Abstract

At the time of this submission in March 2023, the Russo-Ukrainian war has been ongoing for thirteen months, though the Annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in February 2014 marks the beginning of the modern conflict. International actors have attempted to mitigate the violence, including Emmanuel Macron, current president of the French Republic, who was in regular contact with Russian president Vladimir Putin, globally portraying France as a vocal political mediator. Using the current Russian aggression towards Ukraine as a linguistically charged case and adopting theories of Constructivism and the English School of IR to understand how perceptions of self and others occur in global politics, this project seeks to observe identity in a discursively constructed world. Seven speeches by former and current French presidents François Hollande and Emmanuel Macron, respectively, have been rhetorically analyzed for characterizations of Russian and Ukrainian identity as well as for projections of French self-conception. This research uncovers French identification as a self-defined global leader of democratic and moral correctness, using a position of perceived political power to establish identities of states around them and portray themselves as a communicative actor, disregarding personal flaws to take a paternal position in the international system.

Advisor

Duval, Marion

Second Advisor

Kujala, William

Department

French and Francophone Studies; Global and International Studies

Disciplines

International Relations | Other French and Francophone Language and Literature | Political Theory

Keywords

Rhetorical Analysis, Social Constructivism, English School of International Relations, Russia, Ukraine, France, Emmanuel Macron, Francois Hollande

Publication Date

2023

Degree Granted

Bachelor of Arts

Document Type

Senior Independent Study Thesis

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© Copyright 2023 Adeline Hennebury