To Be or Not to Be a Normative Power: The EU’s Promotion of Human Rights and Democracy in Russia. Bruges Regional Integration & Global Governance Papers 2/2013

The ‘Normative Power Europe’ debate has been a leitmotif in the academic discourse for over a decade. Far from being obsolete, the topic is as relevant as when the term was first coined by Ian Manners in 2002.1 ‘To be or not to be a normative power’ is certainly one of the existential dilemmas in the foreign policy of the European Union. This paper, however, intends to move beyond the black-and-white debate on whether the European Union is a normative power and to make it more nuanced by examining the factors that make it such. Contrary to the conventional perception that the European Union is a necessarily ‘benign’ force in the world, it assumes that it has aspirations to be a viable international actor. Consequently, it pursues different types of foreign policy behaviour with a varying degree of normativity in them. The paper addresses the question of under what conditions the European Union is a ‘normative power’. The findings of the study demonstrate that the ‘normative power’ of the European Union is conditioned upon internal and external elements, engaged in a complex interaction with a decisive role played by the often neglected external elements.

The European Union and the Arms Trade Treaty: An Analysis of the EU’s Effectiveness in Multilateral Security Governance. Bruges Regional Integration & Global Governance Papers 3/2013

This paper examines the participation of the European Union (EU) in the multilateral negotiations of the UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). Given the EU’s declared commitment to effective multilateralism and dedication to act as a global security provider, the paper analyses to what extent the EU can be seen as an effective actor in supporting and promoting the ATT. It is argued that overall the EU was an effective player during the multilateral negotiations on the ATT, but the degree of its effectiveness varied along different dimensions. The EU was relatively successful in the achievement of its goals and in maintaining external cohesion during the negotiations, but it scored relatively low in its efforts to commit other major players to sign up to the ATT. The high level of institutional cooperation and the convergence of EU member states’ interests facilitated the EU’s effectiveness in the ATT negotiations, whereas the international context proved to be the major constraining factor.

Shifting Between Hegemony and Dominance? A Neo-Gramscian Analysis of the EU as a Structural Foreign Policy Actor: The Singular Case of the Cariforum-EU Economic Partnership Agreement. Bruges Regional Integration & Global Governance Paper 01/2014

The groundbreaking scope of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the European Union (EU) and Cariforum (CF) irrefutably marks a substantive shift in trade relations between the regions and also has far-reaching implications across several sectors and levels. Supplementing the framework of analysis of Structural Foreign Policy (SFP) with neo-Gramscian theory allows for a thorough investigation into the details of structural embeddedness based on the EU's historic directionality towards the Caribbean region; notably, encouraging integration into the global capitalist economy by adapting to and adopting the ideals of neoliberal economics. Whilst the Caribbean – as the first and only signatory of a ‘full’ EPA – may be considered the case par excellence of the success of the EPAs, this paper demonstrates that there is no cause-effect relationship between the singular case of the ‘full’ CF-EU EPA and the success of the EPA policy towards the ACP in general. The research detailed throughout this paper responds to two SFP-based questions: (1) To what extent is the EPA a SFP tool aimed at influencing and shaping the structures in the Caribbean? (2) To what extent is the internalisation of this process reflective of the EU as a hegemonic SFP actor vis-à-vis the Caribbean? This paper affirms both the role of the EU as a hegemonic SFP actor and the EPA as a hegemonic SFP tool. Research into the negotiation, agreement and controversy that surrounds every stage of the EPA confirmed that through modern diplomacy and an evolution in relations, consensus is at the fore of contemporary EU-Caribbean relations. Whilst at once dealing with the singular case of the Caribbean, the author offers a nuanced approach beyond 'EU navel-gazing' by incorporating an ‘outside-in’ perspective, which thereafter could be applied to EU-ACP relations and the North-South dialogue in general.

