis acquired a profound geographical feature as it resulted in the emergence of new dividing lines, and the recrudescence of already existing fractures, revealing and intensifying the divergence between eurozone countries. Likewise, it becomes meaningful to study the eurozone crisis and its several dimensions through a political-geographic perspective (Agnew & Muscará, 2012; 6), as to address the significant role of geography in these matters.

The eurozone crisis made one thing clear: Europe remains a divided continent, even now that the agreements on bailouts of eurozone countries are gradually coming to an end. These divisions of the EU’s space, whether real or imagined, are of great importance when taking into account the previously mentioned challenges the European project is facing. Fault lines between member-states based on dichotomies such as north/south, weak/strong, eurozone/non-eurozone, netto payers/netto recipients, etc. leave their mark on the imagination of European space, not as one integrated and unified space, but as one constituted by different ‘enclosures and partitions that demarcate the one from the other’ (Gregory, 2004; 17). Consequentially these fault lines determine how people perceive and represent the EU, and how they look at their own position and that of others within this ‘union’. Although “it is too soon to judge the full impact of the current European sovereign debt crisis on feelings of European identity” (Murphy, 2013; 715), it is therefore not too soon to establish a connection between the eurozone crisis and the imagined geographies of the EU, when attempting to tackle some of the EU’s current problems.

Furthermore, in a review of the political geographies of Europeanisation, Moisio et al. (2013) make several suggestions in order to stress the potential contributions of political-geographic research in “reconceptualizing European integration as well as Europeanization as it now unfolds in times of ‘crisis’” (Moisio et al., 2013; 737). One of these suggestions refers to the need to shed light on “how the current crisis is both differently experienced - but also variably envisioned and called up into the national political lexicon and political and geopolitical practices - in the different Member States” (Moisio et al., 2013; 753). They also call for the examination of “how both Europe and the EU are understood, defined and legitimized in

different places, and how these different discourses of ‘EU’rope operate within different cultural contexts” (Moisio et al., 2013; 744). This research follows this line of thought by studying the representation and meaning of space within the EU, according to the coverage of the eurozone crisis in media from different vantage points - or cultural contexts - namely a member-state located in the north and a member-state located in the south of the eurozone.

Using two different vantage points also derives from the idea that there are always two sides of a story. Being the north-south division one of the most prominent elements of the eurozone crisis, it is expected that studying such a division from opposite sides simultaneously can provide fruitful and perhaps even contrasting insights. Likewise, the Netherlands was selected as a northern country and Portugal as a southern one. The decision to use these two countries was fostered by the fact that I have lived in both the Netherlands and Portugal for a substantial time period, which resulted into fluency in Dutch as well as in Portuguese, and ‘insider’s’ knowledge of the societal context of the media discourses studied in this research.

Media appears as a valuable source of information regarding spatial imaginations. It uses popular conceptions of space and geographical knowledge in order to frame the stories it wants to tell its public, and therefore it both influences and is influenced by these conceptions. Likewise, when covering the eurozone crisis, it produces and reproduces spatial representations regarding this event, and for this reason studying media allows for a better understanding of the ‘people’s view’. Hence a line is drawn from the coverage of the eurozone crisis in Dutch and Portuguese media towards the imagined geographies of the EU, by identifying spatial representations and imaginations present within media discourses in order to understand how this crisis is affecting the way people look at the EU.

In this sense, the main question asked throughout this research is ‘how is the geopolitical imagination of the European Union represented in the coverage of the eurozone crisis in Dutch and Portuguese media?’, in which the concept of geopolitical imagination refers to these spatial representations and imaginations used to order and organize the world. As to provide an answer to this question, the following chapter will, first of all, situate this topic within the broader debate of critical geopolitics. The concept of the geopolitical imagination is then explained, followed by a discussion on the role of media in producing and reproducing these

imaginations through discourses. Finally, this chapter addresses the imagined geographies of the European Union, with a particular focus on the eurozone crisis.

Chapter three provides an overview of the methodology of this research, addressing issues such as the collection of data, the framework used for the data analysis and possible limitations. This is followed by a chapter on the context of the research, as it becomes relevant to understand the dimensions and implications of the implementation of the single currency and the following eurozone crisis. Besides, the impacts of this crisis on Portugal and the Netherlands in particular are addressed, alongside a positioning of these two countries within the European Union. Chapter five and six contain the results of the data analysis: whereas the former concerns a somehow broader perspective on the coverage of the eurozone crisis in Dutch and Portuguese media, the latter focuses particularly on the representation of geopolitical imaginations. Finally, the last chapter seeks to conclude this research, by providing a summary of its main findings while positioning these within a broader debate on the future of the European Union.

