A compelling narrative to prompt unity: an analysis of the President of the Commission’s speeches on the Ukrainian war

Unlike what happened during the events that led to the annexation of Crimea, the 2022 invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation was met by a united front from the European Union (EU). Considering that the EU’s unity record in foreign policy issues is far from perfect, we argue that the President of the Commission’s policy entrepreneurship (Kingdon, 1984) was key to craft this unity. More specifically, we argue that Ursula von der Leyen purposefully constructed a policy narrative designed to prompt Member States’ support for the Commission’s strong condemnation of the invasion and subsequent action to assist Ukraine. The underlying assumption is that narrative i) is an important part of our cognitive toolkit (Fludernik, 2006; Phelan, 2008; Ryan, 2007), ii) has an heuristic and methodological potential to understand policy change (McBeth et al., 2007; Schlaufer et al., 2022), iii) and has a very effective persuasive dimension (Avraamidou e Osborne, 2009; Dalshtrom, 2014; Fisher, 1986). Building on literature on policy narratives and policy change, we use narrative analysis to analyse the speeches issued by the President of the Commission on the Ukrainian war between February 2022 to October 2023. Our goal is to answer two chief research questions: Do these speeches feature the main elements of a compelling policy narrative? What discursive strategies and narrative elements did the President of the Commision used to prompt support for the Commission’s policy choices? To answer these two research questions, two complementary content analysis methods will be used: narrative analysis and discourse analysis. The former allow us to identify the structuring elements of the narrative (Herman, 2009; Hogan, 2008): setting, plot, character, and moral (comprising cultural values and political principles), and the latter to verify the main discursive strategies used in von der Leyen’s speeches.