scholarly journals Ritualised securitisation: The European Union’s failed response to Hamas’s success

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 156-178
Author(s):  
Catherine Charrett
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
State Building ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Practice Level ◽  
Know How ◽  
Compulsion To Repeat ◽  
Elite Interviews

Why and how do political leaders and bureaucrats miss opportunities or make mistakes? This article explores the pressures to conform and to perform that direct securitising decisions and practices. It begins with the assertion that the European Union missed an opportunity to engage with Hamas after the movement’s participation and success in transparent and democratically legitimated elections, and instead promoted a politics of increased securitisation. The securitisation of Hamas worked against the European Union’s own stated aims of state-building and democratisation, and increased the resistance image of Hamas. This article investigates the rituals that shaped this decision, arguing that punitive and conforming dynamics implicated the knowing of the event. Performance studies and anthropology observe how rituals let participants know how to behave in a given situation, and they performatively constitute a social reality through the appearance of normalcy or harmony. Hamas was reproduced as threat through the European Union’s compulsion to repeat a policy of conditionality, which was performative of Hamas’s ability to respond diplomatically to its own securitisation. First, at a discursive level, rituals simplify or reduce the complexity of an event by allowing participants to respond to new issues through existing regimes of intelligibility. Second, at a practice level, rituals impose an imperative to perform within the workplace, which limits the possibility for dissent or for challenging hierarchy within the institution. This investigation relies on elite interviews with senior Hamas representatives conducted in Gaza, and interviews with European Union representatives who were involved in monitoring the elections and enacting a response to Hamas’s success.

Post-Accession Hooliganism

2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Venelin I. Ganev
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
State Building ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
West European

The manuscript analyzes negative developments in Bulgarian and Romanian politics in the aftermath of the two countries’ accession to the European Union, with a special focus on the worsening corruption problem, the destabilization of previously coherent normative frameworks, and the reversal of processes of state building. It also explores the main characteristics of a novel form of elite behavior, post-accession hooliganism, which began to emerge as soon as Bulgarian and Romanian political leaders felt strong and confident enough to disregard the demands of their West European counterparts.

State-building and the European Union: Markets, War, and Europe's Uneven Political Development

2021 ◽  
pp. 001041402110473
Author(s):  
R. Daniel Kelemen ◽  
Kathleen R. McNamara
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Institutional Development ◽  
State Building ◽  
Legal Authority ◽  
Market Forces ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Eu Governance ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Eu

The European Union’s institutional development is highly imbalanced. It has established robust legal authority and institutions, but it remains weak or impotent in terms of its centralization of fiscal, administrative, and coercive capacity. We argue that situating the EU in terms of the history of state-building allows us to better understand the outcomes of EU governance. Historically, political projects centralizing power have been most complete when both market and security pressures are present to generate state formation. With the EU, market forces have had a far greater influence than immediate military threats. We offer a preliminary demonstration of the promise of this approach by applying it to two empirical examples, the euro and the Schengen area. Our analysis suggests that the EU does not need to be a Weberian state, nor be destined to become one, for the state-building perspective to shed new light on its processes of political development.

Serbia

2022 ◽  
pp. 191-208
Author(s):  
Bruno Ferreira Costa
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
European Institutions ◽  
Balkan Countries ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Balkan States

The accession of the Balkan countries to the European Union is a desire and objective of several political leaders and a commitment of the European institutions themselves. This path represents one of the objectives of the Republic of Serbia, and negotiations are currently taking place regarding compliance with the different accession chapters. Serbia's integration entails several challenges, being a decisive instrument to heal the wounds of the Balkan War and an opportunity to rebuild political, social, diplomatic, and economic relations across the region. This chapter sets out to discover these challenges and seeks to analyze the current moment of negotiation, outlining the possible paths for the country's integration into the European Union and the respective impact on subsequent negotiations with other Balkan States. Among the remaining doubts regarding the integration of the Serbian State and the conviction that the path of the European Union inevitably passes through this integration, what challenges will the negotiation face in the coming years?

scholarly journals Brexit and the borders and boundaries of the European Union

Intersections ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dragoş Ciulinaru
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The European Union ◽  
British Government ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
The Public ◽  
Freedom Of Movement ◽  
Campaign Rhetoric ◽  
The Poor ◽  
British State