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“For there is no doubt that imaginative geography and history help the mind to intensify its own sense of itself by dramatizing the distance and the difference between what is close to it and what is far away”

(Said, 1978; 54-5) The study of imagined geographies is embedded mainly in the field of political and cultural geography, being based on the ideas set forward by Edward Said in Orientalism (1978). His work on the representational practices used by western political elites in order to characterize foreign affairs regarding the Orient has laid a theoretical basis for the development of theories regarding geographical representations and imaginations (Dodds & Sidaway, 1994; 517). The study and exploration of imagined geographies and the power of representational practices became one of the core themes of political geography, alongside the emergence of critical geopolitics, a discipline aiming to examine “the very construction and social effects of geopolitical imagination and geopolitical identities” (Müller, 2008; 323), as being the imaginary spatial positioning of people and places, and the shifting boundaries that define this positioning. By connecting this ‘imaginary spatial positioning’ with political affairs, critical geopolitics attempts “to understand geography as imbued with power and to deconstruct the hegemonic fixations of spatial imaginations associated with it” (Müller, 2008; 323).

This takes into account another crucial influence in this field: Foucault’s notion of knowledge and power which acknowledges the role of power relations in determining geographical knowledge, or ‘the way we look at the world around us’. Likewise, critical geopolitics does not take geographical knowledge for granted; instead it acknowledges the idea of hegemony as a central determinant, for the meaning of space is constructed and thus not neutral. By assuming the existence of ideological processes within geopolitics, critical geopolitics attempts to ‘deconstruct’ the practices of representation that provide meanings to space (Dodds & Sidaway, 1994; 518), as ‘deconstruction’ refers to the task to “uncover alternative meanings and provide alternative readings of geopolitical texts, so as to expose the contingency of geopolitics and challenge its knowledge claims” (Müller, 2013; 52). In other words, power determines knowledge. The way we see and organize the world is therefore ‘highly politically relevant’ as it allows for political elites to turn discursive constructions into

social practice, and representations and imaginations grounded in discourse into power instruments of political actions (Reuber, 2009; 441). Discourse then takes a central position in the field of critical geopolitics, as discursive practices are an essential instrument to construct imaginaries and produce meanings - it therefore appears at the heart of critical geopolitics right from the beginning (Müller, 2013; 323). Discourse constructs meaning and for this it is an essential element within the study of geopolitics.

This research positions itself within the field of critical geopolitics by adopting the idea that discourse has a central role in the construction of imagined geographies and that the representation and meaning of space is never neutral. Therefore the study of the imagined geographies of the EU is based upon one of the key concepts within critical geopolitics, namely the geopolitical imagination. This chapter aims at providing an overview and reflection of the theories and concepts on which this research is based: first, the concept of geopolitical imaginations and other concepts directly related, followed by a discussion of the role of discourse and media within geopolitics. Finally, these theories are linked with the theme of this research, namely the eurozone crisis and the imagined geographies of the European Union.

2.1 Concept of Geopolitical Imagination

The geopolitical imagination is a concept used within political geography to denominate ways of ordering and organizing the world within people’s mind. It is therefore quite an abstract term, however not at all insignificant. Said (1978) was one of the first to direct his readers’ attention towards the relevance of understanding how people make sense out of the world and how distant spaces are being imagined. This is based, according to Said, on boundaries which we set up in our mind in order to distinguish ‘our’ familiar space with the unfamiliar space that is ‘out there’ (Said, 1978; 54). More recently, Derek Gregory has pointed out the importance of these imaginative geographies, as the word “usefully combines ‘something fictionalized’ and ‘something made real’, because they are imaginations given substance” (Gregory, 2004; 17). These imaginations refer to “a taken-for-granted spatial ordering of the world” involving practices of bordering as well as ordering; for example, “the hierarchical division of the globe into continents, states and other sub-categories (…) and the oppositions between global north/south, urban/rural, inside/outside and culture/nature” (Gregory, 2009;

282). These are mainly abstract and sometimes unconsciousness constructions; nonetheless they shape the way we look at the world and its people. This is not merely based on geographical knowledge - “equally important is the geopolitical imagination of a country, its perception of where it fits into the global system and, equally, how other states in that same system view it” (Newman, 1998; 95, emphasis added). Here, Newman puts the focus on the geopolitical imagination of a country; however the concept of geopolitical imagination in this research goes beyond this as it can concern continents, regions, cities, or political entities such as the European Union. Through such imaginations one can organize the world in a meaningful way. Likewise, geopolitical imaginations offer “something like orientation, straightforwardness, and assumed safety in the contingent diversity of being” (Reubers, 2009; 442). It can be seen as an understandable or even simplified way of ‘imagining the world’.

