Veit Bachmann

Mapping the political geographies of Europeanization: National discourses, external perceptions and the question of popular culture

Political geographers have significantly contributed to understandings of the spatialities of Europeanization. We review some of this work, while also highlighting research themes where further political-geographic research would be insightful. We note the importance of work that captures both the diverse expressions and meanings attributed to Europe, European integration and ‘European power’ in different places within and beyond the EU, and the variegated manifestations of ‘Europeanizing’ processes across these different spaces. We also suggest that political-geographic research can add crucial input to reconceptualizing European integration as well as Europeanization as it now unfolds in a time of ‘crisis’.

African regional integration and European involvement: external agents in the East African Community

The EUs role as a model for regional integration is widely discussed in scholarship and policy circles. The promotion of regional integration is central to the EUs external relations and is frequently expected by the EUs partners. This paper examines European involvement with the East African Community (EAC). It questions the promotion and adoption of the European model and critically examines how the discourse of regionalisation relates to motivations and dynamics. On the European part, the promotion of regional integration is part of the EUs notion of a geopolitical mission based on the objective of aligning internal and external policy agendas. African elites, on the other hand, frequently view ‘integration’ as a way of mobilising resources and asserting state sovereignty.

Spaces of Interaction: Enactments of Sociospatial Relations and an Emerging EU Diplomacy in Kenya

Abstract Much of human geographic spatial theorizing has largely accepted space as relational and has moved from an engagement with fixed or static space to more dynamic notions of space such as space–time or sociospatial relations. Space is thereby inextricably linked to society and time. It is shaped by the preference of social (and political and economic) actors for specific spatial configurations and simultaneously shapes social (and political and economic) life. This paper argues that interactions are central to these assumptions – interactions between people, between societies, between political and economic actors, between objects and actors in space, and of course between society and space. It is through interactions that ‘things’ in space are made relational and that sociospatial relationality is enacted. We implicitly accept this centrality of interaction, however, hardly address it explicitly. This paper therefore suggests engaging more thoroughly with interactions as the practices and processes through which sociospatial relationality is enacted. Using the empirical example of the making of EU (European Union) diplomacy in Kenya, I offer the notion of spaces of interaction as an overarching access for studying such enactments.

Perceptions of the EU in Eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa: looking in from the outside

This collection examines how the EU is viewed in the two regions at the centre of its geopolitical interest. Focusing on Eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa, both of which have close and often problematic historical-geographical ties with Europe, the volume provides a critical assessment of how external perceptions from these regions relate to EU policy towards them. Bringing together a range of internationally renowned scholars, this book provides a conceptual framework for studying the EUs geopolitical role and examines perceptions of the EU in Georgia, Ukraine, Kenya and Senegal. Highlighting both the importance of understanding external viewpoints and the value of comparative research in order to better capture the various facets of the EUs geopolitical role and identity, it is particularly sensitive to persisting unequal power relations and Eurocentrism as well as to the changes in perceptions that have emerged in the wake of financial crisis.

Lexicometric Analysis: A Methodological Prelude

The title of the article by Nicolaidis and Howse from which the quote above is taken, is ‘“This is my EUtopia…”: Narrative as Power’. They use the term ‘EUtopia’ arguing that what the EU usually projects as its global role ‘is not the EU as is, but a EUtopia’ (Nicolaidis and Howse 2002, 767). Relatedly, in a special issue of the Journal of Common Market Studies (JCMS) on Political Myth, Mythology and the European Union (see Sala 2010), Ian Manners provides an insightful historical overview of the mythology of a ‘global Europa’ — the diverse myths of collective Europe’s role in the world as lore, ideology or pleasure (Manners 2010). In the discipline of geography, the body of literature of critical geopolitics has been instrumental for exploring ‘narrative as power’ (in Nicolaidis and Howse’s words) or, more generally, the influence of narratives, discourses, texts and speech on geopolitical agency.

Kenya-EU Relations: Perspectives and Expectations

Kenya and the European Union (EU) (and its predecessor, the European Community) look back to a long history of relations. The European Delegation in Nairobi was opened in 1976, and in the same year Kenya became the first country to sign a cooperation agreement with the European Community under the Lome Convention (EEAS 2014i). In 2014, the Nairobi Delegation was one of the largest in the world with more than 150 staff, accredited to Kenya as well as to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Centre for Human Settlement (UN-Habitat), both of which are headquartered in Nairobi. Development cooperation has long been an integral part of Kenya-EU relations, however, given that only 4% of Kenya’s national budget is externally financed (Nesoba 2013), Kenya-EU relations extend well beyond development cooperation to also include other sectors, such as economic and trade relations, political and diplomatic relations, security cooperation and humanitarian aid. Economically, the EU is Kenya’s largest trading partner, accounting for 17.2% of Kenya’s overall trade (second is China with 11.7%) in 2011 (EEAS 2014j). Political relations have cooled since the post-election violence following the presidential elections of December 2007 and in light of the cases at the International Criminal Court (ICC) against current President Uhuru Kenyatta and Vice-President William Ruto following their alleged involvement in the post-election violence. Nevertheless, relations between Kenya and the EU remain far reaching and intense in a variety of aspects.