L'Union européenne face aux BRICS dans la gouvernance mondiale: Une réponse efficace? = The European Union facing the BRICS countries in world governance: an effective response? Bruges Regional Integration & Global Governance Paper 2/2014

Le présent travail se concentre sur deux principaux acteurs du monde en évolution, l'Union européenne (UE) et l'ensemble des pays BRICS, et le défi que posent collectivement ces derniers à la première sur la base de leurs poids économique et politique accrus dans le cadre de la gouvernance mondiale. On fait valoir que la doctrine d’un « multilatéralisme efficace » décrivant la position de l’UE sur la gouvernance mondiale est de plus en plus remise en cause par les BRICS dont l’approche repose sur un autre principe : celui d’un « multilatéralisme relationnel ». Afin de pouvoir analyser comment l’UE réagit à la confiance et la cohérence croissante des BRICS dans les instances internationales, ce travail examine la réponse de l’UE dans trois domaines de la gouvernance mondiale que sont le commerce, le changement climatique et la sécurité internationale. Ceci permet d’évaluer dans quelle mesure les différentes institutions européennes mettent en œuvre ce que ce travail qualifie de « réponse efficace » à la montée en puissance des BRICS. Au terme de l’analyse, cette étude s’attache à souligner que la réaction des institutions de l’UE à l'influence grandissante des BRICS sur la scène internationale ne peut être considérée comme efficace que dans le domaine du changement climatique.

The Border Management Programme in Central Asia: Explaining the European Union's Choice of Implementing Partners. Bruges Regional Integration & Global Governance Papers 3/2014

Between 2003 and 2014 the European Union’s (EU) Border Management Programme in Central Asia was implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). However, the latter’s implementing responsibilities have just come to an end, with the next phase of the programme to be implemented by an EU member state consortium. This paper seeks to explain why the EU chose the UNDP to implement the programme in the first place; why the programme was redelegated to the UNDP over successive phases; and why, in the end, the EU has opted for a member state consortium to implement the next phase of the programme. The paper will draw on two alternative accounts of delegation: the principal-agent approach and normative institutionalism. Ultimately, it will be argued that both the EU’s decision(s) to delegate (and redelegate) implementing responsibilities to the UNDP, and its subsequent decision to drop the organisation in favour of an EU member state consortium, were driven for the most part by a rationalist ‘logic of consequentiality’. At the same time, a potential secondary role of a normative institutionalist ‘logic of appropriateness’ – as a supplementary approach – will not be discounted.

Conflicting Role Conceptions: In Search of the European Union's Added Value for its Southern Neighbors. Bruges Regional Integration & Global Governance Paper 04/2014

Many scholars have analyzed the role of the European Union (EU) in its southern neighborhood by looking at the EU’s policy documents and strategies. As such, it is often argued that the EU is at best a useful partner in democratic reform and at worst an unsuccessful ‘normative power’. However, very few studies have analyzed the EU’s role from the recipients’ point of view: the southern neighboring countries themselves. This paper adopts an ‘outside-in approach’ and explores what the southern neighborhood countries believe the EU should be or do. On the basis of a set of 15 interviews with diplomats from the region and an analysis of 50 newspaper articles from the region on the EU’s relations with its southern neighborhood, this paper seeks to reveal the EU’s real ’added value’ for its southern Mediterranean partners. To what extent does the EU’s own perceived role in its southern neighborhood match the role conception of those countries? Based on the three case studies of Algeria, Jordan and Egypt, the paper finds that there is a clear divergence in role conceptions between the EU and its southern partners. While the EU sees itself as a ‘force for good’ and promoter of norms and democracy in the southern Mediterranean region, the three countries primarily believe that the EU perceives itself foremost as a provider of security and stability in the region, while they primarily expect it to act as a reliable partner for economic cooperation.

Paper Tiger or Game-Changer? Challenges of and Opportunities for EU Engagement with the Eurasian Economic Union. Bruges Regional Integration & Global Governance Papers (BRIGG) 1/2015.

The Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) started work on 1 January 2015. Considered as Russia’s response to the EU’s Eastern Partnership (EaP), it has been almost ignored in Brussels. However, with the Ukraine crisis and the deteriorating relations with Moscow, some European leaders have begun to reconsider Putin’s proposal for a region-to-region engagement. This paper tries to analyse under which conditions this could represent a long-term solution for a new European order. First, it is argued that the EEU is still far from being a credible international interlocutor. Second, Russia’s commitment to international trade rules and liberalization is questioned, whereas its geopolitical objectives seem predominant. EU engagement with the EEU in Ukraine would mean, in the short term, legitimizing Russia’s vision of a ‘bipolar Europe’ divided in spheres of influence. In the long run, prospects for inter-regional cooperation remain open, but the way to go is long and full of obstacles.

The European Union’s Regionalism Diplomacy in Africa: An English School Approach. Bruges Regional Integration & Global Governance Papers [BRIGG] #2.2015

This paper proposes an innovative analytical approach to regionalism promotion by the European Union (EU) in Africa. The approach pursues the dual aim of accommodating African approaches to regionalism in EU foreign policy analysis and of expounding the centrality of diplomacy in negotiating a renewed EU-African Union relationship. The concept of ‘regionalism diplomacy’ brings the negotiated and contentious nature of EU regionalism promotion to the fore. The paper espouses contemporary English School thinking about ‘international society’ and argues that EU regionalism promotion cannot just remain the expansion of European regional international society onto Africa. Instead, EU regionalism diplomacy should acknowledge and incorporate the anticolonial pan-African roots of African regionalism. Overall, the EU should seek a more diplomacy-focused, negotiated Africa-Europe interregional relationship. The paper concludes with an outline of a pan-African approach to regionalism diplomacy and avenues for future research.

A Progressive Promoter of Women’s Rights? Comparing EU Policy towards the ACP and the EMP Countries. Bruges Regional Integration & Global Governance Paper #3.2015

The paper offers an analysis of the degree to which two different external policy frameworks of the European Union (EU) have institutionalised and operationalised the EU’s commitment to women’s rights and gender equality. It compares the EU’s relations with the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries with the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP), using Senegal and Morocco as case studies. Although the comparison shows some resemblances between the two cases, as a whole women’s rights seem more deeply embedded in the institutional framework of EU-ACP relations than that of Euro-Mediterranean relations, and this together with the EU’s approach towards implementation has enabled its women’s rights policy to be slightly more influential on the ground in Senegal than in Morocco. However, both EU-ACP and EMP frameworks have their limits, reflecting the more general problem of inconsistency between the EU’s declaratory objectives and its actual promotion of human rights.

Latin American South-South integration and cooperation: from a regional public goods perspective

Includes bibliography

The European Union's promotion of regional economic integration in Southeast Asia: Norms, markets or both? Bruges Political Research Paper No. 25/May 2012

The EU‘s external action includes a preference for regional interlocutors and a tendency to promote regionalism. This work concentrates on the southeast Asian area and it aims at investigating the nature of EU‘s promotion of ASEAN regional integration. The EU‘s ideas and practices of regionalism as well as the single market experience influence the EU‘s international action. The power deriving from the EU‘s institutionalized market is used by the Union in a normative way to diffuse the EU‘s ideas and principles, advance the EU‘s interests and spread its model of economic integration through political dialogue, development cooperation and preferential trade arrangements. This action seems to result in a certain diffusion of the EU‘s ideas and practices in southeast Asia as well as in a subsequent reappropriation and redefinition of external inputs by ASEAN.

A harmonização do direito penal econômico em face da integração regional na África Austral