Boundaries are a central element of geopolitical imaginations, as it is through boundaries that spaces are ordered and bordered. Political geography (together with other disciplines such as International Relations) has witnessed a broad discussion during the last decade regarding the changing meaning and role of boundaries in this globalized world. Whereas traditionally boundaries have been mainly understood above all as geographical limits of (nation-)states (Paasi, 1996; 25) or as “fixed, stable empirical entities which divide the global space into bounded units” (Paasi, 1998; 69), this focus on the territorial nation-state has been widely contested (e.g. by Agnew’s so-called ‘territorial trap’). In today’s ‘world of flows’, as Paasi (1998) names it, in which nation-states have become ‘leaking containers’, many have argued that boundaries are disappearing as they lose their relevance in the global system. A. Paasi and J. Agnew are among the authors that have defended not a disappearing but a changing relevance of boundaries; this research can be included in this same line of thought. Boundaries are seen mainly according to Paasi’s conceptualization, which argues towards an understanding of boundaries not as static territorial lines but “rather from a broader, socioculturally grounded perspective” (Paasi, 1996; 27). Likewise, the social construction of the spatial and the process of territorialization of space are emphasized instead of the mere demarcation of space.

Boundaries are thus social processes (Paasi, 1998), and despite the decreasing importance of nation-states and the increasing role of other political entities, the nation-state remains the main actor regarding these processes. The reason for this relates to the role of boundaries in

the maintenance of territorial power and sovereign institutions (Paasi, 1996; 75), still organized around the modern state system. However, according to Paasi’s argument, the meaning of boundaries goes beyond the territorial power of the state, as boundaries allow for “mediums and instruments of social control and the communication and construction of meanings and identities” (Paasi, 1996; 80). Boundaries are thus not only ‘barriers’ as well as ‘symbols of identity’ (O’Dowd, 2002; 14), being their main raison d’être the need for order, control and protection in human life and “our contending desires for sameness and difference, for a marker between ‘us’ and ‘them’” (O’Dowd, 2002; 14-5). In other ways, boundaries imply processes of homogenization within them and differentiation from the Other outside.

It is precisely this role that is most relevant in the context of this research, as the construction of geopolitical imaginations implies the drawing of boundaries in order to provide means to produce collective identities - identities are produced through these boundaries. Boundaries are dividing lines and therefore create a distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’ or the ‘self’ and the ‘Other’, by organizing space according to categories defined by their borders, resulting in “the construction of culturally/socially homogeneous territorial groups” (Reuber, 2009; 442). Boundaries can thus be defined as social products which aim at making sense out of a social group by distinguishing it from other groups.

This leads the discussion towards another inherent element of geopolitical imaginations: Otherness. By drawing boundaries and by dividing spaces into categories, one identifies him or herself with the category to which one belongs. Furthermore, the self is inevitably constructed against the background of an external Other, as collective identities are based on processes of othering that generate difference (Diez, 2010; 320). There is thus no meaning in constructing identities if there are no others to distinguish it from or to oppose it to. A spatial dimension is usually inherent in the definitions of the Other, “in the fact that the Other typically lives somewhere else, there. If the Other lives here, we - defined in specific narratives - are in any case different from it” (Paasi, 1996; 13). Us and them are thus directly linked to

here and there.

An important element of these processes of othering for this research relates to the consequential construction of stereotypes, as “the constitution of the we/they dichotomy usually exploits stereotypic definitions of both us and them, and of them in particular” (Paasi,

1996; 13). Stereotypes within the creation of Otherness refer to the construction of “collective representations of national identities, internal identities of groups, by ‘depersonalizing’ the members, that is by assuming stereotyped collective features that are common to all members of a group” (Paasi, 1996; 59). Stereotypes are therefore formations that allow for the simplified representation of the distant Other through taken-for-granted characteristics or features, which usually underline the differences and spatial and cultural distance between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Gregory goes even further, arguing that the meanings given to the self and the Other provide “the conditions of possibility for regarding others as threats or antagonists” (Gregory, 2004; 20). The creation and representation of the Other can therefore have enormous political implications, as it allows for the ‘architectures of enmity’: them as being against us.

