EU, Security and The Eastern Partnership

Resilient States versus Resilient Societies

Christian Kaunert, Giselle Bosse, Alena Vieira, Christian Kaunert, Giselle Bosse, Alena Vieira

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781032866611
• eBook ISBN: 9781040183113
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book connects the scholarly discussions on 'security' and 'resilience', by examining the various definitions and meanings of the terms in the EU's Eastern Partnership (EaP) policy, and in what ways the EU has attempted to define the relationship between security and resilience in its official rhetoric and in policy practice.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has largely been viewed as an extraordinary resilience test for the EU. The war has unleashed multiple crises ranging from security and asylum to energy and the economy, in turn raising questions not only on how the EU can ensure the resilience of its eastern partners, but also questions existential to the EU, such as institutional and policy reform, further EU enlargement and the EU's role in a rapidly changing global context of polarisation and fragmentation. The chapters in this edited volume draw on a diversity of original conceptual and theoretical frameworks that are combined with an empirical analysis of often overlooked dimensions of EU's policy towards the EaP countries, drawing on the original data collected by the authors, including the semi-structured interviews. In light of the aforementioned challenges, the chapters to this book have only increased in relevance, pointing to pathways and opportunities for the EU to strengthen the resilience of its eastern partners and its own resilience in the future, and inviting policy-makers and scholars to reflect on potential pitfalls, contradictions and limitations of EU resilience-building.

This book will be beneficial to students, scholars and academics interested in European Studies, Politics and International Security. The chapters in this book were originally published in the Journal of Contemporary European Studies.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction: resilient states versus resilient societies? Whose security does the EU protect through the Eastern partnership in times of geopolitical crises?
• 1 Resilient states vs. resilient societies? The ‘dark side’ of resilience narratives in EU relations with authoritarian regimes: a case study of Belarus
• 2 A new business as usual? The impact of the ‘resilience turn’ on the EU’s foreign policy and approach towards the eastern neighbourhood
• 3 Resilience in EU crisis interventions in Ukraine: a complexity perspective
• 4 Going back and forth: European Union resilience-building in Moldova between 2014 and 2020
• 5 Connectivity of the EU’s Eastern partnership region: contestation between liberal and illiberal approaches
• 6 EU Eastern partnership, ontological security and EU- Ukraine/Russian warfare
• 7 China’s discourse on the belt and road initiative: a hidden threat to European security logic?
• 8 Do the EU and Ukraine speak the same language? The various notions of resilience before the military intervention
• 9 Alliance-building between great power commitment and misperceptions: failed balancing despite alignment efforts in the post-Soviet space
• 10 A divorce of convenience: exploring radical right populist parties’ position on Putin’s Russia within the context of the Ukrainian war. A social media perspective
• 11 Depoliticising the people: post-normative power Europe in the women-led protests in Belarus
• Afterword
• Index