Comparison of the Discourse of Europe in Ukraine and in the EU

This paper presents the results of a study on the discourse of Europe in Ukraine (among the pro-European movement) and the European Union (EU). I argue that the relations between the EU and its neighbours (and Ukraine is the biggest potential applicant for joining the Union) and the Europeanization affects on them it is necessary not to concentrate merely on possible institutional changes but take ideational factors into consideration as well. The concept of public sphere developed by J. Habermas is applied in the study. Public sphere can be defined as the social space where ideas and identities are being formed and developed by the means of the discourses. Due to the scope of the paper I concentrated on one of the discourses that exist both in Ukraine and the EU, namely the discourse of Europe. For Ukraine only the discourse among the pro-European movement was analysed by the means of frame and content analysis of the media and interviews with the representatives of the pro-European movement. The study of the discourse of self-identification in Europe is based on investigations made by other researchers. The empirical ambition of the paper is to compare the discourses of Europe inside Europe and in the neighbouring country. The theoretical ambition is to prove the importance of the study of ideational factors in relations between the EU and its neighbours.