External Contestations of Europe: Russia and Turkey as Normative Challengers?

This article aims to explore how Russia and Turkey contest the EU's actorness in their shared neighbourhoods and beyond. By adopting the theoretical lens that exerting actorness requires justification and by conceptualizing contestation as an inherently relational and discursive process, it utilizes qualitative content analysis to trace the discursive justifications that are employed by Russia and Turkey in delegitimizing the EU in their shared neighbourhoods and at global forums. The article finds that while norm-based contestations of the EU's actorness are central to both cases, there is a marked difference between the two with respect to the type and substance of normative contestation. It also shows that normative contestation in international relations need not be limited to the contestation of norms, but that it can also entail norm-based contestation of contenders' actorness in international politics by targeting their international legitimacy.