Suchergebnisse

Focusing on the politics of representation and constructions of identity, the author analyses the impact of European regionalism on the Mediterranean.

AbstractIn this article, I revisit my 2007 piece on The Construction of EU Normative Power (NP) and the Middle East 'conflict' and bring in Manners' Arrival of NP in Planetary Politics' (NPA) frame to shed light on how the EU's southern neighbourhood and its social and political fragility becomes amplified by the 'force multiplier' of climate mitigation. For example, in 2018, Gaza sewage led to the closure of Israeli beaches and the shutdown of the desalination plant in Ashkelon, which supplies Israel with 15% of its drinking water. This is but one example of how Israel and Palestine are not only inter‐dependent but, perhaps more importantly, co‐dependent. This article therefore draws attention to the urgent need of thinking on the co‐constitution of all life on earth, particularly in a climate‐conflict scenario such as that of Israel and Palestine. Water scarcity, rising temperatures and electricity interruptions contribute to the region's instability. If policy‐makers from the region and beyond are to co‐ordinate policy interventions around water and food insecurity for instance, they cannot ignore intractable conflicts such as the Israeli–Palestinian issue and their ensuing implications for planetary politics. Such enduring 'conflicts' represent a microcosmic image of the planet as a whole. Along with the other contributions in this symposium, this piece invokes planetary politics as the space where we need – out of necessity – to think differently: Otherwise, others will be writing the script for us.

Norway's ambiguous approach towards Israel and Palestine can be traced back to the 1940s when it was the most pro-Israeli of the three Nordic countries. Since then, there has been a change in perceptions of Israel amongst the Norwegian public and at the official government level. The article follows this change through four crucial phases: the first focuses on the period 1978 up until 1993; the second highlights the Oslo Accords period; the third elucidates the Second Intifada phase and the fourth concentrates on the time of the Gaza war of 2014 up to this day. While Middle East events influenced Norwegian public opinion vis-à-vis Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory, policies of Norwegian governments throughout these periods did not necessarily reflect public opinion. Nowadays, the Norwegian government continues to enhance its economic relations with Israel, in spite of the more pro-Palestinian stance amongst the general public in Norway.

AbstractThis article focuses on how the EU has interpreted the Arab uprisings as they unfolded in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) since December 2010. EU actors have long acknowledged limits in the EU's strategy towards its southern neighbourhood, which largely bypasses the demands of local populations. The article analyzes the EU's efforts at recreating an 'enhanced' framework of support for political reforms in the south. It concludes that the EU and local partners in the south still have different 'visions' regarding democratic change, which shows the limitations of the EU's understanding of the MENA region.

Following the electoral victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections of January 2006, the international community reacted by suspending aid to the democratically elected Hamas government. Across Middle Eastern societies, this move and the events that followed since ushered in a complete loss of credibility in the discourse of external actors like the European Union (EU) and their declared quest for promoting democracy in the region. Are we witnessing the demise of the EU's democracy promotion agenda given the perception from the Middle East (ME) in regard to its inconsistent discourse? This article aims to address how a critical engagement with the ways in which the EU constructs itself as a normative power, in its attempts at exporting its model of liberal democracy, might shed light on questions central to contemporary EU-ME relations. In particular, it surveys discursive configurations of 'democracy' in the ME. By way of conclusion, the article holds that the EU should reflect on these internal and diverse debates, which may in turn necessitate a reframing of its own discourse on democracy promotion in the ME: this process of reframing need not negate its principles. Adapted from the source document.