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The Revised European Neighbourhood Policy pp 57–76Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Deconstructing the ‘Ideal Power Europe’ Meta-Narrative in the European Neighbourhood Policy

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Abstract

This chapter aims to reveal the EU’s governmentality in its neighbourhood through a poststructuralist analysis of its foreign policy in general and the revised ENP, in particular. Its major argument is that the EU’s representation as ‘a positive force’ in world politics—that is, as an ‘ideal power’—legitimises the Union’s imposition of its governmentality on its ‘others’, especially on its neighbours to the East and South. Taking the ENP as a boundary-drawing exercise and a security apparatus, the chapter offers a second reading of the EU’s foreign-policy practices in its neighbourhood, tracing continuity and change between the original and the revised ENP. The chapter concludes that the ENP—both original and revised—helps the reproduction of the ‘ideal power Europe’ meta-narrative.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. European Union Institute, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Münevver Cebeci

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  1. Münevver Cebeci
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Correspondence to Münevver Cebeci .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Dimitris Bouris

  2. European Neighbourhood Policy Chair, College of Europe (Natolin), Warsaw, Poland

    Tobias Schumacher

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Cebeci, M. (2017). Deconstructing the ‘Ideal Power Europe’ Meta-Narrative in the European Neighbourhood Policy. In: Bouris, D., Schumacher, T. (eds) The Revised European Neighbourhood Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-47182-6_3

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