The article makes the case for the study of borders and boundaries as intertwined concepts that bear multiple implications for understanding the prominence of anti-migration in the public discourse. In this sense Brexit is approached as the epitome of the rebordering of Europe and the analysis’ focus falls on the influence on the outcome of the referendum of the discourses of ‘invading’ Eastern Europeans that burden the British state. The data used includes the declarations of British political leaders, found in media articles and in the official communication of the British Government, over the period of the campaign for the Brexit referendum, as well as in relation to the main milestones of Romania’s European integration. The referendum campaign rhetoric is placed within the wider strategy for obtaining restrictions and exceptions from the principles of freedom of movement in order to curb the mobility of the poor and of those perceived as threateningly different. At the same time, the case of Brexit reveals how outsiders are strategically portrayed as invaders and parasites in order to reclaim territorially binding powers.

scholarly journals FIRST RESULTS OF RADON MONITORING PROGRAM IN SLOVENIA ACCORDING TO EU EURATOM DIRECTIVE

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregor Omahen
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Radon Concentration ◽  
Monitoring Program ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Ministry Of Health ◽  
Know How ◽  
First Results ◽  
Radon Monitoring ◽  
Radon Concentrations

In 2018 Slovenia adopted the new ordinance where the requirements of the Council of the European Union 2013/59 Euratom on radon were taken into account (2LIT). As the new ordinance requires systematic survey of radon concentrations in public institutions and dwellings in Slovenia, Ministry of Health announced two tenders for the radon surveys in 2018 and 2019. Zavod za varstvo pri delu (ZVD) successfully competed on both tenders. The tenders required measurements of radon concentrations in public institutions, mainly schools and kindergartens and in private dwellings every year in 24 municipalities which were recognised as radon prone areas. Besides these measurements ZVD as the authorised organisation measured radon concentration in companies all over Slovenia and private dwellings where owners wanted to know how high the radon concentration is and if some actions are required to lower it. The radon concentrations were measured with track etched detectors. The results of the survey are presented in the article as well as the difficulties we encountered during sending track etched detectors to people.

The Contest for Central and Eastern Europe

2019 ◽  
pp. 108-128
Author(s):  
Mitchell A. Orenstein
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Energy Politics ◽  
Eastern European Countries

While many thought that the eleven Central and Eastern European countries that exited communism and joined the European Union in the 2000s had made an irrevocable “civilizational choice,” Russia has sought to extend its influence into this unexpected new battleground. Though Russia has fewer tools of influence than in the lands in between, it has used energy politics, disinformation, support for extremist parties, business relations, and a variety of covert methods to cause Central and Eastern European governments and politicians to re-evaluate their allegiances. Central and Eastern European countries have experienced growing extremism, increasing polarization, and the rise of cynical power brokers who wish to accommodate Moscow, while also benefiting from EU ties and funds. Political leaders such as Viktor Orbán of Hungary have blazed this path, making gas and energy deals with Russia while undermining democratic politics at home and challenging the European Union from within.

scholarly journals Potential Still Untapped: Japanese Perceptions of the European Union as an Economic and Normative Power

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 59-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Bacon ◽  
Emi Kato
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Print Media ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Normative Power ◽  
Elite Interviews ◽  
Economic Partnership ◽  
Commission President ◽  
Partnership Agreement ◽  
The Eu

AbstractThis article focuses on two of the three pillars of the ‘EU through the Eyes of Asia’ perceptions project, and analyzes the Japanese print media and elite interviews. We focus on two issues: the first of these is exasperation at the slow progress towards an EU-Japan Free Trade Agreement/Economic Partnership Agreement (FTA/EPA). This exasperation is clearest in the Japanese elite interviews, but the trade negotiations also feature significantly in discussions in the Japanese print media. The second issue is the consistent perception of the EU as a significant normative and diplomatic power, and a leader on human rights promotion, with this perception strongly evident in both the Japanese print media and elite interviews. Overall, the EU was perceived positively as a political actor, and, in a boost for post-Lisbon perceptions of the EU, High Representative Catherine Ashton had a generally high and somewhat positive profile in Japan. This came across more strongly in the print media rather than the elite interviews. In a much-quoted speech given in Japan in 2006, Commission President José Manuel Barroso talked of the untapped trade potential within EU-Japan relations, and the normative power of the EU and Japan. A focus on perceptions helps to inform us about the global importance of the EU and how this is being interpreted outside of Europe. To understand the European Union itself we need to have an external reflection in order to interpret its meaning. Through our study, we hope to highlight and communicate the fact that the Barroso perspective is shared by many within Japan.

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