Workshop organized by Working Group 3 – Contestation, and Working Group 4 – Relations

Convenors: Helene Sjursen, Ana E. Juncos, Patrick Müller, Oriol Costa

The study of norms in EU foreign policy is a well-established subfield in the broader European Studies literature, with previous work focusing both on its internal dimension (foreign policy negotiations and socialisation studies) and its external implications (in particular, the Normative Power Europe debate). There is also increasing evidence that current contestation at the domestic, European and global level has also extended to the domain of norms. Driven by the emergence of a new political cleavage centred around issues of identity, one that sets in opposition cosmopolitans and communitarians (De Wilde et al., 2019), liberal norms, traditionally at the centre of EU foreign policy, are now the target of contestation. Liberal norms have been contested domestically with the arrival of populist parties and challenger governments (Falkner and Plattner, 2019; Hodson and Puetter, 2019) and at the global level with the rise of illiberal powers (Ikenberry, 2018) and increasing geopolitical competition. However, we still know very little about how these developments have impacted procedural and substantive norms in European Foreign Policy and the EU’s ability to promote those within and beyond its borders.

For its part, recent literature on normative theorising in IR has sought to better understand how norm contestation occurs both during the processes of norm development and norm diffusion and how it affects norm robustness/erosion over time (Deitelhoff and Zimmermann, 2019; Wiener, 2014). This research has also highlighted struggles relating to norm contestation (e.g. in terms of validity or the application of the norm) and the translation of those norms to local realities, with an increasing attention to processes of localisation, translation, resistance, and antipreneurship (Acharya, 2004; Bloomfield and Scott, 2017; Deitelhoff and Zimmermann, 2013; Zimmermann, 2016). Yet, with a few exceptions, these research insights have yet to be applied to EU foreign policy-making and its implementation. This workshop seeks to foster further research and empirical testing of the implications of norm contestation in EU foreign policy both in relation to intra-EU politics and its extraterritorial application and in relation to a wide range of norms.

We will meet on the 14th and 15th of October online (barring a major improvement of the health conditions) to discuss contributions and potential projects going forward, including a possible special issue or symposium/forum. We invite 200 word abstracts plus short biographical notes by May 15th, acceptance will be communicated on the 1st of June. Papers should be circulated by October 1st. Please send your proposals to the following email addresses: oriol.costa@uab.cat and patrick.mueller@da-vienna.ac.at.

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