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The Study of the European
Neighbourhood Policy:
Methodological,
Theoretical & Empirical Challenges
Organisers: Richard Whitman, University of Bath & Stefan Wolff, University of Nottingham
Date:
25-26 October 2007
Venue:
Nottingham, UK
Conference Report
The UACES-sponsored workshop on The Study of the European Neighbourhood Policy: Methodological, Theoretical and Empirical Challenges took place at the University of Nottingham on the 25th-26th October 2007. Sixteen papers were delivered at the workshop all seeking to analyse the European Neighbourhood Policy across the four years of its existence. Overall the workshop agenda was to question the extent to which the ENP has achieved its objectives, about the strengths and weaknesses in its implementation, as well as its future prospects as an EU policy area distinct from, but closely related to CFSP, ESDP and enlargement.
The workshop sought to contribute to the development of existing knowledge and understanding of the ENP. The workshop papers (currently being prepared for downloading and will be available on-line in January) offer a combination of empirical assessments of the impact of the ENP on Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the Caucuses and on the factors that have shaped its formulation and implementation since 2003. Two of the sessions specifically sought provide theoretical and methodological perspectives on how to study this relatively new area of EU policy. The findings of the workshop were that the study of the ENP intersects conceptually with a number of existing disciplines and sub-disciplines, including International Relations (especially the study of international organisations) and Foreign Policy Analysis (especially European/EU FPA), as well as, of course, the study of the EU itself and its internal policy processes. Furthermore that it must also be considered in the light of ongoing broader theoretical debates about realist, liberal and constructivist approaches to the study of international relations and their value in describing, explaining, and predicting policy formulation, implementation, and outcomes. Moreover, because of the range of concrete challenges that the ENP is meant to address, the study of the ENP must also be contextualised in particular sub-fields of academic inquiry, such as conflict resolution and democratisation/democracy promotion. This means that there is a wide range of different theoretical and methodological perspectives that are potentially relevant to an analysis of the ENP, but that are not necessarily compatible with one another.
Contacts: Richard Whitman (r.g.whitman[a]bath.ac.uk) & Stefan Wolff (stefan[a]stefanwolff.com)
Last modified:
Wednesday, 12 December 2007
idW042 +05Feb2007 ©UACES 2007