Neighbors and the New Geographies of Europe: Non-Accession Integration and the Changing Exercise of Sovereignty in the Euro-Mediterranean Region

University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC

Investigators

Abstract

The recent application of European Union Neighborhood Policy to the emerging geopolitical and economic geographies of the Euro-Mediterranean region is creating new institutions to manage the relationship between the European Union (EU) and its neighbors after accession and enlargement. This research project will address the question "What are the consequences of EU border and economic integration policies where accession and EU enlargement are NOT a goal?" The central hypothesis is that two aspects of European Neighborhood Policy collectively are transforming the geographies of Europe's "neighborhood" and creating new geographies of regional integration and different kinds of spaces in which borders are being made more malleable. Furthermore, the jurisdiction of EU and state agencies are being extended, and new social actors, institutions, and ways of thinking are emerging to manage these border transactions. These new actors have profound implications for basic understanding of sovereignty, citizenship, and the territorial expression and exercise of rights. The research will take place in five cities where institutions involved in creating and implementing these policies are located: Brussels, Belgium; Warsaw, Poland; Vienna, Austria; Madrid, Spain; and Rabat, Morocco. The investigator also will focus on Moroccan national and local government agencies, on businesses and international buyers involved in cross-border development, and on migrants and migrant support groups in Morocco. In North Africa, the research will center primarily on Ceuta; Melilla; Nador; Fnideq; and Tanger. These locations are key sites where new bordering processes are being implemented. The investigator will explore how these programs are affecting local institutions and practices, reconfiguring the scalar dynamics, and generating social responses among bureaucrats, businesses, workers, local governments, and migrants. Field research will follow the management practices along migration routes, focusing on the most important of these; the trans-Saharan routes between West Africa and Morocco. This project will explore the ways in which new institutional innovations in European Union Neighborhood Policy are changing the relationship between the European Union and its neighbors. The project will investigate the extension of border management beyond traditional nation-state borders into neighboring and additional third country territories (border externalization)., and it will focus on cross-border economic development aimed at job creation and regional development (economic integration). Morocco and the Moroccan-Spanish border are particularly important sites where the development and implementation of these new policies of border externalization and cross-border economic integration have occurred most quickly and have had the greatest impact. The EU sees Morocco as a test case for these post-accession regional strategies. These are important programs not only for their effects in producing new geographies and opportunities for the Euro-Mediterranean countries, but also because they form a natural experiment to test how alternative paths to regional economic development, regional stability, and migration policy in the EU-North Africa context differ from those carried out in Central and Eastern Europe in the past decade and current U.S. efforts to address similar challenges with Mexico and other Central American countries. This project therefore will make significant contributions to broader research and policy questions relating to other regional integration and stabilization projects.