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

Christine Hackenesch,Jan Orbie,Julian Bergmann

doi:10.1111/jcms.13145

Christine Hackenesch, Jan Orbie + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13145

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Abstract

AbstractIn 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.

Highlights

In the past 15 years the EU has faced many crises that have challenged the very foundations of the European integration process: the economic and financial crisis in 2007–8, the inflow of refugees and asylum seekers in 2015–16 and the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic that has resulted in the closure of European borders and spurred socio-economic inequalities
Building on findings from the articles in this special issue, we aim to broaden the politicization research agenda by introducing two new mechanisms: politicization dynamics that cross the boundaries of different policy fields and politicization dynamics originating from the level of third countries
Using the example of European development policy, we argue that politicization can diffuse horizontally from one policy field to another, which we call horizontal politicization

Summary

Introduction

In the past 15 years the EU has faced many crises that have challenged the very foundations of the European integration process: the economic and financial crisis in 2007–8, the inflow of refugees and asylum seekers in 2015–16 and the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic that has resulted in the closure of European borders and spurred socio-economic inequalities. 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 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). We conclude by presenting the key contributions of the special issue and avenues for future research on politicization in EU external relations and European development policy

Politicization of EU External Relations

Patterns of Politicization of European Development Policy

Mechanisms of Politicization in European Development Policy

Conclusions