Peo Hansen

Imperial Origins of European Integration and the Case of Eurafrica: A Reply to Gary Marks 'Europe and its Empires’

This article offers a critique of Gary Marks’ recent article in JCMS, entitled ‘Europe and Its Empires: From Rome to the European Union’. Although it sympathizes with Marks’ invocation of empire as a key theoretical concept and historical category in the study of European integration, it fundamentally disagrees with his ‘continentalist’ operationalization. Marks chooses to discuss the nexus of empire and European integration exclusively with reference to historical processes of imperial expansion and community formation occurring on the western European land mass. Since this methodology leaves out Europes maritime colonial empires, it cannot account for the mutually conditioning relations between the intra‐ and extra‐European imperial processes. Consequently, Marks also fails to register colonialisms decisive bearing on post‐war European integration, and thus the fact that the scale of the original EEC was not delimited by the European land mass, but corresponded to the geopolitical constellation that at the time was called Eurafrica.

Demographic Colonialism: EU–African Migration Management and the Legacy of Eurafrica

This article analyses current EU–African migration policy, but argues that it must be understood in its historical context. Whereas migration today is to be managed in the framework of an EU-African partnership model built on equality and mutual ‘win–win’ dynamics, a closer look at the history of EU-African migration reveals striking parallels between past and present. Throughout the period from the 1920s and onward, the migration policies devised within various frameworks of European integration have been shaped by demographic projections. Each time demography has governed European migration policy vis-à-vis Africa, what has first been introduced as a mutual interest has quickly been transformed into a geopolitical relationship, where one partner has channelled migration to its own benefit. It is thus argued that unless scholars start to attend to European integrations crucial colonial history, current power asymmetries between the ‘partners’ will not only remain obscure; we will also fail to recognize the continued, even increasing, currency of colonial ideology in the EUs African relations. Este artículo analiza la política de la migración entre la Unión Europea y África, pero sostiene que debe entenderse dentro del contexto histórico. Considerando que la migración hoy en día debe conducirse en el marco de un modelo de asociación entre la Unión Europea y África, con fundamento en la igualdad y las dinámicas “mutuamente beneficiosas”, un análisis más detenido de la historia de la migración entre la Unión Europea y África, revela paralelos sorprendentes entre el pasado y el presente. A través del periodo que va de 1920 en adelante, las políticas de migración concebidas dentro de varios marcos de la integración europea, se han moldeado por proyecciones demográficas. Cada vez que la demografía ha regido la política de la migración europea con respecto al África, lo que se ha introducido como un interés mutuo, se ha transformado rápidamente en una relación geopolítica, en la que uno de los socios ha canalizado la migración para su propio beneficio. Por lo tanto, se plantea que a menos que los académicos comiencen a prestar atención a la historia crucial de la colonia, las asimetrías de poder entre los “socios” quedarán poco claras. También fallaremos en reconocer la vigencia continua e inclusive en aumento de la ideología colonial, en las relaciones entre la Unión Europea y África. 本文分析了当前欧盟对非洲的移民政策，认为必须在历史背景下理解这一政策。尽管当前欧盟对非洲移民问题的政策框架以平等和双赢为基础，但进一步考察移民史可发现，历史与现状有着很多相似之处。从20世纪20年代至今，每次欧洲一体化进程中的移民政策都是由人口统计学推动塑造的。人口统计学每一次都主导了欧洲的对非移民政策，因此起初以互利引入的移民政策最终都转变为地缘政治关系，其中一方依据自身利益来引导移民。因此，本文认为，除非学者关注欧洲一体化的殖民史，否则就无法认清当前“伙伴”关系间的权力不对称，也就认识不到欧盟对非关系中持续的甚至不断强化的殖民主义意识形态。

BRINGING AFRICA AS A ‘DOWRY TO EUROPE’

Abstract This essay examines the history of the ‘Eurafrican project’ as it evolved from the Pan-European movement in the 1920s to its institutionalization in the European Economic Community (EEC) (i.e. todays EU) in the late 1950s. As shown in the essay, practically all of the visions, movements and concrete institutional arrangements working towards European integration during this period placed Africas incorporation into the European enterprise as a central objective. As so much of the scholarly, political and journalistic accounts at the time testify, European integration was inextricably bound up with a Eurafrican project. According to the intellectual, political and institutional discourse on Eurafrica – or the fate of Europes colonial enterprise – a future European community presupposed the transformation of the strictly national colonial projects into a joint European colonization of Africa. Indeed, there is strong evidence to suggest that these ideas were instrumental in the actual diplomatic and political constitution of the EEC, or of Europe as a political subject. The essay discusses the conspicuous absence of these matters from scholarship on European integration and its historical origins and trajectory. It also notes that it is equally neglected in postcolonial studies, which should be able to provide the theoretical and historical tools to engage with the complex and instructive issues with which the Eurafrican project and its intimate links to the history of European integration confront todays scholars.

