Representing Europe in Times of Crisis

Rhetorical Construction of “Europe” in the Parliamentary Discussions Regarding the Voting of the Three Memoranda in Greece

Abstract

This study focuses on the exploration of the political discourse regarding the voting of the three Memoranda in Greece, at a period characterized by the concept of "crisis", that triggered violent processes of redefining the social environment. As Greek society was under the strain of European stability, it was called upon to fully comply with the European imperatives of "development" and "competitiveness". In this context, the political discourse formed central representations and each political party tried to increase its sphere of influence. This study approaches the notion that the representations in the political discourse are formed under terms of strategic communication. Further, such representations aspire to influence four parallel audiences: the intra-party audience, the intra-parliamentary audience, the wider intrastate social audience and the international audience (European partners, main European political actors, international organizations, political actors and the media).  To investigate the way in which the Greek political system constructs the representation of Europe in the context of the Memoranda, the official parliamentary transcripts regarding the voting of the first, second and third memoranda were analysed. The analysis was based on both the quantitative and the qualitative approach, using the Iramuteq open source software (Ratinaud, 2009). The central findings of this thesis underline the way in which the Greek political system established Greece's relationship with Europe in terms of dependence, how Greece gradually complied with European imperatives and internalized the concept of "Debt".