Europe's Decline: Discourses of Weakness as a means of Mobilising Resources (A05)

• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2015 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 230856760

A discourse of weakness with the formulaic ascription of the “Demise of Europe” not only was the main feature of discourses on Europe up until the beginning of WWII, it also accompanied the founding of the European Economic Union in 1957 and in subsequent decades remained the determining reference point for the legitimation and de-legitimation of this newly erected supranational legal construction. Discourses of weakness related to the question were followed by appellations demanding that existing resources needed to be mobilized in order to avert a presumed demise. The project for this reason looks into conjunctures of discourses of weakness. Taking into account a non-European (Israeli) discourse will help to understand how such discourses impacted on the organization and the structure of European resource regimes.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1095: Discourses of Weakness and Resource Regimes
• Applicant Institution: Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
• Project Head: Professor Dr. Christoph Cornelißen