We need to talk: Trump's electoral rhetoric and the role of transatlantic dialogues

Trump’s stinging electoral rhetoric regarding Europe has profoundly challenged the foundations of the transatlantic relations. Exploring the link between electoral rhetoric and US foreign policy, this article focusses on a key feature of transatlantic policy-making, that is, the multi-levelled architecture of European Union (EU)–US dialogues, involving diplomats, legislators, and civil society. While research shows that dialogues help promote cooperation, their relevance and specific functions in times of elections have not been explored so far. To what extent do dialogical interactions change at the approach of elections and right afterwards? Why do dialogues keep going, in spite of fierce presidential rhetoric suggesting otherwise? To fill this gap, this article explores the EU–US dialogues following Trump’s election to determine the extent to which these dialogues endorse new functions that have so far been overlooked. Adopting a socio-psychological approach, it shows that one of the functions that dialogue fulfils in times of elections is the reassurance that the relationship identity of the actors will be respected to meet their ontological security needs. Drawing on interviews and official documents, this article sheds a new light on the importance of dialogical engagement at these critical points in the life of liberal democracies

Despite Trump’s scathing electoral rhetoric against the EU, dialogues continue to shore up the transatlantic relationship

During his 2016 election campaign and the presidential transition period, Donald Trump made no secret of his dislike for the European Union, NATO, and for transatlantic cooperation in general. Emmanuelle Blanc writes that despite Trump’s rhetoric, dialogues between high-level US and EU officials have continued successfully

Recognition through dialogue: how transatlantic relations anchor the EU’s identity

In spite of being criticised as ‘talking shops’ and easily replaced by technological innovations, dialogues – defined as face-to-face interactions in an institutionalised framework – remain a staple of international politics. While prevailing accounts have shown that dialogues help states advance their quest for security and profit, the key role dialogues play in the quest for recognition has been overlooked and remains undertheorised. Emphasising the socio-psychological need for ontological security, this article argues that institutions relentlessly engage in dialogues because it allows them to seek, gain and anchor the recognition of their identity. The significance for international relations is illustrated through the emblematic case of the European Union–US dialogues, specifically the Transatlantic Legislators’ Dialogue. The multi-method qualitative analysis based on original interviews, participant observations, visuals and official documents demonstrates how the European Union exploits these dialogues with its ‘Significant Other’ to seek, gain and anchor the recognition of its complex institutional identity

Schengen Area shaken: the impact of immigration-related threat perceptions on the European security community

In light of the recent European refugee crisis, the article uses the concept of security community (SC), in order to explore the destabilizing impact of immigration-related threat perceptions on the Schengen Area. Theoretically, it is nourished by the will to support efforts by security community researchers to explore the challenges besetting security communities rather than just tracing their evolution. Viewed from a constructivist prism, the article describes how through a complex social process, immigration-related threat perceptions can trigger a security dilemma dynamic among SC states, undermining the SC's basic trust and common identity, and encouraging states to abandon cooperative norms for unilateral defensive practices. Empirically; we show how immigration-related threat perceptions are working against the Schengen regime by examining well-established evaluation indicators in the SC literature. Finally, two avenues for future research are suggested in considering how to surmount the negative dynamics: the first draws on existing desecuritization literature, the second builds on existing SC literature addressing the rehabilitation of collective identities and trust among an SC's members in times of crisis

The EU in quest for the recognition of its institutional identity: the case of the EU-US dialogues

While the literature on the European Union’s foreign policy has heavily emphasized the EU’s marked preference for diplomacy and the conduct of dialogues, the rationale behind the salience of this practice has not yet been fully explored. Therefore, this thesis asks why the European Union promotes and conducts so many political dialogues with third countries in its external relations. The original contribution of this thesis is two-fold: theoretically, it contributes to the literature on the practice of dialogue in International Relations by moving away from theories stressing the rationality of the institutional actors involved in dialogical interactions. Instead, this thesis grounds itself in socio-psychology applied to institutions to conceptualize the practice of dialogue as a symbolically-framed interaction through which institutional identity is recognized and anchored. In doing so, this research demonstrates that the European Union promotes and conducts such an extraordinary number of dialogues with third countries in order to get recognition of its institutional identity as a distinct and relevant international actor. More specifically, the study sheds light on the mechanisms through which the dialogical interaction at the micro-level helps anchor the institutional identity of the EU at the macro-level. Empirically, the thesis contributes to a more nuanced and better understanding of one of the most complex and important relationships of our times – the transatlantic relationship — by presenting original findings on the multiple dialogical encounters occurring at different levels of representation: at the highest level of diplomatic meetings, at the interparliamentary level and at and the level of civil society. The present work thus departs from traditional perspectives on transatlantic relations by focusing on the micro-level of interaction and its symbolic implications at the macro-level. Through the conduct of interviews with European and American officials involved in these dialogues and several participant observations in the meetings, this study offers a fine-grained analysis of the dialogue as one of the most frequently tool of foreign policy used by the EU in its external relations

Studies on the internalization mechanisms of cationic cell-penetrating peptides.

A great deal of data has been amassed suggesting that cationic peptides are able to translocate into eucaryotic cells in a temperature-independent manner. Although such peptides are widely used to promote the intracellular delivery of bioactive molecules, the mechanism by which this cell-penetrating activity occurs still remains unclear. Here, we present an in vitro study of the cellular uptake of peptides, originally deriving from protegrin (the SynB peptide vectors), that have also been shown to enhance the transport of drugs across the blood-brain barrier. In parallel, we have examined the internalization process of two lipid-interacting peptides, SynB5 and pAntp-(43–58), the latter corresponding to the translocating segment of the Antennapedia homeodomain. We report a quantitative study of the time- and dose-dependence of internalization and demonstrate that these peptides accumulate inside vesicular structures. Furthermore, we have examined the role of endocytotic pathways in this process using a variety of metabolic and endocytosis inhibitors. We show that the internalization of these peptides is a temperatureand energy-dependent process and that endosomal transport is a key component of the mechanism. Altogether, our results suggest that SynB and pAntp-(43–58) peptides penetrate into cells by an adsorptive-mediated endocytosis process rather than temperature-independent translocation

Limited oxidative stress favors resistance to skeletal muscle atrophy in hibernating brown bears (Ursus Arctos)

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