"European Neighbourhood Policy as Identity Politics"

[From the introduction]. In this paper we will first clarify how we conceive of the theoretical connection between identity and foreign policy. Secondly we will briefly survey the dominant ideas of European identity. We then turn to the textual analysis investigating first the semantics of Neighbourhood at work in the ENP. This section will seek to clarify how neighbourhood -in the rethoric around the ENP - is positioned in various relations of difference to other actors in the international sphere, and thereby ascribed a certain meaning. Finally we turn to the ‘performance of European Identity’ in the ENP arguing here that the discursive framing of Europe’s actions within the ENP, although drawing on well-established ideas of European identity, reiterates these in a way which fundamentally reframe the identity of the European subject in the discourse