Emotions and memories of peace and war in EU defence policy

In the wake of an increasing interest in the study of the role of historical memories in policymaking, this article explores how emotions help understand the impact of memory politics on processes of policy argumentation and more generally, on policymaking. Taking the presence of the words ‘peace’ and ‘war’ as the primary focus, this paper analyzes the connection between memories of peace and war and emotions, and how this link has shaped identity-building processes and dynamics of public policy justification. Data collected includes European Parliament (EP) plenary debates about defence published between 1998 and 2022. We show that memories of peace triggering positive emotions have contributed to the development or consolidation of the EU identity as a peace actor. We also show how memories of (mainly) war can be used in processes of policy argumentation and justification.