The Politicization of LGBTI Human Rights Norms in the EU‐Uganda Development Partnership

This article highlights the role of external audiences and their perceptions in analysing the politicization of EU development policy. We analyse how EU foreign assistance is understood in two different intermediary arenas of politicization – elites in different societal sectors and media – within Ukraine, a major recipient of EU aid. By investigating to what extent EU assistance is perceived to be politicized, in terms of salience and polarization we contribute to the debate on outside‐in politicization. Applying a perceptual approach to EU foreign policy studies, we focus on Ukrainian images of Self in its relation to the EU as a development actor and on Ukraine's evaluations of EU assistance. We consult the theory of framing and propose an operationalization of salience in terms of visibility, cultural congruence and emotive charge. We use the typology of cognitive, evaluative and affective images from political psychology to operationalize the notion of polarization.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Politicization of EU Development Policy: The Role of EU External Perceptions (Case of Ukraine)

Chaban

Elgström

2021

“…Both case studies confirm the importance of authority transfer as a factor influencing possibilities for outside‐in politicization (see also Saltnes and Thiel, 2021): while the transfer of policy competencies within the European Commission promoted polarization and in turn facilitated CSO engagement in the EPA case, the opposite was shown in the Sahel case were imposing a European top‐down structure effectively closed the space for CSOs to engage. In a similar manner, both cases suggest the relevance of the domestic country context in the Western African states concerned as a factor influencing CSO involvement.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 61%

Outside‐in Politicization of EU–Western Africa Relations: What Role for Civil Society Organizations?

Plank

Keijzer

Niemann

2021

This article explores the empirical relevance of researching outside‐in politicization processes in European studies. To this end, it examines to what extent and how civil society organizations (CSOs) have contributed to the politicization of EU policies towards Western Africa in two cases: the negotiation of Economic Partnership Agreements and the EU's engagement with the G5 Sahel. CSOs were strongly engaged in the trade negotiations, while they were largely excluded from the G5 Sahel process. In both cases this was due to CSOs' own initiatives, or the absence thereof, with these strongly linked to being either invited or discouraged by official actors. The article argues that authority transfer and the domestic context – including state fragility and state–society relations – are relevant to explaining the (non‐)involvement of CSOs in outside‐in politicization.

“…For example, important EU norms such as donor coordination in development policy can be contested by individual member states through their practice, without making their contestation a matter of a broad public debate (Saltnes, 2018). Hence, we argue that actors' contestation of EU norms could be an important strategy for politicization or de‐politicization (as shown by Saltnes and Thiel, 2021) and can lead to increased or reduced levels of polarization (Zürn et al, 2012). However, the occurrence of contestation alone is not sufficient to diagnose (a certain degree of) politicization of a specific policy or issue.…”

Section: Politicization Of Eu External Relations: Key Conceptsmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…As the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU defines development cooperation as a shared competence with EU member states maintaining their own development policies in parallel to the one governed by the EU institutions (TFEU Article 4.4), it is necessary to take both levels into account when analysing the politicization of European development policy. This is also reflected by the individual contributions to the special issue: some focus primarily on the politicization of the development policy of EU institutions (Chaban and Elgström, 2021; Youngs and Zihnioğlu, 2021), while others include all EU member states into their analysis (Bergmann et al, 2021; Kiratli, 2021) or opt for a selection of relevant aid donors among them (Lauwers et al, 2021; Saltnes and Thiel, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development Policy under Fire? The Politicization of European External Relations^*

Hackenesch

Bergmann

Orbie

2021

In the past few years decision‐making processes and the normative underpinnings of EU external relations have become subject to intense debate in the European institutions, member states and the wider public. Previous research suggests that there is variation in the extent to which individual domains of EU external relations are politicized and contested. This special issue aims to theorize further and investigate empirically this, using the example of European development policy and its relations with other external policies. We introduce two new mechanisms that drive politicization dynamics. We argue that politicization can be diffused horizontally from one policy field to another, which we call horizontal politicization. We also investigate how the politicization of EU external policies in third countries occurs and influences politicization dynamics in the EU, which we call outside‐in politicization. The introduction to the special issue presents our theoretical approach and summarizes the key findings from the special issue.