Geopolitical imaginations are thus abstract constructions based on boundaries which distinguish different territorial groups in order to promote a collective identity against the background of an external Other. The interaction between these different concepts is visualized in figure 2.1: it illustrates how geopolitical imaginations are based on boundaries, which allow for the distinction between different territorial groups leading to the production and reproduction of collective identities and stereotyped Others, assuming that is through the representation of the self and the Other that spaces are imagined. This research aims at focusing on the representation of geopolitical imaginations and its different dimensions through discursive practices, in order to understand how the spaces of the European Union are imagined.

2.2 Popular Geopolitics and the Role of Discourse

Taking the above into account, it will be in the light of a constructivist approach within the tradition of critical geopolitics, based on the concept of geopolitical imagination, that this research is conducted. To do so, the meaning and role of discourse need to be addressed, as forming the core of this tradition. Discourse is essential to critical geopolitics as it allows for describing and representing the world, and this shapes the way we see the world and decide to act (Ó Tuathail & Agnew, 1992; 190). It is through language that we construct social realities and that we provide meanings for social phenomena; a focus on discourse, therefore, results from the idea that language is much more than the mere use of words, as discourse is a constitutive of social reality. Discourse can thus even be seen as a complex social phenomenon on its own, considering the contention that “geography is a social and historical discourse which is always intimately bound up with questions of politics and ideology” (Ó Tuathail & Agnew, 1992; 192).

Analyzing these discourses allows for insights and understandings regarding the social construction of worlds; for example, “political speeches and the like afford us a means of recovering the self-understandings of influential actors in world politics” (Ó Tuathail & Agnew, 1992; 191). Before considering discourse analysis as a research method, a closer look towards its definition is necessary, as to stress its relevance in the study of geopolitical imaginations. Discourse remains a vague and broad concept, despite (or due to) its success and central role in critical geopolitics (Müller, 2008; 323). It can be seen as “sets of capabilities people have, as sets of socio-cultural resources used by people in the construction of meaning about their world and their activities” (Ó Tuathail & Agnew, 1992; 192-3). It is therefore a source of meanings as it constitutes “an ensemble of rules by which readers/listeners and speaker/audiences are able to take what they hear and read and construct it into an organized meaningful whole (Ó Tuathail & Agnew, 1992; 193, emphasis added). Discourses thus provide a framework of comprehension and establish ‘truth regimes’ (Müller, 2013; 54) as they define the boundaries within something can be true. “They set the rules of the game, as it were” (Müller, 2013; 54) and this is why social interactions cannot be fully understood without looking at the discourses that give them meaning (Bryman, 2008; 508). Discourse is like the lens through which we look at the world, and so we only see what makes sense within this discourse.

This is where discourse analysis appears as an appropriate method for critical geopolitics. It analyzes how individuals, institutions or social groups use discourse with the purpose of

framing certain phenomena in a particular way. Discourse analysis seeks to grasp the

different meanings of what is said; or, even better, discourse analysis seeks to deconstruct its meanings. The analysis is therefore mainly directed towards texts, whether written or spoken: words. Discourse analysis is based on the assumption that words can have multiple meanings and that one of these meanings is hegemonic, and that this hegemony becomes clear through deconstruction. As Müller (2013; 52) puts it,

“By bringing the opposite into being, by subverting and contesting the primary meaning, by showing that the opposite is also possible, the primary meaning is revealed to be arbitrary, because it relies on the exclusion of the opposite.”

Discourse analysis in critical geopolitics aims at identifying representational practices in order to deconstruct their meanings. Some, like Müller (2008 and 2013), have, however, argued that discourse refers not only to language as well as to practice, as language leads to practice. This idea is illustrated in Müller’s text (2008; 329) by an example from Laclau and Mouffe’s Hegemony and social strategy: Towards a radical democratic politics (1985): I am building a wall and ask a workmate to pass me a brick which then add to the wall. The first act - asking for the brick - is linguistic, the second - adding the brick to the wall - is extra-linguistic but they are both partial moments of the totality of building a wall. It is therefore language and practice together that constitute social realities. Although this particular research only focuses on the linguistic element of discourse, it is useful to have in mind that discourse neither stands on its own, nor can it be seen as an isolated practice as it does indeed have implications on practical level. The analysis of discourse therefore involves the examination not only of the features of text, as well as of the wider processes involved in the production and consumption of texts.

