Connected in freedom? Reconstructing a foundational value in EU and US foreign policy discourses

Abstract

<div>The ideal of freedom has historically instituted the Transatlantic Community of Val-</div><div>ues spanning the USA and Europe. Given the framework of liberal crises that cur-</div><div>rently dominates Western mental maps, it is crucial to contemplate what has hap-</div><div>pened to this legacy of freedom and, consequently, to the very foundations of this </div><div>value community. To achieve this, we draw on the theoretical debates on freedom to </div><div>construct a novel conceptual framework of the potential uses of the notion in politi-</div><div>cal discourses. This scaffold is then utilised as a tool to analyse, and ultimately com-</div><div>pare, the employment of freedom in a selection of documents produced by the lead-</div><div>erships of the EU and the USA since the turn of the millennium.</div>