ASTK18357U Cancelled The European Union’s External Actions

How can we best understand the European Union’s External Actions in planetary politics? The most popular approaches to this question seek to answer it in a number of ways – by comparing it with other actors such as states, regional organisations or international organisations – or by declaring it unique and beyond comparison. This elective sets out to examine the EU’s External Actions in planetary politics by rethinking the nature of power and actorness in a planetary political era. This examination involves, first, understanding conceptual, theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of the EU in planetary politics. Second, the EU’s use different forms of power, in particular physical, material and normative power, will be studied through the analysis of five different spheres through a series of ten case studies. Finally, the course will examine whether it is possible to characterise the EU as a particular type of planetary actor through the comparative assessment of the case studies. This will allow students to answer the question of whether the EU is more or less prone to use of physical, material, or normative power in its External Actions than other international actors?

The elective course consists of nine 3-hour sessions placing a heavy emphasis on Active Learning through case study work. The course begins by introducing the differing understandings of EU actorness, normative and other forms of power, and planetary politics. The course will then examine a series of five different spheres of planetary politics using ten case studies with the normative power analytical framework by contrasting the use of physical, material, and normative power. The ten case studies cover the principles of sustainable peace and law; freedom and social solidarity; human rights and equality; sustainable development and climate change; democracy and good governance. The course concludes by asking if the EU can be characterised as a ‘European communion’ in planetary politics, and whether there is any significant role for the EU in changing planetary politics?

Preliminary plan:

1. Introduction: European Union External Actions in Planetary Politics

2. Contextualising and Understanding the EU in Planetary Politics

3. Conflictual Planetary Politics: Peace and Law

4. Economic Planetary Politics: Freedom and Social Solidarity

5. Social Planetary Politics: Human Rights and Equality

6. Environmental Planetary Politics: Sustainable Development and Climate Change

7. Political Planetary Politics: Democracy and Good Governance

8. European communion: the EU in planetary politics

9. EU in changing planetary politics