Discourses are produced and consumed by varying actors, including politicians, academics and mass media. Whereas traditionally critical geopolitics has prioritized the analysis of political discourse, including the analysis of practical geopolitical reasoning by O’Tuathail (2002), the important role of popular culture in constructing meanings and representing social realities has been addressed by several authors, such as Joanne P. Sharp (1993). The

so-called ‘popular geopolitics’ distinguish themselves from the more traditional approach towards geopolitics by underlining the importance of studying not only discourses produced by political elites, as well as the popular conceptions of geopolitics. Sharp identifies several reasons why to extend the focus of critical geopolitics towards these popular conceptions. First, the geopolitical texts produced by political elites do not simply ‘trickle down’ (Sharp, 1993; 493) as these are consumed and reproduced by other social actors. Therefore analyzing merely the original texts is not sufficient to understand it as a social construction. Also, “geopoliticians have to draw upon discourses already granted hegemonic social acceptance” (Sharp, 1993; 493); likewise a geopolitical discourse is always embedded within society and its previously existing ‘truths’. Mass media is a crucial factor here as it is seen as providing knowledge of the world - a knowledge on which geopolitical imaginations are building upon. Popular geopolitics assess popular understandings of politics and space, or the perceptions of ‘ordinary people’ (Müller, 2013; 51). The analysis of discourse in mass media is thus interesting, because, as Sharp (1993; 493) puts it, “it is illuminating to study what it is that is used by the media to tie events happening in another part of the world to the concerns of the potential readership”.

Media discourse provides a framework of comprehension just as (geo)political discourse, by providing meanings and understandings. It therefore defines how a news event is presented and framed towards the masses, having an enormous influence on common sense and public opinion which constitute an understanding of the world. As Sharp (1993; 494) states, “the complexities of life are presented in easy to manage chunks, the conceptual apparatus for their interpretation already having social existence”. Mass media and geopolitical imaginations are therefore strongly linked together, as media discourse produces geographical and geopolitical knowledge which allows for a meaningful way of organizing the world. Geopolitical imaginations are constructed through representational practices that order and border the world, and these practices are, in part, included in media discourse. Hence geopolitical imaginations can be identified in media texts, and this is precisely what this research attempts to do.

Last but not least, the issue of power relations deserves our attention. The nexus between power and space is deeply embedded in geopolitical thoughts, as “the practice of producing geopolitical theory has a common theme: the production of knowledge to aid the practice of

statecraft and further the power of the state” (Ó Tuathail & Agnew, 1992; 192). The production of geopolitical knowledge and imaginations is therefore ‘highly ideological’ and ‘deeply politicized’, as it allows for the shaping and molding of the way space is perceived. As Paasi (1996; 19) describes it, the aim of geopolitics is to produce knowledge for organizing the political and strategic power relations of the world. This nexus between space and power is also succinctly depictures by Sharp (1993; 492):

“Strategies of power always require the use of space and, thus, the use of discourses to create particular spatial images, primarily of territory and boundaries in statecraft, is inseparable from the formation and use of power.”

These same ‘strategies of power’ are produced through the use of geopolitical discourses, and are directly related to the construction of collective identities and the consequential ability to mobilize social groups. As it turns out, foreign affairs and politics are highly depended upon the exclusion of the Other and ‘the inclusion, incorporation and administration’ of the self. The drawing of boundaries to order spaces according to taken-for-granted categories is therefore never neutral but rather ‘soaked’ in ideological discourses. It is thus crucial to keep in mind the presence of power relations when analyzing discourse, as it matters who produces and who consumes the discourse Texts can be written by all kind of different social actors, while having a great variety of target groups. For example, a discourse produced by political elites, or ‘intellectuals of statecraft’ as Ó Tuathail and Agnew (1992) name them, is intended to further national interests and these interests need to be considered in order to understand its full meaning. Discourse in media, however, is not less connected from power issues and hegemony: for example, the decision to include certain news events and exclude others is not an unbiased or indifferent decision. Also, the way actors and places are framed and represented is in part influenced by the existing power relations. In the case of this research, which aims at identifying the representation of geopolitical imaginations within media, the position of the producers of discourse within these power relations needs to be considered, as media, just as any another discourse, is never neutral.

