The EU Foreign Policy: Discursive Impact and ’Actorness’. Analysis of the EU-Russia Negotiations over the Conflict in Georgia

Sammanfattning: This study is about rigorously motivating dynamics of the European Union – its discursive capacity to effectuate change as a sui generis actor in foreign policy. It builds on the case study of the conflict between Russia and Georgia, involvement in which proved to be one of the most successful diplomatic endeavors of the EU. It opened the door for a new political dimension to the east of its borders whilst effectuating positive change towards more inclusiveness and certain predictability with Russia. The analysis also looks broader on some new features of the EU foreign policy ‘actorness’ extracted from the empirical observations. It aims to disentangle counterintuitive interrelationships in interaction of the two political logics applying discourse analysis. It concludes that together with possibilities the unique nature of the EU consisting of 27 soft rationalities of its member states will always have to account for some contextual challenges. However, it does not render the EU as an actor impossible; rather it formulates its unique integrative framework.