Year: 2026
Type: dissertation
Abstract: In the past couple of years, it has become abundantly clear that something has changed when it comes to EU enlargement. Many leaders have moved to describe enlargement – a process that long suffered from fatigue and significant blockades – as an imperative. In hopes of understanding the changes we have seen, this study aims to investigate elite rhetoric on enlargement between 2019 and 2025. Using the Copenhagen School as its theoretical foundation, central communications from the European Commission as well as from the governments of Spain, Estonia, and Luxembourg were examined for evidence of attempting to securitise enlargement rhetoric. The importance of such attempts, and their capacity to unlock exceptional action moving enlargement forward, is shown by the study of existing literature on previous post-Cold War rounds of enlargement. This study finally succeeds in showing that a multitude of actors have indeed returned to securitising attempts in relation to the EU’s enlargement policy, particularly amongst European Commission and Estonian actors. This, however, without managing to install such rhetoric as the dominant understanding of future rounds of enlargement yet as is shown by the relative absence of such rhetoric from Luxembourgish actors. The study concludes that we remain in in the middle of a process that could still go either way.
Author: O´Brien, Paul
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7142576432
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