2.3 The Geopolitical Imagination of the EU

The study of the imaginations and representations of the European Union is a complex matter, partly due to the complex nature of the EU itself. The EU appeared as a hybrid form of governance between intergovernamentalism and supra-nationalism, and has more recently been described neither as the former nor as the latter; rather, the EU can nowadays be seen as a complete new form of political governance due to its unique relation towards territoriality. Mamadouh (2001) has explored this relation by analyzing the role of territoriality within the context of European integration. Likewise, she states that:

“It has been argued that the territoriality of the European Union is mediated and multiple. Selected powers have transferred to the supranational entity, not territories. As a result the European Union is not directly controlling a territory in the same absolute way a modern nation-state is supposed to do. The EU depends (largely) on the Member States for both the representation of interests, the implementation of policies and the enforcement of laws.” (Mamadouh, 2001; 433)

The EU thus has a very particular relation with its territory, as it can only go so far in exercising power of it. The EU is therefore neither a traditional intergovernmental or international organization, nor can it be seen as a state (Sidaway, 2006; 2). Nonetheless, processes of ‘Europeanization’ and constructing something like a unified European community have established a connection between the Union and the idea of a modern nation-state, by attempting to construct an ‘imagined community’ (Anderson, 1991) within the EU’s territory. Although the EU is not a nation-state in its traditional sense, it is indeed a political entity that “reaches beyond the immediate face-to-face encounter and therefore needs imagination” (Diez, 2004; 320). However, a European identity in the sense of a national one is still very weak as “people have been much more effectively socialized into their own (national) state identities than into a European identity (Paasi, 2001; 21). More recently, Antonsich (2008) has proven the same by studying the narration of Europe in ‘national’ and ‘post-national’ terms. The territorial, symbolic and institutional shapes of this unclear political entity are not strong enough in order to create ‘a collective sense of European identity’ among the citizens of the European Union, and the lack of such a collective identity is often seen as one of the major obstacles towards European integration (Antonsich, 2008; 506).

The geopolitical imagination of the EU refers to the spatial positioning and ordering of the EU’s territory, as being the sum of the territories of its member-states. Due to the predominant role of nations in the construction of collective identities, this positioning happens mainly on the level of the nation-states as states “tend to dominate the production and reproduction of European spaces of identification” (Paasi, 2001; 10). This, however, does not mean that national identity exists at the expense of a European one (Antonsich, 2008; 517) as none is mutually exclusive. Even so, the modern nation-state still has “a considerable ‘lead’ in the production of scale” (Paasi, 2001; 10), while the imagination of space on European level remains an open-ended and undetermined question. The EU is a complex agglomeration of very diverse imaginations which are built on the level of the region, the city or the state. Inevitably, ‘clashes’ of different imaginations lead to “some tension not only between the ‘national’ and ‘European’ geopolitical imaginations and narratives (…) but also between the different national narratives within which Europe is located in the Member States” (Moisio et al., 2013; 744). The geopolitical imagination of the EU therefore refers to the different ways through which European space is imagined and organized into spatial categories, making a distinction between different territorial groups - whether these are states, regions or cities. Due to significant differences on political, economic and cultural levels, and due to the dominance of identification on national level, the ways of imagining the EU varies widely within the EU itself. Hence this research is based on the assumption that “Europe means different things in different places” (Moisio et al., 2012; 738).

The euro has a very meaningful connection to these imaginations. It has most recently appeared as one of the EU’s strongest ‘national’ symbols. The symbolic functions of money have widely been recognized by academics, as money plays an important role in the construction of a collective identity among its users. This role derives from the “conventional wisdom that the control of money is associated with the notions of sovereignty and state power” (Kaelberer, 2004; 161). Money creates an invisible although significant connection among the people of a state, through its daily use and through its general acceptance as a valid form of payment. It is therefore seen as a crucial aspect in the formation of an imagined community and the consolidation of the nation-state as such. As was mentioned above, the lack of a collective sense of European identity is by many seen as one of the major obstacles towards deeper integration, and a single currency, as being traditionally a symbol of the state,

was therefore seen “as the next great initiative for advancing the European project” (Shore, 2012; 7). Likewise the implementation of the euro meant, amongst other things, the construction of a European imaginary which establishes a link towards a common European tradition. This ‘European’ currency is thus “comparable to other symbolic efforts to create greater European consciousness, such as the European flag, the passport, anthem…” (Kaelberer, 2004; 170), included in the so-called processes of ‘Europeanization’. In other words, “the Euro makes Europe real and reifies it as a political order, since it provides a visible link from Brussels to the daily lives of the citizens” (Risse, 2003; 487).

