Irish Neutrality vs. European Values: Affective Polarisartion in Irish Elite Discourses in the Context of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

The paper analyses the dominant elite political and media discourses on EU affairs in Ireland in the context of Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It relies on extensive quantitative and qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews incorporating innovative Q methodology with representatives of Irish political and media elites conducted in November 2022-May 2023. We focus especially on the evident tensions and affective polarisation in elite discourses around the EU's normative power and Ireland's tradition of military neutrality. We evaluate key trends and polarising factors shaping the dominant elite discourses about the European project in Ireland in the context of Russia's full-scale invasion and discuss the interview findings focusing on several major themes. These include Ireland's perceived mutual benefit relationship with the EU, Irish elites' views on shared European values and the EU's normative power. We then focus on the tensions inherent in the predominantly pragmatic and optimistic attitudes of Irish elites towards the EU and the way Russia's invasion of Ukraine has engendered renewed debates about common EU security and defence policy, leading to greater affective polarisation of elite debates about Ireland's historical military neutrality and non-aligned status. We analyse how these concerns about neutrality at times clash with stated support for EU values and for the EU's global democratic agenda in Irish elites' affective perceptions of Europeanisation. The study relies on data collected as part of the Horizon2020 project "Mediatized EU: Mediatized Discourses on Europeanization and their Representations in Public Perceptions" examining media discourses, public opinions and elite views on Europeanisation from a cross-country perspective.