The Europeanisation of Contested Statehood

Kyris, George

doi:10.4324/9781315558479

Cited by 13 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…Kosovo). It is for these reasons that that we opt for the use of the broader (and normatively less loaded) term 'contested states', as initially coined by Geldenhuys (2009) and subsequently adopted by several other scholars (Papadimitriou and Petrov 2012;Kyris 2013Kyris , 2014Kyris , 2015; Ker-Lindsay 2015; Bouris and Kyris 2017; Bouris and Fernandez-Molina 2018; Bouris and İşleyen 2018).…”

Section: Delineating the Analytical Boundaries Of Contested Statehoodmentioning

confidence: 99%

The EU and Contested Statehood in its Near Abroad: Europeanisation, Actorness and State-building

Bouris

Papadimitriou

2019

Geopolitics

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The main purpose of this Special Issue is to interrogate the role of the European Union (EU) as a state-builder in its Near Abroad. 1 It aims to make a three-fold contribution to the existing literature. Firstly, it provides working definitions on contested statehood and state-building, paying particular attention to how their properties map onto the EU's own policy tools and the (diverse) nature of the conflicts with which it seeks to engage. Secondly, it engages with three sets of distinct conceptual literatures that are not often cross-fertilised: (i) the international relations scholarship on contested statehood and state-building; (ii) conceptualisations of EU 'actorness' in international affairs; and (iii) the literature on the external dimension of Europeanisation and the use of conditionality as a tool of projecting EU power to partner countries. Thirdly, it borrows from the literature on political geography in order to build an interdisciplinary perspective on EU geopolitical imaginations and the geographical dimensions of the EU's border expansion and crisis management. In this context, we aim to open a dialogue with political geographers whose valuable insights in this field are often overlooked by political scientists (Agnew 2013;Murphy et al. 2004;O'Loughlin 2000;Clark and Jones 2011). Thus, the central aim of this collection is to explore how the hybrid setup and the unique set of institutional, ideational and policy attributes of the EU affect processes of statebuilding in its near abroad.This introductory article acts as a scene setter for the key theoretical and empirical themes addressed in this Special Issue. It maps the range of EU state-building instruments, the factors that constrain/facilitate the role of the EU as state-builder as well as issues that affect the temporality and spatiality of EU action. In addition, we seek to delineate the analytical boundaries of contested statehood, peace-and state-building before moving into the debate on EU actorness, and Europeanisation. We conclude with an overview of the contributing articles and their intellectual complementarity in addressing the key themes set out in this issue.

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Section: Delineating the Analytical Boundaries Of Contested Statehoodmentioning

confidence: 99%

The EU and Contested Statehood in its Near Abroad: Europeanisation, Actorness and State-building

Bouris

Papadimitriou

2019

Geopolitics

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“…30–31) and underpinned by an instrumental logic (Sepos, , p. 133). Although new Commission policy instruments (Christou, ; Kyris, ) to facilitate Turkish Cypriot development were constructed once Cyprus joined, a distinct national logic of trying to limit them or their implementation still prevailed – driven by the instrumental approach of the Cypriot President. The election of Demetris Christofias in February 2008 (of AKEL, the Communist Party) did not witness any change in the way in which EU opportunity structures were utilized to influence the parameters of the national problem.…”

Section: The Europeanization Of Foreign Policy In Pre‐crisis Cyprusmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of the Eurozone Crisis on National Foreign Policy: Enhancing Europeanization in the Case of Cyprus^*

Christou

Kyris

2017

J of Common Market Studies

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This article investigates the impact of the eurozone crisis on the foreign policy of an EU Member State, Cyprus. Drawing on the literature on Europeanization of national foreign policies, it is argued that Cypriot foreign policy, despite the general frustration caused by the financial crisis within broader society, has actually undergone further Europeanization. We show that leadership is a critical intervening variable in this enhanced Europeanization, as well as pointing to the salience of the explanatory mechanisms of social and instrumental learning. The contribution of the article is twofold. It offers an empirical account of contemporary Cypriot foreign policy and contributes to the discussion of the impact of the Eurozone crisis on national foreign policy. Both, we contend, remain relatively neglected topics in the literature.

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“…Lastly, the TRNC is an ideal case study because, following the EU accession of Cyprus, it is the largely unrecognised state that that has come closest to the EU, which has meant greater engagement and more researchable data. Building on years-long research on the case study (see also Kyris 2014Kyris , 2015Kyris , 2018, data have been collected from policy papers, evaluation reports but also from semistructured interviews with EU and Turkish Cypriot elites including during five separate fieldwork trips in Brussels and Cyprus (two in 2009, two in 2016, which allowed the triangulation of findings as well as offering explanations of EU approaches, therefore adding to the establishment of causal links (Van Era 1997, 65) In the next section of this paper, Ι use the case study to inductively identify the way in which the EU is engaging with largely unrecognised states, an approach that I call 'state avoidance'. Informed by existing literature on conflict and the EU in particular, I group my findings into four main elements of this approach: a) sui generis management of unrecognised borders, b) informal engagement with officials of the unrecognised state, c) replacement of public authorities with non-state actors and d) extensive engagement with civil society.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The European Union in Northern Cyprus: Conceptualising the Avoidance of Contested States

Kyris

2018

Geopolitics

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This article explores the role of the EU in unrecognised, also known as contested, states and more specifically, how their level of international recognition and empirical statehood (i.e. government authority and control) influence the EU's engagement. By studying the case of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, the article finds that the EU engagement takes the form of 'state avoidance', mostly characterised by an effort to engage without endorsing state recognition and manifested via a) sui generis management of unrecognised borders, b) informal engagement with officials of the unrecognised state, c) replacement of public authorities with non-state actors and d) extensive engagement with civil society. In this regard, the article offers a range of causal explanations that can be tested across a greater number of similar cases. What is more, I contrast state avoidance to state-building approaches evident in aspiring states with more recognition but greater deficit of empirical statehood, such as Kosovo and Palestine, and I argue for a broader conceptualisation of the phenomenon of unrecognised states, allowing for variation in both the degree of recognition and of empirical statehood. As such, the article combines a discussion of rich empirical findings and inductive concept-building that contributes to a more informed discussion and further research development, especially as far as engagement from the EU is concerned.

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The Europeanisation of Contested Statehood

Cited by 13 publications

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The EU and Contested Statehood in its Near Abroad: Europeanisation, Actorness and State-building

The EU and Contested Statehood in its Near Abroad: Europeanisation, Actorness and State-building

The Impact of the Eurozone Crisis on National Foreign Policy: Enhancing Europeanization in the Case of Cyprus^*

The European Union in Northern Cyprus: Conceptualising the Avoidance of Contested States

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The Europeanisation of Contested Statehood

Cited by 13 publications

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The EU and Contested Statehood in its Near Abroad: Europeanisation, Actorness and State-building

The EU and Contested Statehood in its Near Abroad: Europeanisation, Actorness and State-building

The Impact of the Eurozone Crisis on National Foreign Policy: Enhancing Europeanization in the Case of Cyprus*

The European Union in Northern Cyprus: Conceptualising the Avoidance of Contested States

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The Impact of the Eurozone Crisis on National Foreign Policy: Enhancing Europeanization in the Case of Cyprus^*