Throughout the last decades the European project has been seeking deeper economic and political union through the integration of national spaces. In order to overcome the still existing ‘obstacles’ created by national boundaries, the implementation of a single currency was seen as a logical next step, as many of the EU’s political elites believed that “European identity construction was a precondition for closer political union and that a common currency - the euro - provided a way of fostering that kind of identity” (Murphy, 2013; 707). Taking the previously described concepts into account, the single currency was seen as an instrument to promote the sense of a collective identity, which would result into a disappearance or a decreased importance of boundaries dividing the people of the EU. At the end, it was meant to overcome the fragmentation of European space in order to promote its imagination as unified and integrated.

2.4 The Eurozone Crisis and the Imagined Geographies of the EU

The link between the implementation of the single currency and the geopolitical imagination of the EU can thus easily be made. The euro seeks to foster a collective identity (disregarding, at this point, its economic implications) based on an imagined European space. Taking this into account, the current eurozone crisis is incredibly interesting as background for the study of the geopolitical imagination of the EU. One can expect that the sovereign debt crisis affecting the eurozone countries and the consequential political crises on the level of the EU have had mostly negative rather than positive effects regarding the endowment of a European identity or a perception of European space as ‘unified’. Several authors have addressed this issue in their studies, proving that, instead of promoting a unified and harmonious imagination of these spaces, different geopolitical imaginations on the EU in general and the

eurozone in particular have emerged out of this crisis, creating an impact on the different meanings Europe has in different places.

Murphy (2013), for example, argues that the way the eurozone crisis is framed in public discourses demonstrates how these are ‘trapped in the logic of the modern state system’. Despite the fact that European integration challenges the idea of the modern territorial nation-state, the questions raised in the context of this crisis are all framed in intergovernmentalist terms. What is being asked is whether “power should be vested in the member states or the central institutions of the EU” (Murphy, 2013; 716), while encouraging the framing of the issues at stake in a way that focuses on the level of the modern nation-state. Likewise, the EU is framed as some kind of supra-national state instead of a political entity that goes beyond the traditional approach of statehood. The author therefore sees the eurozone crisis, and the reactions on this crisis, as ‘the greatest challenge to European integration in a generation’ (Murphy, 2013; 718) as it is undermining instead of fostering a sense of collective identity.

Mamadouh and van der Wusten (2013) focus on how this crisis has affected the political geographies of the European Union, according to the two dominant approaches within European affairs, namely intergovernamentalism and supranationalism. The authors identified three different periods according to the political reactions on the crisis. First, the reaction on the crisis resulted into a ‘sharper divide’ between the eurozone and the rest of the EU (Mamadouh & van der Wusten, 2013; 168), mainly due to the strong position of the UK against a new fiscal and economic addition to the EMU in the treaties of the EU, in order to repair the existing deficiencies in the context of the sovereign debt crisis. The second phase emerged based on an increasing role of national governments due to the incapability of the European institutions in order to play a decisive role in the negotiation of possible solutions. Last, they identified a period in which both the Commission and the European Council ‘made a comeback’ in setting the agenda within the EU. This matters because it demonstrates how multiple levels of governance within the EU shape the political reactions towards this crisis, creating different ways of representations of the EU itself: a dominant role of member-states in the decision-making process results into a perception of the EU as a mere collection of states, instead of a ‘union’.

Last but not least, Calániová (2013) goes even further by inquiring the way the crisis has led to “the emergence of Greeks as a significant Other to Europe and its implications for European identity” (Chalániová, 2013; 5). The author analyzes the emergence of the ‘Greek Other’: throughout the crisis, stereotypes on Greece appeared leading to a ‘process of differentiation’ which started to represent the Greek as Europe’s new Other. Greece is, according to Chalániová’s study, positioned as a distant and different place, drawing a boundary between the Greeks and ‘the Europeans’. This research appears as a sequel of these studies, as they confirm that the eurozone crisis has had and continues to have an influence on the different existing imaginations regarding the European Union, as discursive practices regarding the framing of the eurozone crisis (including its causes and its possible solutions) represent the European space as divided.

2.5 Research Question

Assuming that “European integration can be understood as a set of discursive practices that set boundaries for imaginations and articulations” (Moisio et al., 2012; 738), and that the Economic and Monetary Union, including a single currency, represents Europe’s deepest and most intense form of integration, the eurozone crisis has created an extraordinary scenario to study the existing discourses on the geopolitical imagination of the EU. The crisis has led to the redrawing of boundaries, dividing the EU into different categories according to economic, political and cultural characteristics. Media is an essential source of information regarding the development of the crisis (although the importance of political discourse should not be neglected), and it is therefore a ‘catalyst’ of representations of the EU which result into the construction of geopolitical imaginations. As has been said, discourses are the glasses through which we look at and understand the reality around us. They therefore also shape the framing of the eurozone crisis, leading to the representation of geopolitical imaginations of the EU, in the sense that they can define our perception of space. Therefore, this research is based on the following leading question:

“How is the geopolitical imagination of the European Union represented in the coverage of the eurozone crisis in Dutch and Portuguese media?”

