This aim of this paper is to analyse how the myth of exceptionalism has been used by EU élites to legitimate the European project, using the case study of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Whilst a number of political myths exist within the EU, and particularly within EU élite discourses, one that is particularly understudied and mis-characterised in EU studies is that of the myth of exceptionalism. Moreover, from understandings provided by post-structuralist discourse theory (PDT) and the political myth literature more broadly, political myths are particularly significant for processes of legitimation during moments of 'crisis'. As it is in these moments where political elites can re-produce narratives about why a political community was formed, as well as the reasons for its continued existence. Therefore, using the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a case study, this paper will conduct a discourse analysis of speeches made by key supranational EU elite actors during the 'crisis'. In doing so, this paper will lay out an understanding of precisely how these actors use the myth of exceptionalism to construct widely held understandings of both the past, present, and future of Europe, that simultaneously provide a contextualised rationale for why the European project should continue, as well as moral justifications for the EU's actions and continued role in international affairs.

My paper theorizes about the role that the legacies of war play in European politics. As “war legacies”, it defines the traumatic experience of wars and their present political interpretations. It looks at how these interpretations impact states as well as people and with what consequences for European integration. I will first focus on the state level and try to understand how war legacies translate into the EU’s foreign policy behavior, as well as member states’decisions to intervene in the periphery, such as in Ukraine and the Middle East. Secondly, I will examine the individual level and analyse how war legacies impact ordinary people’s political attitudes and national attachments, as well as their relations to other victim groups. On both levels, I argue that war legacies impact European politics: on the level of states, they shape foreign policy behavior, and on the level of individuals, they affect people’s national attachments and their visions of Europe’s future.

After 75 years of democracy, Italy continues to grapple with its recent past in the political, social, and cultural spheres. Its experience of Fascism under Mussolini, its dual participation in the Second World War, and the continuous and still existent connections between the ideological factions of the 1930s-1940s and now render the country a rich case for the study of both memory and radical populism. The specificity of Italian history and memory have often made the country look like an outlier, shaped by circumstances difficult to compare with those of other states’. The paper we present here argues that Italian mnemonic politics in past years are in reality a valuable source of information about the kind of mnemonic discourses that are arising in other Western European countries, given the increasingly polarised and populist European landscape. With our analysis of political communication put forward by Fratelli d’Italia through official channels in the past five years, we develop a comprehensive framework of mnemonic tools, both explicit and underlying. We then cross-study these Italian mnemonic tools with the discourse of other right-wing Western European countries where the far-right is also on the rise, to see whether and how they circulate, are co-opted and used within other contexts. Given that populist actors and leaders tend to behave similarly with regards to communication across various regions of the world, our paper opens the conversation about how these discourses transit and thus may be contributing (and to some extent even radicalising) the crisis of Western European liberal democracy.

Social identity theory suggests that an external threat, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, can increase identification with a group and foster a shared sense of identity. While initial research has shown that the shock of Russian aggression positively affects support for the European Union (EU) among European citizens on average, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of how variation in threat perceptions relates to identity-based support for the EU. Using survey data from 16 countries collected just five weeks after the invasion, we show an increase in identity-related EU support among those most concerned about the Russian threat. By applying machine learning techniques and a causal forest algorithm, we further reveal the heterogeneity of this relationship. Individuals with an exclusive national identity, who otherwise express little sense of pride in belonging to the EU, register a much larger increase in European identification in response to the Russian threat. Notably, this effect is particularly pronounced among respondents from Central and Eastern Europe. By highlighting that even individuals with an exclusive national identity can be swayed to feel attached to the EU in times of crisis, our study contributes to understanding the complex nature of identity-based support for the EU.