European External Action

The Making of EU Diplomacy in Kenya
1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4724-2315-3
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 230 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 517 g

Reihe: Critical Geopolitics

European External Action provides a critical assessment of the practice of EU diplomacy in a key site of Africa-European relations and the global development industry - the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. It analyses how the EU positions itself through its newly established diplomatic corps, the European External Action Service (EEAS), and how it is perceived as a collective geopolitical actor by its external cooperation partners. Going beyond existing studies on EU policy making in Brussels and African-European relations more generally, this book explores in a novel way the conduct of external relations and perceptions of the EU - abroad. Based on institutional ethnography within the EU Delegation in Nairobi and research affiliation with the University of Nairobi, as well as interviews with leading individuals of Kenyan-European interaction, it analyses the practices, processes and perceptions through which EU diplomacy is enacted and realised in a strategic node of global North-South relations. In light of the EU’s claim as a key partner for developing countries and its ambition to be a major player in global politics, European External Action thereby speaks not only to wider debates on the EU’s role as a global and development actor, but also provides new insights in the internal dynamics and the making of external agency in and through EU diplomacy.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bachmann, Veit

Fachgebiete

• Geowissenschaften Geographie | Raumplanung Geographie: Allgemeines, Karten & Atlanten
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Internationale Beziehungen Geopolitik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents: Introduction: an emerging EU diplomacy? Part One External Relations at a Critical Moment: Instruments of conduct of European external relations; European geopolitical discourse and the EU as a 'model' in times of crisis; External dimensions of Europeanisation and regulated spaces of interaction; An institutional ethnography of the sites of diplomatic conduct in Nairobi; Methodological remarks: data acquisition in the networked places of EU diplomacy in Nairobi. Part Two The Service in Action - Establishing Collective Diplomacy in Nairobi: Positioning collective Europe abroad: operating EU diplomacy; Perceiving collective Europe abroad: interaction with the 'partners'; What should the EU do? Expectations of the EU as a geopolitical actor; The EU's global role: what happened to the model?; Conclusion: a less global and a more European Union? References; Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Veit Bachmann is Director of the EuroGaps research group that examines external relations and external perceptions of the EU in sub-Saharan Africa and the Black Sea Region based in the Department of Human Geography at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Germany. More generally, his research interests are in political geography, (critical) geopolitics, European studies and global North-South relations with a focus on the international identity and role of the EU as a global and development actor.