The main objective is to study the geopolitical imagination of the EU as being represented within discourses produced and reproduced by media, having the eurozone crisis and its coverage as thematic background. In order to lead and organize the analysis of data, two sub-questions follow the main one:

1. How is the eurozone crisis covered and framed within Portuguese and Dutch media? 2. In what way is the geopolitical imagination of the EU represented in Dutch and

Portuguese media, according to the coverage of the eurozone crisis?

Besides, the second sub-question is constituted by two ideas which are based on the already described findings of other studies regarding the impacts and the consequences of the eurozone crisis for the imagined and political geographies of the European Union. These ideas have led to the following questions which will orient the second part of analysis:

a. Have Dutch and Portuguese media produced a framing of the EU as a collection of states, rather than as an integrated space?

3. M

In order to seek an answer for the questions raised in the previous chapter, discourse analysis is performed on articles collected from Dutch and Portuguese newspapers, which cover the eurozone crisis and related events. This chapter addresses this research method by, first of all, describing the process of collecting suitable empirical data, including the selection criteria for the newspaper articles. This is followed by a description and justification of the analytical framework used to analyze these articles, as to extract the relevant information given on the framing of the eurozone crisis and the representation of geopolitical imaginations. It finalizes by addressing other issues, such as possible limitations of the methodology chosen, the subjectivity of the researcher and ethical concerns.

3.1 The Search for Data

The empirical data for this research arose out of the discourse analysis of written newspaper articles of national Portuguese and Dutch newspapers. As has been said, this research aims at positioning itself within the field of critical geopolitics by applying a constructivist approach towards the imagined geographies of the EU. The research method applied here - discourse analysis - is based on the idea that imagined geographies are constructed through discourses, aiming at identifying the meanings provided and boundaries defined by them. The decision to use media as source of discourses is based on the acknowledgment of the importance of popular conceptions within geopolitical imaginations, and the particular role of media in providing structures and comprehensive frameworks when reporting the news. Although media is not the only influencing factor in this process, it is one of the main sources of geographical and geopolitical knowledge and therefore allows for general understandings of distant spaces and complex situations.

Figure 3.2 visualizes the linkage between the different elements of this research: the eurozone crisis as background, its media coverage and framing, the geopolitical imaginations of the EU and discourses. This research is conducted based upon the understanding that media, by constructing representations of the different actors and locations involved in the eurozone crisis, provides a way of framing this crisis, leading to the production and reproduction of geopolitical imaginations. Consequentially the coverage of the eurozone crisis by media

produces and reproduces geopolitical imaginations of the EU, whilst this process occurs necessarily within the boundaries of a discourse.

Figure 3.2. Media Coverage, Framing and the Geopolitical Imagination of the EU.

The units of analysis for this research are constituted by Portuguese and Dutch media. The decision to include both the Netherlands and Portugal derives from the idea that a simultaneous analysis of discourses embedded in quite varying contexts allows for a better understanding of the geopolitical imagination of the EU. This is driven by the conviction that studying the representation of the geopolitical imagination of the EU from two different vantage points leads to a broader and more complete analysis. It is hereby important to keep the issues addressed in the following chapter in mind, regarding the different impacts and experiences of the eurozone crisis in these two countries. The distinctive realities described in this chapter can possibly produce different results with respect to media discourses and, consequentially, with respect to the geopolitical imagination of the EU.

It thus becomes relevant as well as interesting to study this topic from these two perspectives simultaneously, in order not to produce conclusions which are biased towards one single reality, without representing the whole of the eurozone or the EU. Hereby I do not intend to claim that, by using Dutch and Portuguese media, this research allows for a fully comprehensive understanding of the geopolitical imagination of the EU. It does, however, allow for a more representative case-study and can thus improve the validity of the findings, as these can be compared according to national context. Practical matters were also involved in this decision: in order to perform an appropriate discourse analysis, complete fluency and understanding of the language in question is an absolute need to fully capture its explicit and implicit meanings. As I master both the Dutch and the Portuguese language in a native

Geopolitical Imaginations of the EU

The Eurozone Crisis

Media Coverage & Framing