{"title":"Unlearning and Relearning Europe: Theoretical and Practical Approaches to Decolonising European Studies Curricula","authors":"Aincre Maame-Fosua Evans, Danai Petropoulou Ionescu","doi":"10.30950/jcer.v19i2.1298","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30950/jcer.v19i2.1298","url":null,"abstract":"Discussion on decolonising European Studies (ES) curriculum has gained traction in academic and activist circles, partly responding to calls to decolonise curricula that have brought attention to the ‘whitewashing’ of history and the critical lack of BIPOC scholarship taught in higher education syllabi. Current efforts to decolonise ES as a field of study have largely relied on these aspects. While this is undoubtedly an important step, many ES scholars have expressed a lack of clarity as to how this rhetoric can be practically adopted in their courses without compromising the central subject matter – Europe. This paper responds to calls to decolonise ES, by introducing different theoretical and practical approaches that educational practitioners within the field can draw from in the building of curricula","PeriodicalId":44985,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary European Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45159167","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rethinking African-European Scientific Cooperation: The Case of the Platform for African-European Studies","authors":"C. Nshimbi, P. Develtere, Bacha Kebede Debela","doi":"10.30950/jcer.v19i2.1299","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30950/jcer.v19i2.1299","url":null,"abstract":"African universities rely on teaching traditions and scientific theories based on Western epistemologies and ontologies. Interactions between European and African scholars too tend to focus on the deficits in African experiences, knowledge, research and teaching methodologies and the poor economic environments in which they operate that are characterized by inadequate infrastructure and budgets. This essay discusses an emerging opportunity in science diplomacy within African-European Union (EU) interactions in higher education and argues that a fundamental revision of the imbalances in African-European scholarly relationships is possible. The essay uses the case of the emerging Platform for African–European Studies, which involves 22 universities (including 14 in Africa and eight in Europe) and underscores the importance of science diplomacy, knowledge co-creation and co-production to correct hegemonic knowledge about Africa. It explores the origins of the programme, its attempt to follow a critical global and decolonized approach in addressing the revision of curricula both in Europe and in Africa and the co-design of research. It concludes by highlighting some of the obstacles to disrupting the status-quo.","PeriodicalId":44985,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary European Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44963841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Critical and Problem-Solving Perspectives on Decentring EU External Action Studies","authors":"Sharon Lecocq, Stephan Keukeleire","doi":"10.30950/jcer.v19i2.1293","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30950/jcer.v19i2.1293","url":null,"abstract":" \u0000This article proposes a decentring approach for EU External Action Studies as a debate that is ‘disrupting’ the mainstream in European Studies. It theoretically contributes to the decentring debate in three ways. First, by identifying decentring as a meta-theoretical current of thinking, the article helps define the decentring debate as an area of theorising which can accommodate scholars from various backgrounds and bring them together around a common commitment to overcome Euro- and Western centrism in scholarship (and practice). Second, the article states the wider relevance of taking a decentring approach, which entails normative and instrumental benefits for scholarship, teaching and practice. By doing so, the article underscores the ethical imperative of disrupting a field of study on the one hand, but also the usefulness and even the necessity of disruption as a problem-solving approach to the benefit of a field’s mainstream centre on the other. Third, the article shows how the decentring debate accommodates both critical and problem-solving theorising, and proposes potential theoretical anchors in existing bodies of work. Finally, it discusses the inherent paradox that follows from critical and problem-solving approaches to decentring specifically and disruptive theorising more broadly.","PeriodicalId":44985,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary European Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49151507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Regional Transformation as Reterritorialisation: Examining the Distorted Image of EU-ropeanisation","authors":"Tiffany G. Williams","doi":"10.30950/jcer.v19i2.1296","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30950/jcer.v19i2.1296","url":null,"abstract":"The European Union’s (EU) mission to promote its idea of European-ness across the continent led to its eastern enlargements and later the Eastern Partnership of the European Neighbourhood Policy. Along the way, this mission encountered competing norms and regional integration efforts shaped by sociocultural and historical ties connecting