Ignoring the elephant in the room? Assessing the impact of the European Union on the Development Assistance Committee's role in international development

This article studies the impact of the European Union (EU) on the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). While the literature thus far has focused on the external challenges for the DAC's role in international development, this study argues that the EU should be taken into account as well. By focusing on the cases of policy coherence for development and the concessionality of official development assistance (ODA) loans, we show that the EU poses a structural challenge for the DAC's role in international development given the strong overlap in membership between both institutions and the Union's changing nature as a development actor

Theorizing EU trade politics

This special issue aims to take the first step towards an inter-paradigmatic debate in the study of European Union trade politics

The European Union's 'Comprehensive Approach' in Chad: securitisation and/or compartmentalisation?

The European Union (EU) aims for a comprehensive approach to security in developing countries. As a result, attempts have been made to enhance the nexus between the EU's security policy and other policy areas, particularly development, humanitarian assistance, and democratic governance. This article analyses the EU's comprehensive approach in the case of Chad, focusing on two questions. First, has the EU's comprehensive approach been able to supersede the compartmentalisation of the EU's political system? Second, has it led to the securitisation of non-security policy areas? These questions are answered by investigating the nexus between the EU's security, democracy, development and humanitarian aid policies in Chad from 2006 onwards. This analysis confirms the compartmentalisation scenario, especially regarding development and humanitarian aid where the relation with security policies was at times openly conflicting. While the EU's democracy promotion policies are found to be securitised, this is not the case for development and humanitarian aid

The EU's promotion of external democracy: in search of the plot

While the EU has recently upgraded its external democracy promotion policies through a number of different initiatives, there is one challenge that it has not yet addressed: what exactly does it aim to support? This policy brief illustrates that both the conceptualisation of democracy and the means to achieve it remain vague, and explains why this is problematic. It points out the risks that stem from a lack of clear understanding about how human rights, governance, civil society and socio-economic development relate to democratisation. Among a number of recommendations, authors Anne Wetzel and Jan Orbie propose a ‘Green Paper’ debate on this topic that would take into account the views of different stakeholders, including those from the target countries, without neglecting existing international standards and agreements

EU bilateral trade agreements and the surprising rise of labour provisions

Surprisingly, labour provisions in EU bilateral trade agreements have widened and deepened over the past decade. One would have expected the opposite, given the coming to power of centre-right governments in the early 2000s and a stronger liberalization agenda since 2006. This article addresses this rather remarkable development. First of all it dismisses the argument that protectionist motives underlie the stronger social clauses in EU trade agreements. Instead, drawing on the theory of the life-cycle of norms, it suggests that social trade has become an unobjectionable norm within the EU. The article then offers several explanations for why the social-trade nexus has been barely disputed, and indeed has further expanded through subsequent trade arrangements. These include the stronger influence of the European Parliament, path-dependencies stemming from the EU’s previous template, and the need to gain public support in the face of criticism of free trade agreements. Most importantly, it stresses that the framing of core labour rights as part of a broader ‘sustainable development’ agenda has contributed to their unobjectionable status. While this framing has helped to forge a consensus with regard to the social trade agenda, giving equal status to labour and environmental provisions under the sustainable development umbrella might also have adverse consequences for the concept of labour provisions

The Social Dimension of European Union Trade Policies

The European Union (EU) is widely considered as a formidable trade power. It represents about one fourth of worldwide trade fl ows and generally speaks with one voice in its common commercial policies. In addition, policy-makers and scholars often regard the Union as a distinctive, ‘normative power’ in the world. From this perspective, Europe tries to be at the forefront of promoting values such as human rights, democracy, sustainable development, and social justice, this with a clear preference for supporting international dialogue and cooperation in these areas, rather than for using trade sanctions. This special issue combines both aspects of the EU’s international role. More specifi cally, it concerns the social dimension of the EU’s trade policies. It raises the questions of how, why, and with what impact the EU has promoted social objectives through its common commercial policies. These three questions will be addressed in this introduction, followed by a brief summary of the way in which the different contributions of this special issue deal with them

Towards engaged pluralism in the study of European Union trade politics

Going back to the Kuhnian debate about the assumed incommensurability of different paradigms, we point at the need for engaged pluralism in political science. We illustrate this by giving illustrations from the different paradigmatic perspectives included in the special issue and how they could speak to each other. While this analysis clearly shows the limits and difficulties encountered during such an endeavor, we hope to have laid the basis for a more reflexive dialogue within the literature