This article examines how EU and NATO enlargement is framed by the dichotomy of Europe versus Eastern Europe, and how the enlargement process simultaneously transforms that dichotomy. I argue that the double enlargement is underpinned by a broadly orientalist discourse that assumes essential difference between Europe and Eastern Europe and frames difference from Western Europe as a distance from and a lack of Europeanness. I suggest that in order to expose and undercut this reinscription of otherness, research on East-Central Europe should engage with postcolonial theory in a more direct and sustained fashion.

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This article analyzes geopolitics as a bureaucratic practice conducted by career policy professionals. Empirically, I investigate how the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) continuously produces and transforms the geopolitical category of "Europe" inside the European Union's (EU) policymaking bureaucracy-or EUrope as it is called colloquially. Drawing in part from forty-six interviews with thirty-five policy professionals, the article elucidates how these professionals use the concept of Europe in their daily work on ENP-not how they understand the concept intellectually but how they actually deploy it in policy discussions. Theoretically, I clarify how practical geopolitics operates through banal assumptions that are activated occasionally but present in an unremarkable way every day, how geopolitical categories are problematized inside policymaking bureaucracies, and how grand geopolitical visions are given specific technical content within everyday policy processes. The EU is an important example of this process because of its sheer global weight as well as the novel transnational character of its institutions. The argument advances two related strands of work in human geography: one on the role of public policy in producing social realities and the other on the capacity of specific individuals to shape geopolitical discourses.Este artículo analiza la geopolítica como una práctica burocrática manejada por profesionales de carrera política. Empíricamente, investigué la manera como la Política Europea de Vecindad (ENP, por sigla en inglés) continuamente produce y transforma la categoría geopolítica de "Europa" dentro de la burocracia encargada de hacer política en la Unión Europea (UE)-o EUropa, como coloquialmente se le llama. Basándonos en parte de cuarenta y seis entrevistas con treinta y cinco políticos profesionales, en el artículo aclaramos el modo como estos profesionales utilizan el concepto de Europa en su trabajo cotidiano en la ENP-no como entienden ellos intelectualmente el concepto sino como lo ponen en juego en sus discusiones políticas. Teóricamente, hago claridad sobre la manera como opera la geopolítica práctica por medio de supuestos banales que se activan ocasionalmente pero que están presentes de modo poco notable cada día, cómo las categorías geopolíticas se problematizan dentro de las burocracias hacedoras de políticas y cómo a las grandes visiones geopolíticas se les da específico contenido técnico dentro de los procesos políticos cotidianos. La UE es un importante ejemplo de este proceso debido a su claro peso global lo mismo que al novedoso carácter transnacional de sus instituciones. El argumento promueve dos tipos relacionados de trabajo en geografía humana: uno sobre el papel de la política pública en la producción de realidades sociales y el otro sobre la capacidad que tienen individuos específicos para diseñar los discursos geopolíticos. Palabras clave: geopolítica crítica, Europa, Unión Europea, estadistas intelectuales, política.

This report focuses on human agency – the capacity to act in a given context – as it is studied and reflected upon in political geographic research. I first discuss the investigations of agency in the wide-ranging work on political subjectivity and identity formation. The report then turns to the efforts to trace ideas and things in political processes. I showcase the attention to transnational networks and fields as well as the work inspired by the concepts of assemblage and actor-network. The analysis finally turns to questions of method in the study of political agency as I foreground the growing interest in ethnography, emotions, and ethics in the sub-discipline. No amount of conceptual innovation, I conclude in the final section, can substitute for the careful study of inherently difficult political issues in specific social settings. In order to effectively problematize the boundaries between politics and culture, subject and object, state and non-state institutions, or public and private spheres, research must closely consider the contingent and situational character of these categories.

This paper investigates the workings of symbolic power in diplomatic practice. At the level of empirical observation, it focuses on the intangible and incalculable ‘feel for the game’ that distinguishes a well-informed and relaxed insider from an ill-informed and ill-at-ease outsider in European Union (EU) diplomatic circles in Brussels. By highlighting the play of social resources, such as reputation, presence, poise, and composure in these circles, I examine EU diplomacy from an angle – symbolic power – that is often overlooked in the existing work on that field. Conceptually, the analysis focuses on the role of informal social resources rather than formal institutional structures in diplomatic practice. It also outlines the potential synergies between the study of diplomacy in international relations (IR) on the one hand and geography, anthropology, and sociology on the other. The paper thereby advances the analytical toolbox of diplomatic studies and practice theory. Such conceptual sharpening is needed, especially now that diplomacy is becoming more transnational and less linked to the foreign ministries of states.