Deutsche Einheit and Europäische Einigung: A Post-Structuralist Account of German National Identity Construction through Foreign Policy

Abstract: This thesis examines national identity in the context of the empirical case of German foreign policy. In this way, the relationship between identity and foreign policy is analyzed. The thesis does not focus on a specific scenario but rather aims at illustrating the development of the relationship by comparing the time periods of 1990-1994 and 2017-2019. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to answer the presiding question of how we can understand the relationship between German foreign policy-making and the formation of national identity seen within the context of its evolution since 1990. Subsequently, this thesis will take on the discursive approach of post-structuralism as well as its non-fixed conceptualization of identity. Furthermore, it will put forward the argument that identity is relational and discursive by demonstrating its constitutive and discursively constructed relationship to foreign policy. As a result, this paper presents the underlying structures of German foreign policy discourse that do not only indicate shifts but also construct German national identity. At the same time, the identity perception influences the country’s discourse on foreign policy by legitimizing specific objectives as well as general directions. While the discourse shows shifts in cases such as Othering, new framings of leadership and the ideas towards Europe, a certain continuity in regard to the German conceptualization of identity can be observed.