Friend or Foe? Post-colonial Perceptions of the European Union’s Trade Identity in Vietnamese and Indonesian Media

The EU continues to be a formidable power through trade, concluding trade agreements with countries of the Global North and South, including with formerly colonised countries. In the context of the latter group, the EU's problematic colonial past has increasingly been recognised as influencing perceptions of the EU as a trading partner. Specific for the EU's normative trade agreements are attempts to combine economic interests with soft dialogue seeking cooperation in the field of labour and environment through specific chapters in its trade agreements. Depending on where one stands, this mechanism can be viewed as benevolent friend- or predatory foe. This research dissertation steps into this debate by analysing perceptions of the EU in the context of its trade agreements with two formerly colonised countries: Indonesia and Vietnam. For this, the project adopts a hermeneutic discourse analysis to uncloak how latent embedments of the colonial experience in Vietnam's and Indonesia's post-colonial national identities influence perceptions of trade agreement negotiations with the EU on the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (concluded in 2018) and EU-Indonesia Free Trade Agreement (continuously negotiated).For the EU's internal audience, the trade-labour-environment nexus has been a crucial legitimizing aspect for the continued pursuit of a neoliberal trade agenda. This performative narrative builds on a distinction between the EU and the Member States' past colonial ambitions. The EU now acts benevolently, i.e. the EU acts responsibly and ethically, to peacefully ensure the world's well-being and promote human rights and democracy. The EU's external audience has presented more scepticism towards the EU as a friend in its trade relations, i.e. the benevolence of the EU's trade identity. Building on memories of colonialism enshrined in their national identity, the EU's trade-labour-environment nexus has also been viewed as a foe or predatory. From the viewpoint of the trad
Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales
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