Critical discourse analysis in analysing European Union foreign policy: Prospects and challenges

Abstract

This article discusses the potential of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) for the study of EU foreign policy and argues that CDA can provide a systematic way of studying discourses on EU foreign policy through the refined linguistic and argumentative tools that it offers. The article first outlines the main theoretical premises of CDA and its one particular variant, the discourse-historical approach, and then presents a discussion on its analytical and methodological toolkit. After discussing the various ways in which EU foreign policy texts can be subject to CDA, the article concludes with the theoretical challenges posed by CDA, particularly regarding its relationship with poststructuralist approaches to foreign policy.