state, society and territory. These ties inform the barriers to Europeanisation and the backsliding from EU-managed policy reforms. They can illuminate where the EU’s self-image and constructed European identity do not reflect perspectives abroad or those of EU member countries. Such inconsistencies in the EU-constructed identity that shaped related policy mechanisms prevented sustainable regional transformation and integration. Further policy integration and future EU enlargement remain strong possibilities, as does the risk of basing the next generation of policy mechanisms on a distorted image of the EU and its capacity to transform. In this article, I apply a novel critical theory perspective on the entwined processes of de- and reterritorialisation to this context, and argue that this perspective clarifies and informs the EU’s aim to transform and unite Europe.","PeriodicalId":44985,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary European Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45962187","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Disrupting and Re-imagining European Studies: towards a More Diverse and Inclusive Discipline","authors":"M. David, María García, T. Haastrup, F. Mattheis","doi":"10.30950/jcer.v19i2.1294","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30950/jcer.v19i2.1294","url":null,"abstract":"In 2019, UACES and the European Studies Association of Sub-Saharan Africa (ESA-SSA) launched a project funded by the European Commission’s Erasmus Plus Jean Monnet Projects. The aim of the programme was to encourage and promote diversity within European Studies - broadly defined. The project, ‘Diversity, Inclusion and Multidisciplinarity in European Studies’ (DIMES) sought to explore ways to increase diversity within the field of European Studies, in particular with regards to the ethnicity, disciplinary focus, geographical location of its participants and eventually knowledge production within European Studies itself. The outlined aims of the project were threefold: 1) to improve the representation of BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of colour) academics within UACES and European studies more generally; 2) to move away from the emphasis on Western European and North American academics towards greater inclusion for scholars from under-represented, even marginalised geographies; 3) to broaden the disciplinary focus of contemporary European Studies to include adjacent/related disciplines such as anthropology, human geography, cultural studies and sociology.","PeriodicalId":44985,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary European Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44501397","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Moving from EU-centrisms: Lessons from the Polycrisis for EU studies and Global South Regionalism","authors":"Dina Sebastião, Burno Theodoro Luciano","doi":"10.30950/jcer.v19i2.1297","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30950/jcer.v19i2.1297","url":null,"abstract":"This article reflects on the responses to global crises in Global South regionalisms and the EU, emphasising the need for disrupting research agendas, strengthening disciplinary and theoretical diversity accounts in the EU and comparative regionalism studies in general. The article collects trends and challenges highlighted by the literature on EU and regionalism in Global South from 2008 onwards, aiming to address as main research question: how EU studies and Global South scholarship developed after multiple global crises to contribute to the theorisation renewal and the disruption of research agendas? Stemming from the concept of global polycrisis, two relevant and multidimensional crises are analysed: the 2008 global financial crisis and the migration influxes derived from humanitarian crises. By studying both the EU and Global South experiences, we aim to contribute to move beyond the Eurocentric foundations of the regionalism studies, emphasising that knowledge production needs to be more empirically sensitive to context and social reality.","PeriodicalId":44985,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary European Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44830868","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Antonio Salvador M. Alcazar III, Camille Nessel, J. Orbie
{"title":"Decolonising EU Trade Relations with the Global Souths?","authors":"Antonio Salvador M. Alcazar III, Camille Nessel, J. Orbie","doi":"10.30950/jcer.v19i2.1295","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30950/jcer.v19i2.1295","url":null,"abstract":"That the European Union’s common commercial relations with ex-colonies and more broadly the ‘tiers monde’ now rest variously on benevolence, depoliticised practices, equal partnerships and values fuels reigning foundational myths about the EU in global politics. Efforts to disrupt these received presuppositions have come from interpretivist, postcolonial, post-development, post-structuralist and other heterodox research traditions. Yet the academy has been largely impervious to knowledges that genuinely question and subvert, in both theory and praxis, Eurocentric ways of seeing the world and understanding the EU as a ‘benevolent’ trade actor on the world stage. In dialogue with existing heterodox approaches, this article asks how we might puncture the coloniality of dominant knowledge regimes about EU trade relations