A dissertação analisa as possibilidades e apresenta os pressupostos para harmonização do Direito Penal Económico na África Austral. Nela trabalha-se com a hipótese de que o referido processo é inexorável no âmbito da integração regional. Para o efeito, são abordadas questões criminologicas, exigências político-criminais bem como dogmáticas que permitam propor a referida harmonização legislativas, na perspectiva do direito a constituir. É destacada a pertinência de se empreenderem reformas nas legislações penais dos Estados-membros, com vista a atender aos ilícitos econômicos, considerando que a acentuada disparidade legislativa é um factor que, de certa forma, pode cercear as acções que têm sido realizadas no âmbito da prevenção e combate a criminalidade econômica na região. Disserta-se sobre as peculiaridades do delinquente e especificidades da delinquência econômica ao nível da SADC e, seguidamente, se descreve a forma de concretização da almejada harmonização, tendo como base dois estudos realizados sobre a matéria e igual número de modelos, os quais priorizam dois eixos, designadamente: o eixo dos delitos e o das penas; sendo que no primeiro descata-se a necessidade de uniformizar não só as condutas delituosas a tipificar, mas, sobretudo a técnica para sua tipificação. Como segundo eixo, aborda-se a pertinência de se aproximar as medidas de reação penal as sanções penais. Por fim, em sede da conclusão realça-se a existência de fundamentos e requisitos dogmáticos, político-criminais e criminológicos que permitem realizar a harmonização do Direito penal econômico na SADC, como medida necessária para a prevenção e represão da criminalidade econômica transnacional, intrínsecamente ligada aos processos da globalização e de integração regional em curso.

Integração regional no leste asiático: ASEAN, ASEAN+3 e a disputa pela liderança regional

A presente dissertação tem como objetivo analisar as relações internacionais no Leste Asiático tendo como foco principal a pesquisa do fenômeno da integração regional e da disputa pela liderança na região através dos mecanismos de integração, por suas principais potências locais, China e Japão. A Associação dos Países do Sudeste Asiático (ASEAN) e seu desdobramento estrutural, a ASEAN+3 que inclui os dez países membros da associação além dos três países mais influentes do Nordeste Asiático, China, Japão e Coréia do Sul, são o objeto da pesquisa, uma vez que por serem os principais mecanismos de integração da região, estão mais sujeitos a vivenciar a concorrência chinesa e japonesa pelo papel de principal ator e líder regional. A crescente importância dos mecanismos de integração do Leste Asiático decorrente da maior integração que vem adquirindo, uma integração com particularidades únicas e bem distintas da União Europeia, traz o aumento da representatividade da região no mundo e de seus países membros dentro da região. Este tipo de destaque adquirido por este padrão de arcabouço regional, que proporciona crescimento das trocas comerciais na região e de seu desenvolvimento, passou a atrair as potências regionais por se constituir em um importante e interessante instrumento de política regional. Os Estados japonês e chinês possuem problemas históricos de longa data, o que traz maior desconfiança e instabilidade para a região, e aumenta a competição entre os dois atores por maior influência nos grupos de integração regional, acreditando ser possível através desta manobra alcançar a liderança regional. Deste modo, o que esta dissertação pretende mostrar é: a forma como japoneses e chineses se utilizam dos mecanismos de integração regional com a ASEAN e a ASEAN+3 em evidência para perpetuar sua política na região como forma de alcançar o poder; apresentar quais os objetivos, benefícios e interesses em se tornar o líder regional; e apontar qual país tem maior potencial em se tornar líder e através de que tipo de liderança.

Democracia, política externa e integração regional: um estudo comparativo das trejetórias de Argentina e Brasil

Este trabalho focaliza os fenômenos da politização da política externa e da luta pela democratização do seu processo decisório no que se refere às políticas deintegração regional de Argentina e Brasil, nos âmbitos do MERCOSUL e da ALCA. O objetivo principal é analisar, por um lado, os processos de liberalização política edemocratização do regime ocorridos nestes dois países entre os anos 1970 e 1980,e, por outro, as relações entre a incorporação do regionalismo às respectivas estratégias de inserção internacional e a politização da política externa, desde o finalda Guerra Fria. Considerando as controvérsias em torno do conceito de democracia,são discutidas as principais estratégias de análise encontradas na políticacomparada e as três principais perspectivas teóricas contemporâneas (realismo,pluralismo e deliberativismo). A análise empírica concentra-se em dois processos: a criação do MERCOSUL, desde suas origens até o final da fase de transição (1991-1994), e as negociações para a criação da ALCA, desde o seu lançamento até a suspensão (1994 2005). Argumenta-se que apesar da incorporação do regionalismo haver gerado um aumento da politização doméstica em torno da política externa, isto não significou, no entanto, qualquer avanço no sentido da democratização das decisões nestes âmbitos específicos