Suchergebnisse

European Union (EU) leaders have recently started internal discussions about the framework to shape relations with sub-Saharan African countries in the post-Cotonou period. The process is set against the background of increasing contestation over the African continent, most prominently with China. This article argues that for the EU to properly address this competition, it needs to conceptualize it as unfolding not only on the material but also on the ideational level. Contrary to common belief, China is not an amoral actor in Africa, but rather the source of a complex and historically-rooted alternative view on the global system and development cooperation, a view that might be appealing to disenchanted African audiences. Building upon the conceptual framework of 'strategic narrative', this article systematically deconstructs the EU and Chinese narratives towards Africa into their core components at the system, identity, relationship and issue level. Empirically, the article is based upon a qualitative analysis of core policy documents on Africa covering the period 2000–2015. By contributing to a better understanding and contextualization of the divergent views and claims espoused by the two narratives, this article lays the foundation for a broader research agenda aimed at grasping the normative competition faced by the EU in Africa.

AbstractWhile the past decade has seen a remarkable growth in research on external perceptions of the EU, this literature remains characterized by three important gaps: highly uneven geographical coverage, lack of comparisons between the EU and other actors, and a near‐exclusive focus on description to the detriment of explanation. This article introduces a novel explanatory framework for perceptions research and applies this to popular perceptions of the EU and China in 19 Sub‐Saharan African countries, shedding light on a neglected dimension of the 'traditional' versus 'emerging donors' debate. It finds, first, that China has quickly succeeded in becoming more well‐known among African populations than the EU. Second, popular perceptions do not reflect the antagonism pervading the discourse on 'emerging donors', with both the EU and China enjoying broad‐based popular support. Finally, preferences are a function primarily of individual experiences and outlooks, refuting earlier claims on the importance of national‐level factors.

Whilst concerns about the EU-centric character of EU foreign policy analysis have become more frequent in recent years, a systematic toolbox for diagnosing and remedying this problem is still lacking. This article's contribution is twofold. First, it proposes a new typology of three approaches to foreign policy analysis, offering conceptual body and nuance to the debate on EU-centrism. The typology can be used for scrutinising existing analyses, as well as for shaping new research projects. Second, this typology is applied in a meta-analysis of post-Lisbon EU foreign policy scholarship: a built-for-purpose dataset of 451 articles was analysed, covering all work on EU foreign policy published in seven key journals for the period 2010–2014, was analysed. It was found that academic work on EU foreign policy wass indeed rife with EU-centric research questions, and, moreover, that this is the case irrespective of either the policy area under study or the focus of the journal.