Europe beyond Brussels: an analysis of everyday discourses in the EU agencies

Abstract

Using insights from the theory of discursive psychology, and a combined methodology of quantitative and qualitative techniques, this dissertation investigates the everyday discourses of individuals working in three “European Community Agencies”. Two main issues were studied: a) how individuals in the agencies talk about “working together” and b) how individuals construct the roles of the EU agencies. The research brought to the fore a variety of interpretative repertoires concerning the notion of “working together” and the role of the agencies. Furthermore, the variation that was observed was shown to parallel scientific discourses about Europe and culture, as well as the more specialised literature on the EU agencies. In this way, both the lay and the scientific discourses were structured on similar arguments. Thus, it was shown that scientific discourse informs and is informed by lay discourse, a finding that is consistent with a discursive psychology approach. However, the analysis also identified innovative discourses that are emerging in an attempt to transcend the ideological dilemmas that pervade both the lay and the scientific discourses. In this connection, one of the major claims advanced in this dissertation is that focusing on the norms and expectations produced in an agency’s organisational setting through statistical techniques as well as the qualitative analysis of the agencies’ everyday discourses can provide illuminating insights on questions such as identity, culture and issues of political power which are extremely pertinent to the broader European integration process.