The limits of Global Europe? The (geo)politicization of EU trade and other external policies

In this Workshop we invite researchers from different stages in their careers (PhD, postdoc, professor) to present new ideas and ongoing (unpublished) work. We have the specific aim to host a gender-balanced workshop which reflects a diversity of academic expertise. The participants will be selected based on their interest to engage with (geo)politicization dynamics in EU trade or other external policies. In particular, we presume our workshop will be interesting for different kinds of political scientists, related to three sub-themes which we see as essential for bridging the gap between the internal and external limits of Global Europe. A first target group is political sociologists, comparative political scientists, and network scientists, who aim to dig deeper into the (changing) patterns of politicization in EU trade and other external policies. This includes looking at how politicization dynamics are connected over time, across countries, and across contemporaneous agreements. It also takes into consideration the enabling conditions for politicization within the period of Global Europe, how they are changing, and who is enabled or constrained by this shift. Since changing networks and opportunity structures imply a shift in actor involvement, we invite contributors who want to investigate how change is linked to an expansion of conflict from the ‘usual suspects’ to a wider variety of actors and audiences. Secondly, the workshop should be appealing to social movement and interest group scholars aiming to study dynamics beyond politicization. Either in order to investigate political dynamics that take place in the aftermath of a politicized episode, or ‘in-between’ the episodes which attract the attention of (trade) scholars. What are the consequences of politicization for the campaigners, organizations, and alliances who were engaged in the visible public battles against TTIP, CETA, Mercosur and CAI? What happens to the material and cultural resources produced during these times? Crucially, if we look at the politicization of trade in isolation, we might neglect ‘peak episodes’ of the Global Justice Movement more broadly, implying connections between different policy activism areas. Thirdly, International Relations and Global Governance scholars will find the EU’s shift towards an open, strategic, and sustainable trade policy particularly interesting, with its stronger emphasis on non-trade objectives, and its differentiation in terms of the policy tools used to reach these objectives (unilateral action, informal forums, plurilateral engagement). In this respect, we are particularly hopeful to receive contributions from scholars working in areas beyond EU trade policy such as the Common Foreign and Security Policy, external action, or international security more broadly. As the shifts towards ‘Strategic Autonomy’ in these areas were already recognizable pre-Covid, trade scholars will benefit from seeing various types of trade agreements as part of a wider evolution which crosses countries and issue areas. By bringing together this variety of political scientists studying EU trade and other external policies in light of the ‘limits of Global Europe’, we believe this Workshop will be a key moment in the study of our changing policy field, and a stepping stone for future cooperation and joint publications.