For the 4^th World Congress for Middle East Studies (WOCMES), to be held in Ankara, on 18-22 August 2014. Feel free to disseminate it among your contacts.

Panel: The European Union’s Involvement in Political Crises and Conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa

Since its inception in 2003, the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) aimed at reinforcing stability and security and was destined to contribute to efforts in the field of conflict management and resolution in the European periphery. The outbreak and events of the ‘Arab Spring’, as the popular protests and uprisings in the southern EU neighbourhood are often called, in conjunction with the entering into force of the Lisbon Treaty and the financial and economic crisis, affecting both EU and neighbouring partner countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), have exposed EU policies to numerous challenges but also opportunities. What kind of impact did these developments have on the EU’s approaches to conflicts and crises in the MENA region? 

Conflict and crisis are  here defined in a rather broad fashion, not only referring to the systematic and regular use of violence, but also to other factors, such as for example political crises, which can potentially lead to the setting-in-motion of domestic, regional and international conflicts. Hence MENA conflict/crisis topics addressed might include among others:

• EU’s policies towards the longstanding/frozen territorial conflicts of Israel-Palestine or Western Sahara
• EU’s responses to the rapidly escalating internal conflicts or civil wars that have derived from anti-authoritarian ‘Arab Spring’ revolts and provoked discussion on international military intervention, with opposite results, in Libya and Syria
• EU’s reactions to other cases of domestic political crises in transitioning countries where instability persists after the fall of former regimes, such as in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain and Yemen

The proposed panel (or series of panels) aims at bridging different fields of research mainly within political science such as International Relations, EU Studies, Political Theory, Comparative Politics as well as Area Studies. It will provide the ground for theory development and empirical analysis and it will be of interest to early career and more established academics. We welcome papers of both theoretical and empirical nature focusing on either different aspects of the EU’s foreign policy and/or how actors in the MENA region perceive them and interact with them. Some potential issues to be addressed are:

• Discursive action, statements and declarations by different EU institutions and actors
• ‘High-politics’ and diplomatic activity
• Mediation initiatives
• Adoption and implementation of punitive restrictive measures such as trade sanctions, arms embargos, asset freezes and travel bans
• Involvement in multilateral fora such as the UN, NATO etc.
• Deployment of Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions
• Bilateral relations (Association Agreements, ENP Action Plans, Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreements DCFTAs…) with states being party to a conflict, which have an impact on the conflict as a whole

Paper abstracts of maximum 250 words following the guidelines of WOCMES 2014 (http://www.wocmes2014.org/?p=abstract) should be sent by 10 December to Dimitris Bouris (dimitris.bouris@coleurope.eu) and Irene Fernández Molina (irene.fernandez@coleurope.eu).