Conclusion: Looking from the outside in ≠ Looking from the inside out

An odd beast in many ways, the European Union (EU) has no shortage of paradoxes. It espouses democracy as the highest value, but functions as a technocratic bureaucracy. It wants to bring Europeans closer together, but, in the years since the Eurocrisis, has driven them further apart. It wants to bring wealth to Europeans, but most think it is taking wealth away from them. It holds that all member states are equal, but in practice, as Kuus shows in this book, some are more equal than others. Recently a curious new paradox has joined the mix: those who are in, want to get out and those who are out, want to get in. As Ukrainians called a revolution under the banner of the EU, many people in the established member states would prefer to say goodbye to the EU sooner rather than later.

Global Europa, ESPON and the EU’s Regulated Spaces of Interaction

Abstract This paper seeks to bring together approaches to sociospatial theorising with debates on the EU’s international role. It points to a general lack of engagement with the spatial underpinnings of EU geopolitical agency, citing the example of four visions for ‘Europe in the world’ from the EU’s key spatial think tank (ESPON). Moreover, this paper illustrates how EU geopolitical agency can be better understood when examined in its historical and sociospatial context. Space is not defined as physical space, but as socially produced spaces of interaction within which different actors stand in particular relations to each other. Through the history of European integration, the EU can most effectively exercise influence if such spaces of interaction are regulated and institutionalised, as opposed to disordered and anarchic. Regulated spaces of interaction are therefore a key parameter of EU geopolitical agency and, consequently, the promotion thereof a key objective of EU external relations.

Europe's Lack of Visions

On 1 November 2013, the European Union will celebrate its twentieth birthday. On 12 October 2012, the Nobel Committee announced the Nobel Peace Prize 2012 will be awarded to the European Union “for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe”. In the following, I will comment on Alec Murphy’s paper Trapped in the Logic of the Modern State System? European Integration in the Wake of the Financial Crisis and argue that never before in the history of European integration, has the European ‘idea’ had so little inspiration and appealing visions for the future of integrating/integrated Europe to offer. This constitutes a fundamental problem as we can currently observe a rise of nationalism and the (re-)constructions of ‘us vs. them’ binaries in Europe. In my argument, I side with Murphy in that both the lack of vision and such constructions are, at least partially, rooted in what he describes as a metageographical mindset based on the logic of the modern state system. Murphy traces insightfully how essential parts of the European integration processes have been trapped in a way of thinking determined by a “modernist politicalterritorial order”, despite the challenge European integration presents to that order (p. 3). His argument is framed around the question of why European Monetary Union (EMU) was prioritised as the preferred way to promote European integration as opposed to other possible paths of integration that seem(ed) less trapped in such modern, territorial, state-based logic. I agree with Murphy’s general argument of European integration logics being trapped in such logic. However, in the following I will challenge and comment on Murphy on a number of issues as regards the example of EMU and subsequently outline how the trap of state-based thought

European Self-Perceptions: The EU’s Geopolitical Identity and Role in Official Documents and Speeches

The first part of this book has provided an overview of different schools of thought about how to approach the way the European Union (EU) positions itself towards Sub-Saharan Africa and the Black Sea Region. The second part introduces examples of such positioning through a combination of in-depth, qualitative fieldwork in Georgia, Ukraine, Kenya and Senegal with lexicometric analyses of official EU perceptions towards these countries (this chapter) and of external perceptions of the EU from these countries (Chapters 5–8). In line with the methodological approach outlined in the Prelude, this chapter focuses on the first of these. It draws on official EU documents and speeches and lays out how the EU perceives of its relations with the four countries of the study. It briefly reviews key EU documents that position the EU as a geopolitical actor in its relations with Sub-Saharan Africa and the Black Sea Region before it introduces the results of a lexicometric analysis of the EU’s practical geopolitics towards the four countries of this study. This analysis is based on a text corpus of all official EU press releases (including memoranda, speeches, and press conferences transcripts of official EU institutions and senior personnel) between April 2010 and March 2012 that are relevant for the EU’s relations with its eastern neighbourhood and Sub-Saharan Africa.