A genealogy of the normative identity of the European Union and its origins in development assistance: a post-structuralist analysis

Abstract

This dissertation examines the normative identity of the European Union. It
posits the following research question: How does the EU use development aid
to establish its normative identity? Development assistance is a significant
element in the EU’s normative identity, because it allows the EU to include the
clauses of political conditionality which have a normative basis and therefore
serve as the foundation for its normative identity. The theoretical approach of
this work is Foucauldian discourse analysis, used simultaneously with
deconstruction. The results indicate that the EU uses development assistance as
a mean via which it establishes its normative identity in the global community.
The aim of this dissertation is to construct a genealogy of development
assistance in order to explain how the EU benefits from development assistance
in regards to its identity. The discourse shows that the systematic portrayal of
developing countries as inferiors, and the historically strong position of Europe
on the international arena, allow for the efficient usage of disciplinary power in
the context of development assistance in establishing the normative identity of
the EU.