Resilient Civil Society in the European Neighbourhood: The Limits of Liberal Theories in the Conceptual Bordering of Europe

Abstract

Civil society is central in the liberal theories of the emergent normative power of the EU: its activism has been associated with the revolutionary transformation and successes or failures of democratic consolidation Europe and beyond. This role mirrors civil society involvement in the enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe. Even though massive enlargement is no longer in the agenda, civil society promotion remains central in the EU strategies towards the neighbourhood. When the cycle the of contention linking the Orange Revolution to the Arab Spring seemed to have finished, the Ukraine crisis happened together with other social movements in candidate countries such as Macedonia or Turkey. As a result, civil society remains central not only in the EU’s agenda towards the region, but in all its foreign policy approaches. Whereas civil society may promote “people to people dialogues” overcoming institutional limits, critical theory approaches emphasise the contribution of the highly technical understanding of civil society by the EU institutions to the governmentality of the externalised EU border and the postcolonial critique sees the promotion of a Eurocentric understanding of civil society in parallel to the institutional discourse on the border as the non-Europe. The panel has three objectives. Firstly it addresses the theoretical and normative debates linked to the dominant liberal conception of civil society in the Commission discourse. Secondly, the panel discusses the implications of the different discourses on civil society – resilience, partnership and expertise, to name a few – in the attribution of functions and the design of support programmes for civil society in the region in the context of the externalisation of EU border policies and authoritarian backlashes. Thirdly it seeks to contribute to comparing the EU civil society promotion strategies in the two sub-regions of the policy towards Eastern and Southern border regions.

Title	Details
Looking South: Pitfalls and Constraints of EU Civil Society Promotion Strategies in Morocco	View Paper Details
Culture in European Neighbourhood Policy’s Discourses: Tracing Boundaries and Defining Liminal Others	View Paper Details
Civil Society and the Neighbourhood Policy: Creating Friends or Foes of Neo-liberal Bordering Practices?	View Paper Details
EU Promotion of Democracy, Security and Stability in the Wider Europe: The Impossible Triangle	View Paper Details