AbstractsPolitical Science

This paper questions, with a point of origin in Becks cosmopolitan ideal; how and to what extent is it possible to outline different tensions between the articulations and the practices of the EU concerning the readmission agreement with Ukraine. In able to outline these tensions, we have created our own cosmopolitan ideal, while being highly influenced by Beck’s cosmopolitan vision. We have summarised the core values within our cosmopolitan ideal in the following way: global awareness, global responsibility, respect for all human kind and mutual recognition throughout culture, nation, race and gender. In our analysis part 1, we have analysed whether our cosmopolitan values are articulated within the official EU documents. In order to analyse how and to what extent the EU articulates cosmopolitanism within the official documents, we have used a pragmatic discourse analysis, where five discourses have been found; a discourse of cooperation, a discourse of transparency, a discourse of international obligations, a discourse of security and a discourse of the improvement of Ukraine’s development. We concluded within this analysis part 1 that the articulated discourses within the official EU documents were highly embedded within our cosmopolitan ideal. We have in this sense, concluded that the EU articulates global awareness and global responsibility in a high degree, concerning the case of Ukraine. In our analysis part 2, we have analysed whether EU’s cosmopolitan articulations holds ground on a practical level (i.e. what happens in practice). We have, within each articulated discourse, analysed whether or not the individual articulated discourses comply with the practical level. In the analysis part 2, we discovered that security and border control seemed to be the main focus behind EU’s activities, which highly contradicted our cosmopolitan ideal. We concluded, that within the readmission agreement the EU is not reflecting the articulated cosmopolitan values, which it within the articulatory practice. Throughout our analysis, we found a clear gap between the cosmopolitan values, which the EU articulates, and what in fact happens on a practical level. We therefore argue that the cosmopolitan ideal is not fully embedded within the practical level concerning the case of Ukraine.