X The End or the Beginning of Normative Power Europe?

2021 ◽  
pp. 251-273
Author(s):  
Thomas Diez
Keyword(s):  
Normative Power ◽  
Normative Power Europe

scholarly journals EU normative power and regionalism: Ideational diffusion and its limits

2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Lenz
Keyword(s):  
Diffusion Theory ◽  
Institutional Practices ◽  
Normative Power ◽  
Normative Power Europe ◽  
Ideational Diffusion ◽  
Political Decisions ◽  
Original Concept ◽  
Ideational Influence ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Methodological Difficulties

The ideational impact captured by Manners’s notion of normative power Europe (NPE) appears most distinct and potentially most consequential in the realm of regionalism. However, empirical research on the topic has been hampered by the focus on EU actorness and methodological difficulties. Drawing on diffusion theory, this article develops conceptual, theoretical and methodological foundations for conceiving NPE as ideational diffusion. It argues that Europe’s ideational influence on regionalism can be fruitfully understood as the largely indirect process by which the EU experience travels to other regions through socialization and emulation. Yet, as structural conditions vary across regions, EU ideational diffusion rarely leads to similar or even comparable institutional practices and outcomes. A choice-orientated approach is proposed for examining these claims empirically, which focuses on specifying the underlying counterfactual: political decisions in regionalism would have been different in the absence of the EU. The article concludes by outlining the analytical and normative promise of the proposed recasting of Manners’s original concept.

scholarly journals Normative Power Europe as an Ingroup Projection? The EU’s Response to the Arab Uprising

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 82
Author(s):  
Juan José Tapia-León ◽  
Emilio Galdeano-Gómez
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Test ◽  
Cognitive Change ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Normative Power ◽  
Psychological Dimension ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
Natural Tendency ◽  
Normative Power Europe ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
New Policies

This paper aims to understand the social-psychological dimension of the Normative Power Europe discourse using ingroup projection as a discursive/cognitive practice of othering. It takes issue with most poststructuralist studies that conduct analyses of Normative Power Europe based on the dependence of identity on difference through the discursive tendency to construct reality by opposites. Ingroup projection is based both on the need for differentiation to obtain positive distinctiveness and on the natural tendency for categorization processes by which groups share a common higher-order category. In this way, groups tend to project (ingroup projection) their traits and distinctive values onto this higher-order category to legitimate intergroup status differences. The EU’s response to the Arab uprisings serves as an empirical test for this argument, insofar as the uprisings implied a cognitive change of the EU’s “other” in the construction of the Mediterranean. Through ingroup projection, the EU (ingroup) differentiates itself from this new Arab Mediterranean other (outgroup) and projects EU’s idealized identity onto the Mediterranean region (higher-order category) to legitimate its new policies after the uprising.

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