vis-à-vis the global souths, i.e., peoples and places that the EU deems peripheral and, as such, in need of trade-related interventions in the name of development. To this end, we propose different ‘subject-positions’ with which to unthink and rethink our ways of knowing EU trade policy and the Eurocentrism lurking behind it by turning to decolonial thought. We borrow heavily from the work of Meera Sabaratnam whose ‘decolonising strategies’ in studying world politics we attempt to exemplify through a critical interrogation of the canonical scholarship around three distinct ‘policy worlds’ of EU external trade relations: Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) and Trade and Sustainable Development (TSD) chapters in free trade agreements. Finally, we think reflexively about the decolonial option and the ruptures it triggers as to what EU trade policy is and the colonial logics sustaining ‘normative’ and ‘geopolitical’ narratives on/by the EU as a trade power.","PeriodicalId":44985,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary European Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44419253","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Preliminary Insights into the Formation of Minimal Winning Coalitions in Western Europe","authors":"Marco Improta","doi":"10.30950/jcer.v19i1.1265","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30950/jcer.v19i1.1265","url":null,"abstract":"Coalition governments have prompted a stream of prominent research since the birth of modern political science. Several studies have been performed on the lifecycles of cabinets, focusing particularly on their formation and duration. The first investigations into such issues were carried out using game theoretic approaches. In their ground-breaking works, William Riker and Lawrence Dodd argued that office-seeking outcomes, i.e. minimal winning coalitions, are more frequent and stable than other cabinet types. However, more recent research suggests that this proposition is disputable. By relying on an original multilevel dataset on West European cabinets, this study examines the actual rationality of minimal winning coalitions by asking whether they have been more recurrent than different government formulae, as predicted by game theory. The analysis finds that such coalitions have not been formed more frequently than non-rational cabinet solutions, i.e., oversized majority cabinets. In addition, the article showcases that minimal winning coalitions may occur in both polarised and less polarised West European political systems. By shedding light on office-based game theoretic propositions and their observable empirical records, this study contributes to the scientific examination of a fundamental stage of democratic governance in Western Europe.","PeriodicalId":44985,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary European Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42525314","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Research Handbook on the Politics of EU Law","authors":"Feyza Basar","doi":"10.30950/jcer.v19i1.1279","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30950/jcer.v19i1.1279","url":null,"abstract":"Research Handbook on the Politics of EU Law edited by Paul James Cardwell and Marie-Pierre Granger is a significant contribution to the literature on the European Integration. The book covers many topics ranging from the institutional order to system of governance and the EU’s substantive areas such as free movements, human rights, social policies and international relations where law and politics meet, complement and, sometimes, challenge each other. It is a multi-dimensional book and a useful reference guide for both legal academics and scholars from other disciplines who have strong interest in the EU’s political integration through law. ","PeriodicalId":44985,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary European Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46247958","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The relationships between Europarties and European political groups: changing formal and informal rules and the Spitzenkandidatur","authors":"P. Ahrens, Cherry M. Miller","doi":"10.30950/jcer.v19i1.1283","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30950/jcer.v19i1.1283","url":null,"abstract":"The condition of EU democracy is hotly debated and European Parliament’s political groups and Europarties play an important role in continuing power struggles between European Union institutions. To harness the increased power of both the European Parliament and European citizens, the formal and informal relationships between the political groups and Europarties matter, with the Spitzenkandidatur process as a crucial aspect. Using a dataset of 135 semi-structured interviews, this article looks beneath the formal rules that structure European Parliament’s political groups and Europarties. Exploring how MEPs construct these relationships, it discusses leadership, institutionalisation and stances toward European integration as core elements of the relationship between Europarties and political groups in the European Parliament.","PeriodicalId":44985,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary European Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-05-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47501290","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}