The usual suspect? Drivers, attitudes and politics of contestation of EU trade policy.

Abstract

The contestation of the EU’s external policies growingly attracts attention of scholarly community. Contestation is defined as a practice of opposing certain norms, as well as a mode of expressing criticism (Wiener 2014, 1). Over the past few years, it was observed by scholars that EU trade policy and specifically trade negotiations has been meeting increasing resistance and contestation from a variety of actors (Laursen and Roederer-Rynning 2017, De Bièvre et al. 2020). While the EU plays a major role in world trade, the recent free-trade agreements received criticism on both national and European levels. Contestation of EU trade policy is nested in various arenas: in European and national parliaments, in subnational authorities as well as on the level of public opinion engaging civil society organisations, social movements and citizens. This panel gathers papers analysing various aspects of nexus of trade relations and contestation such as how the external contestation shapes EU trade policy, what are consequences of such contestation on citizens and parliamentary level and means to mitigate its effects, how the attitudes toward trade negotiations are formed. It also provides insights into how contestation in trade relations impacts other linked aspects such as development policy of the EU.

Title	Details
Riders on the storm: EU external relations in an age of American hesitation	View Paper Details
EU trade preferences: A post-development critique.	View Paper Details
Trade and Attitude towards the EU: What really matters?	View Paper Details
Varieties of Politicization: An Institutional Approach to Trade Policy Contestation	View Paper Details