Theorising the European Neighbourhood Policy: Debordering and Rebordering in the Mediterranean

This paper discusses recent developments in Euro-Mediterranean relations following the establishment of the European Neighbourhood Initiative (ENP) and attempts to put these empirical insights into theoretical perspective. By relating selected elements of the theory of world society - in conjunction with other constructivist approaches in IR - to the analysis of Euro-Mediterranean relations, this paper aims to contribute to the discussion on the extent to which the ENP offers real integration between the EU and its southern neighbours or whether the ENP can rather be seen as (yet another) case of window-dressing in Euro-Mediterranean relations. By way of providing an answer to this question, this paper proceeds in three steps, thus discussing the ENP in relation to three selected theoretical concepts, namely 'debordering/rebordering', 'regionalisation', and 'inclusion/exclusion'.open coordination; immigration policy

Cross pillar politics of the European Union. EU actors and the centralisation of foreign and interior policies.

The pillar structure of EU politics dates back to the Maastricht Treaty and has since then been subject to several reforms but has never been formally abolished. According to a standard view, there is a fundamental distinction between the allegedly 'supranational' first pillar and the 'intergovernmental' second and third pillars. This standard view asserts that policy making in foreign and interior affairs - those areas which are partly located in each of these pillars - also follows two different institutional logics. This thesis proposes a different perspective on foreign and interior policies and analyses the role of EU actors - the Commission, the European Parliament, the Council Secretariat, the Court of Justice and the Court of Auditors - in these two areas. It argues that policy making is not primarily characterised by the supranational-intergovernmental divide but rather by functionally induced cross pillar dynamics applying equally to both policy areas. It shows that EU actors were able to shape 'intergovernmental' bargains and that the primary division in foreign and interior policies is not on the supranational-intergovernmental dimension but rather between executive actors and those controlling the executive. Middle East and migration policies serve as case studies for this analysis. The thesis shows that both areas have since the Maastricht Treaty become an integral part of the political system of the EU. Moreover, the centralisation process in foreign and interior policies, which stretches beyond the pillar confines, has consolidated the specific functional feature of both areas. It is argued that both areas constitute one policy type, referred to as macro political stabilisation. The functional dynamics of macro political stabilisation policies affect the way in which capabilities have been delegated to EU actors within the cross pillar institutional setting of EU foreign and interior policies. Moreover, the preferences of actors as well as the specific patterns of interaction in the policy making process also have to be understood against this functional background

The Social Evolution of World Politics

How can we understand long-term change in world politics better? Based on readings of thinkers as diverse as Habermas, Foucault and Luhmann, the authors of this book propose a framework for understanding such change in terms of social evolution. They show that processes of social learning and unlearning are key to understanding the long-term historical evolution of complex societies, and propose to approach these with the core concepts of autonomization, hierarchical complexity, and co-evolution. Three case studies illustrate this social evolutionary perspective to the study of world politics, examining the evolution of forms of organizing political authority, of conflicts, of diplomacy, of law as boundary condition

Theorising the European Neighbourhood Policy: Debordering and Rebordering in the Mediterranean

Product of workshop No. 3 at the 6th MRM 200

World Politics and Conflict Systems: The Communication of a "No" and its Effects

In this article I discuss, from a systems theoretical perspective, the relationship between the system of world politics, on the one hand, and conflict understood as a social system in its own right, on the other. I argue more specifically that in contrast to an explicit or implicit assumption in most IR scholarship, conflicts can best be understood as complex and self-reproducing social systems. Conflicts are, theoretically speaking, not part of the world political system. They rather are an external ‘irritation’ to which the (world) political system constantly has to relate, sometimes absorbing these conflicts, sometimes being absorbed by them. While world politics are full of conflicts, the emergence and evolution of conflicts is unfolding independently of, yet in a process of structural coupling with world politics. The article is divided in three main sections in which I discuss, (1) the centrality of conflicts in world politics, (2) the systems theoretical take on conflicts, and (3) realms of applicability for a theoretically guided study of order (Herrschaft) and contestations to order in world politics

Torn between Reform and Stagnation: An Institutionalist Analysis of the MEDA Programme

Product of workshop No. 1 at the 3rd MRM 2002http://www.iue.it/RSCAS/WP-Texts/04_43.pd

Sociologia histórica, teoria das relações internacionais e a condição imperial

Un enfoque histórico-sociológico de las relaciones internacionales destaca, en particular, la importancia fundamental de las estructuras y las prácticas de las dinámicas de campos imperiales y poscoloniales en la forma en que funciona la política internacional, tanto históri-camente como en la actualidad. En pocas palabras: el colonialismo y el imperialismo no son simplemente una de las muchas dimen-siones de la política internacional, sino su núcleo estructural. Y un enfoque histórico-sociológico es capaz de concebir estas dinámicas en términos teóricos que superan las deficiencias de las teorías tra-dicionales de la disciplina en este respecto.A historical-sociological approach to international relations highlights, in particular, the fundamental importance of the structures and practices of imperial and postcolonial field dynamics in the way international politics works, both historically and today. In short: colonialism and imperialism are not simply one of the many dimensions of international politics, but its structural core. And a historical-sociological approach is capable of conceiving these dynamics in theoretical terms that overcome the deficiencies of the traditional theories of the discipline in this regard