Bringing Africa as a 'Dowry to Europe' : European Integration and the Eurafrican Project, 1920–1960

Abstract This essay examines the history of the ‘Eurafrican project’ as it evolved from the Pan-European movement in the 1920s to its institutionalization in the European Economic Community (EEC) (i.e. todays EU) in the late 1950s. As shown in the essay, practically all of the visions, movements and concrete institutional arrangements working towards European integration during this period placed Africas incorporation into the European enterprise as a central objective. As so much of the scholarly, political and journalistic accounts at the time testify, European integration was inextricably bound up with a Eurafrican project. According to the intellectual, political and institutional discourse on Eurafrica – or the fate of Europes colonial enterprise – a future European community presupposed the transformation of the strictly national colonial projects into a joint European colonization of Africa. Indeed, there is strong evidence to suggest that these ideas were instrumental in the actual diplomatic and political constitution of the EEC, or of Europe as a political subject. The essay discusses the conspicuous absence of these matters from scholarship on European integration and its historical origins and trajectory. It also notes that it is equally neglected in postcolonial studies, which should be able to provide the theoretical and historical tools to engage with the complex and instructive issues with which the Eurafrican project and its intimate links to the history of European integration confront todays scholars.

A Statue to Nasser? Eurafrica, the Colonial Roots of European Integration, and the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize

In response to a widespread idea of the European Union as a “peace project,” an idea disseminated especially after the EU received the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize, this essay retrieves some of the historical causes of the foundation of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957. The essay emphasizes specific geopolitical and colonial incentives that had lain behind the European integration project ever since the pan-European blueprints the interwar period and which became critical with the Suez crisis and decolonization movements of the 1950s. As the essay demonstrates, practically all of the visions, movements, and concrete institutional arrangements working toward European integration during this period placed Africa’s incorporation into the European enterprise as a central objective. As much of the scholarly, political, and journalistic accounts at the time testify, European integration was inextricably bound up with a Eurafrican project. According to the intellectual, political, and institutional discourse on Eurafrica, a future European community presupposed the transformation of the strictly national colonial projects into a joint European colonization of Africa. Strong evidence suggests that these ideas were instrumental in the actual diplomatic and political constitution of the EEC, or of Europe as a political subject, in 1957. The essay discusses why the EU’s colonial origins have been consigned to oblivion in mainstream research and why this history is of continued concern to the world.

Questions from somewhere — who's who in attitude research about ‘immigrants’

Abstract The article looks into how the binary opposition ‘we ‘ and ‘them ‘ is reproduced and legitimized in attitudinal surveys, specifically the Eurobarometer series. The Eurobarometer 30 and 39 are among the most widely cited and, therefore, most influential sources among academics and politicians interested in knowing about how Europeans think of those defined as ‘non‐Europeans ‘. The author contends that attitudinal research of the kind exemplified by the Eurobarometerproblematues the ‘other’ instead of recognizing that it is our ability to speak about an ‘other’ as ‘out‐group’ in the first place which constitutes the problem; in that it establishes yet another space in which a stereotypical and debasing language of ‘we and them’ becomes the norm.

Book Review: Keith Banting and Will Kymlicka (eds) Multiculturalism and the Welfare State: Recognition and Redistribution in Contemporary Democracies Oxford: Oxford University Press

Until a few years ago, our chosen multicultural approach allowed some cultural and religious groups to pursue an aggressive strategy against our values. The targets of this ill-conceived ‘attack’ w ...

European Integration as a Colonial Project

For a long time, studies of colonialism and imperialism focused primarily on once colonised societies where the traces and consequences of colonialism lay immediately open to anyone’s experience. I ...