Hybrid hegemonic masculinity of the EU before and after the Arab Spring: a gender analysis of Euro-Mediterranean security relations

In the academic literature on EU–southern Mediterranean relations, a focal point of neglect has been the gendered dimension of Euro-Mediterranean relations. This article argues that the Euro-Mediterranean space has been formed within the gendered global West/non-West relations with the purpose of promoting the West's security interests. Euro-Mediterranean security relations, thus, embody a gendered power hierarchy between the hybrid hegemonic masculinity of the EU (bourgeois-rational and citizen-warrior) and the subordinate (both feminized and hypermasculinized) southern neighbourhood. In addition, it shows that following the Arab Spring the EU has been determined to maintain the status quo by reconstructing these gendered power relations. This gender analysis contributes to the literature on Euro-Mediterranean relations through its specific focus on the (re)construction processes of gendered identities within the West/non-West context in tandem with the EU's competing notions of security

Migrant encounters with neo-colonial masculinity: producing European sovereignty through emotions

EU/ropean political community's reaction to irregular migrants is ambivalent. On the one hand, mi-grants are produced as people to be pitied, rescued and saved. On the other hand, they are feared, despised and left to die. The article looks at this ambivalence from a gender perspective and asks how sovereign masculinities are produced through emotional performances in the politics of migration con-trol and management. It will be argued that emotions such as fear, disgust, and compassion are per-formed in the biopolitical security governance of irregular migration by producing a ‘socially abject’ life as its object. This is a life that is to be killed, despised, and saved. Encounters between the irregular migrant and a European border security actor constitute a neo-colonial masculinity. During the moment of the encounter with the other’s life, sovereignty is produced through emotional performances of border security actors. The discussion concludes with illustrations of how racialized bodies and lives are produced as objects of fear, disgust and compassion by producing the European neo-colonial masculin-ity. The article speaks to the debates in the literature of masculinities in global politics, emotions and politics, and critical border studies

A gender view of the Arab uprisings

A gender view of the Arab uprising

Women’s movements within Euro-Mediterranean Politics: Necessity of going beyond ‘the Arab woman’

This handbook provides an overview of the political processes that shape the Mediterranean region in the contemporary context

Is the EU offloading future migration issues to the "southern neighbourhood"? Thinking environmental migration in relation to externalisation

This report, prepared for the Foresight project Migration and Global Environmental Change, aims to study an important factor that has the potential to affect environmentally induced migration (EIM) in the Mediterranean: the externalisation of migration control policies adopted at the European Union (EU) level. The main aim of the report is to explore the externalisation–EIM nexus in the southern Mediterranean region (specifically in North Africa). To this aim, possible areas of interaction between two processes will be discussed by providing insight about the tools of externalisation. Based on this discussion about EIM in the Mediterranean, four future scenarios will be outlined

World security: towards a ‘local’ research agenda

World security: towards a ‘local’ research agend

“Sofa and Facebook or tent and Syntagma”: understanding global resistance movements from Syntagma to Tahrir

This article proposes a conceptual guideline with the objective of understanding the political, economic and social complexities of contemporary street/square protests. It will be argued that contemporary protest movements can be understood from a conceptual perspective that effectively integrates individuals (their minds and bodies) and spaces to the approach of “multitude”. This guideline consists of three moves: conceptualizing individualistic dimension; space dimension; and collective dimension. In the first section, resisting individuals as cognitive and material beings with the acknowledgement of their multiple subjectivities will be discussed. As the second pillar of the movements, the relationship between resisting individuals and space of resistance will be unpacked. It will be highlighted that the contemporary resistance movements develop a novel relationship with the space they occupy by respatializing it as “home of resistance”. Finally, the multitude approach will be discussed in relation to the radical democratic approach in order to conceptualize the collective dimension of the movements

Trauma, Emotions and Memory in World Politics:The Case of the European Union’s Foreign Policy in the Middle East Conflict

This article focuses on the impact of emotions on the European Union (EU)’s international identity and agency in the context of the memory of trauma. Emotions are understood as performances through which an actor expresses itself to others while constructing its identity, creating its agency, and potentially affecting the social order. It is argued that the memory of trauma is translated into EU foreign policy practice through emotional performances of EU representatives. Empirically, we explore this impact in relation to the EU’s engagement in the Israel-Palestinian prolonged conflict that has many underlying emotions linked with past traumatic experiences. By doing so, we aim to instigate a discussion between the emotions literature in International Relations and the European Union studies literature to nuance understanding of the politics of emotions that increasingly constrain what kind of a global actor the EU actually is or can becom

The EU's proxy war on refugees

For decades, European Union (EU) member states have fought an illegal proxy war – a form of state crime – against refugees and migrants, far beyond EU external borders. Fatalities make this proxy war equivalent to international classifications of war. To justify this war, migrants have progressively been reclassified by the EU as “illegal” or criminal. This article situates the proxy war within wider deterrence-based EU migration policies. Examples like the 2008–2009 Italy–Libya deal and 2016 EU–Turkey deal show the high price paid by refugees, minorities and the damage to the EU’s own stability and reputation. Forcibly confining people at “holding points” along migratory routes, expelling people to unsafe countries and raising barriers to legal movement, the violence of the proxy war became more visible in 2015. We conclude that far from counteracting the dynamics of mass displacement, the proxy war may have contributed to the recent crisis of refugee reception in Europe