In person icon Engaging the EU’s Borderlands: A Relational Perspective

Abstract

This panel draws on social relational theories to examine how the EU relates to its borderlands, moving away from essentialist and Western-centric understandings of the EU’s "neighbourhood". Transcending both actor-centric and structural approaches to IR, relational approaches understand the Union’s borderlands not as rigidly demarcated sites to confront reified threats or patronise inexperienced subordinates, but as porous boundaries that host a multiplicity of relations, practices, and interactions shaping the EU as well as its counterparts. The goal is to counter patterns of knowledge production that centre European perspectives and peripheralise, infantilise or demonise others. In addition, this panel approaches the borderlands as the site of ‘multiple, overlapping regional orders’ (Fisher-Onar and Kavalski, 2023), rather than solely from the perspective of the EU. The papers in this panel focus both on internal EU dynamics shaping its policies towards the borderlands (inside-out perspective) and the borderlands’ own reception and engagement with the EU (outside-in perspective). The Special Issue makes several contributions to the literature. For one, it seeks to introduce relationality into the mainstream of European Studies, thus enriching the theorisation of the EU’s internal dynamics as well as of its engagement with the borderlands.

Title	Details
European integration reconsidered: The Case of Frontex-Moldova Relations in Border Management	View Paper Details
Re-imagining Relations between the EU and the Borderlands: Introduction to the Special Issue	View Paper Details
The EU, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Green Agenda: The Role of the EU Delegation in Engaging in Bilateral Relations	View Paper Details
The Evolution of the Internal-External Nexus in EU Migration Policy: A Relational Analysis of the Role of the EEAS	View Paper Details