Critical and Problem-Solving Perspectives on Decentring EU External Action Studies

Abstract


 This article proposes a decentring approach for EU External Action Studies as a debate that is ‘disrupting’ the mainstream in European Studies. It theoretically contributes to the decentring debate in three ways. First, by identifying decentring as a meta-theoretical current of thinking, the article helps define the decentring debate as an area of theorising which can accommodate scholars from various backgrounds and bring them together around a common commitment to overcome Euro- and Western centrism in scholarship (and practice). Second, the article states the wider relevance of taking a decentring approach, which entails normative and instrumental benefits for scholarship, teaching and practice. By doing so, the article underscores the ethical imperative of disrupting a field of study on the one hand, but also the usefulness and even the necessity of disruption as a problem-solving approach to the benefit of a field’s mainstream centre on the other. Third, the article shows how the decentring debate accommodates both critical and problem-solving theorising, and proposes potential theoretical anchors in existing bodies of work. Finally, it discusses the inherent paradox that follows from critical and problem-solving approaches to decentring specifically and disruptive theorising more broadly.

Decolonising EU Trade Relations with the Global Souths?

“…Secondly, another understanding of dialogue speaks to our shared commitment of contributing to, not displacing, extant critical approaches to EU trade policy. More broadly within heterodox approaches to the study of Europe and the EU, we hope our contribution will complicate ongoing conversations around EU trade policy in the context of the 'decolonial project for Europe' (Bhambra 2022), the 'decentring agenda' for the EU as a post-colonial power (Onar & Nicolaïdis 2013;Keukeleire & Lecocq 2018;Lecocq & Keukeleire 2023), the 'Critical European Studies' project (Bigo et al 2020), the 'Decolonising Europe in International Politics' initiative 4 and the Decolonial Europe Day project. 5 Beyond the decolonising strategies we have advocated here, there exist more institutional/curricular impediments to address when it comes to the (geo)politics of knowledge (see Bhambra et al 2018;Fúnez-Flores 2022;Evans & Petropoulou Ionescu 2023).…”