In the name of human rights: the problematics of EU ethical foreign policy in Africa and elsewhere

This doctoral research project explores avenues to research ethically defined foreign policy differently, i.e. in ways that more systematically account for its counterproductive elements. Building on the specific case of the European Union’s foreign policy in sub-Saharan Africa, embodied by the 2000 Cotonou Agreement and the 2007 Joint Africa-EU Strategy, through four papers and one books review, the study firstly develops the Ethical Intervener Europe analytical framework to account for the embedded problematics in the EU’s ethical foreign policy. Secondly, through an eclectic theoretical approach, the study seeks to theoretically pin-point some alternatives to think about ethical foreign policy and finally, looks to concretize it through its application on the case of relative autonomous peace- and state-building in Somaliland. This research report briefly introduces the different findings and addresses the need for further research in view of a decolonial approach to the study of ethical foreign policy in a context of structural inequality. Key words: ethical foreign policy, (humanitarian) interventions, EU, sub-Saharan Africa, Somaliland, decoloniality, democratization, state-buildin

Reading-through be-longing: towards a methodology for political sciences otherwise

Inspired by critical feminist, decolonial, and narrative approaches, this paper invites political sciences scholars to engage in different forms of knowledges (unlearning Western-centrism by centering Asia), (collective) methodology, and data collection (centering stories). We offer a pathway to political sciences otherwise, i.e., “as if people matter” and propose reading-through as a methodology for open-ended sensemaking at the service of pluriversal co-existence, prioritizing life in/and dignity over mastery or singular truths and fact-finding. Reading-through encompasses diverse practices of meeting, co-reading, and co-writing, including exchanging thoughts on fictional/scientific stories in a “live” epistolary process paper. To articulate the substantive purchase of reading-through, we engage a selection of novels—Szabo’s The Door, Faye’s Small Country, Thúy’s Ru, and, especially Lee’s Pachinko, a woman-centered multigenerational story on the Korean and wider (north)East Asian colonial/diasporic experience in the twentieth century—and revisit the political sciences theme of belonging as be-longing otherwise. Rather than offering a definitive blueprint for Political Sciences otherwise, this paper seeks a deeper understanding of how method and methodology are an integral, co-constitutive part of our capacity to fundamentally rethink learned disciplinary conventions towards scholarship “as if people matter.

Paradigmatic or Critical? Resilience as a New Turn in EU Governance for the Neighbourhood

Rising from the margins of EU aid documents, resilience became a centrepiece of the 2016 EU Global Security Strategy, especially in relation to the neighbourhood. While new resilience-thinking may signify another paradigmatic shift in EU modus operandi, the question that emerges is whether it is critical enough to render EU governance a new turn, to make it sustainable? This article argues that in order for resilience-framed governance to become more effective, the EU needs not just engage with ‘the local’ by way of externally enabling their communal capacity. More crucially, the EU needs to understand resilience for what it is – a self-governing project – to allow ‘the local’ an opportunity to grow their own critical infrastructures and collective agency, in their pursuit of ‘good life’. Is the EU ready for this new thinking, and not just rhetorically or even methodologically when creating new instruments and subjectivities? The bigger question is whether the EU is prepared to critically turn the corner of its neoliberal agenda to accommodate emergent collective rationalities of self-governance as a key to make its peace-building project more successful

What if we took autonomous recovery seriously? A democratic critique of contemporary western ethical foreign policy

Contemporary western ethical foreign policy, understood as foreign policy designed to contribute to the well-being of others - people(s), states and societies abroad mostly looks at ways to do more, better or differently. Few accounts consider the need to do less or disengage to contribute to the others' well-being, thus leaving the principles of 'ethical retreat' and 'first-do-no-harm' by the wayside in the literature. In the present contribution we seek to do two things: look into the concept of 'autonomous recovery' put forth by Africanist and ethnic and civil conflict scholar Jeremy Weinstein; and compare it to the literature on domestic 'politics of difference' as developed by critical (African-) American and African democracy theorists such as Iris M. Young, Comel West and Claude Ake. By engaging these bodies of literature, we seek to contribute to research on viable alternatives to domination and violence in contemporary western ethical foreign policy embodied in hierarchical differentiation and the ensuing homogeny in both agenda and actors. We argue that at the international level, building on the identified merits of autonomous recovery, rather than global governance based on universal principles, a politics of difference amongst international actors might serve as a basis for more ethical foreign policy. As a theoretical and practical form of ethical retreat, we propose a commitment to 'democratic hierarchy' in view of self-realization, instead of mere self-management as we see in contemporary ethical foreign policy based on far-reaching international involvement guided by the democratic peace thesis