The Politicization of a Security Culture: A Historical Analysis of the European Parliament’s Reaction to Russian Disinformation Regarding the 2014 Annexation of Crimea and the European Elections of 2019

Abstract

Over the past few years, disinformation has regained its significance in academic and societal debate. Similarly, the Russian use of disinformation in relation to its illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 put disinformation on the radar of the European Parliament (EP). By analyzing the EP’s response to the Crimean case and to disinformation related to the 2019 European elections, this thesis shows that as a security culture, the EP gained a deeper understanding of disinformation since 2014. However, at the same time its response to the threat became politicized. A historical overview of Russian political culture (858-2019) and disinformation (1903-2019) is used to contextualize the two cases and to show how crucial the use of disinformation was in Russian ideology, and how important it thus was for the EP to find an effective strategy to counter it. The thesis suggests, however, that the politicized nature of the EP’s security culture made it more difficult to effectively identify and counter the threat. This thesis’ contribution to the academic debate, then, is twofold: firstly, it implies that a healthy security culture must be able to learn from history in order to deal with contemporary threats. Secondly, by being the first to use the security cultures framework on the EP, it provides the groundwork for further research into the EP’s security culture.