CfP “Contestation and politicization of EU foreign policy: New realities or same old?”
We are pleased to announce a Working Group 3 (Contestation)-workshop in Vienna on 26 and 27 February 2020.
Contestation and politicization are ubiquitous in the fields of International Relations and European Studies. The distinct strands of literature that analyze how international norms and institutions, globalization, and European integration are contested have soared. Slower but steadily, interest has also grown on how this affects EU foreign policy, since it is situated at the intersection of many of these concerns. Interest in contestation and politicization has increased substantially among EU foreign policy scholars. From TTIP to the Global Compact for Migration, from the relationship with Russia to climate change, many issues appear now more open to contention than they used to be. Some of the mechanisms that facilitated agreement among EU Member States seem to be on the verge of collapse, some previously consensual issues have now become controversial, and in some specific cases the level of mass engagement and public debate is (nearly) unprecedented.
Nonetheless, reasonable doubts can be raised as regards the novelty and conceptual clarity of this line of research. The terms contestation and politicization sometimes are used interchangeably, which in itself should be a source of concern. They can also be used in ways that make them difficult to distinguish from intra-EU disagreement and politics more generally, which leads to the question of whether this most recent wave of interest in political conflict on EU foreign policy is really onto something new, or whether this is just old wine in new wineskins.
The workshop will address this need for conceptualization and at the same time look at the changing politics of EU foreign policy, with the aim of making a contribution that helps shape up existing literature. In order to foster a greater degree of consistency in our discussions, the co-convenors will circulate a concept paper well ahead of the workshop and will invite all participants to speak to (some of) its proposals and questions. We aim to make progress towards a publication project that will further be discussed during the workshop.
The call for papers is now open.
Please refer to the link below.