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The European Neighborhood Policy: Going Full Circle?

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Book cover The International Politics of the Arab Spring

Part of the book series: The Modern Muslim World ((MMUS))

Abstract

The Arab Spring of 2011 radically changed the regional political context in the EU’s neighborhood and prompted some substantial adjustments—in terms of ends and means—to the EU’s Neighborhood Policy (ENP). Originally launched as a soft-power policy tool to export stability to the crisis-pone countries on the EU’s southern and eastern periphery, the ENP has been retooled to back the nascent democratic transition processes in the Arab world. By seemingly solving the long-standing conflict between interests and values at the heart of the ENP, the Arab Spring enabled the EU to shift from an approach that focused on maintaining the regional status quo to a new transformational policy in the wider Middle East. However, faced with an atmosphere of deepening social and political polarization, this policy has been unable to unfold its full potential. With the return of authoritarian politics to Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in the course of 2013, the ENP’s transformational drive has markedly slackened, slowly forcing Brussels to go full circle on its policies.

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Authors
  1. Timo Behr
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. British University, Egypt

    Robert Mason (Lecturer of Political Science) (Lecturer of Political Science)

Copyright information

© 2014 Robert Mason

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Behr, T. (2014). The European Neighborhood Policy: Going Full Circle?. In: Mason, R. (eds) The International Politics of the Arab Spring. The Modern Muslim World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137481726_4

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