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Ireland's Non Recognition of Palestine
Slattery, Joseph ; Kissack, Robert (vedoucí práce) ; Augusteijn, Joost (oponent)
Through seven semi-structured interviews with elite political figures, utilising a constitutive recognition theoretical framework, this paper bridges a gap in the academic literature where modern study of Irish state recognition practices, their place in the European Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) framework and Ireland's non-recognition of Palestine are largely absent. Results reveal Irish recognition policy is now constitutive, with political considerations driving decisions at the expense of legal criteria that might support Palestinian statehood. In absence of consensus, Ireland is unwilling to act independently of EU partners to recognise Palestine, preferring to remain aligned with European and international allies. Since 2014, building consensus on Palestinian affairs like recognition has become increasingly difficult. A split in the current coalition government between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil on when to recognise Palestine was revealed, reflecting a wider trend of divergence on the issue at the EU level. Ireland is struggling to hold Palestine's position on the agenda in an EU distracted by geopolitical challenges, divided on the Palestinian question, and increasingly sceptical of maintaining common foreign policy positions. The research question is worth answering, as examining...
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European Solidarity among the Italian Diaspora
Molinari, Nicole ; David, Maxine (vedoucí práce) ; Kissack, Robert (oponent)
European solidarity as a fundamental value of the EU assumed even more relevance in the last decades in the context of the various crises that hit the European continent. The impact of these crises affected public opinion on European solidarity and led to increased politicisation of the issue in national political arenas. The influence of EU issues on national politics has been explored concerning different aspects, especially their role in determining citizens' voting behaviour. Nevertheless, despite its relevance, European solidarity has been disregarded as a voting factor in national elections. This research aims to fill this gap by exploring how people's perceptions of European solidarity might affect their national vote. It focuses on the last 2022 Italian national elections and investigates the Italian diaspora's voting behaviour. It relies on brand-new data collected through a post-electoral survey designed to capture the attitudes towards European solidarity of Italians living in France, Belgium, and Germany. The survey results are put in relation to the parties' stances on European solidarity emerging from their electoral manifestos. The findings show that European solidarity plays a role in shaping the sample's voting behaviour. In particular, they indicate that showing high support for the issue...
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Analyzing Coherence in EU's Foreign Policy Towards Russia Case: EU's Relations towards Russia in 2014-2020
Khachidze, Nikolozi ; Kissack, Robert (vedoucí práce) ; David, Maxine (oponent)
Coherence, understood as "the absence of contradiction and existence of synergies between various policies, instruments and activities…" (Koenig 2015) has been a major concern in European studies literature. While much has been written on vertical and horizontal coherence in the EU's foreign policy, still unclear what is the relationship between them. Paper identifies the sources of coherence by analyzing how horizontal coherence was generated in EU's foreign policy towards Russia in 2014-2020. Having liberal intergovernmentalism as guiding theory, it investigates decision-making process in the intergovernmental bodies. After refuting alternative explanations study confirms that benefits of integration process play the main role in member states' decision to go against their short-term calculations and preserve unanimity in the European council.
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The EU's Response to China's Belt and Road Initiative: A Geopolitical Analysis
Nguyen, Dao ; Kissack, Robert (vedoucí práce) ; David, Maxine (oponent)
Research on geopolitics primarily focuses on nation-state actors and how geographical factors affect their policy towards other actors in international relations. The EU, as a non-state actor and a normative power, has been understudied through the lens of geopolitics as scholars believed that this Union was unlikely to apply geopolitical thinking in their foreign policy. This thesis aims to explore to what extent and under what circumstances an actor, notably a non- state actor, applies geopolitical theories in the foreign policy. The paper argues that geopolitics theories, both classical and critical ones, have been increasingly able to explain the external relations of the EU, particularly after 2013 when the Chinese government launched Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Furthermore, geopolitics theories also add more values to understand the complexity of the EU' foreign policy, given the fact that there is no single theory that can explain it comprehensively. As explanatory research, qualitative methods, including discourse analysis, content analysis, and process tracing, will be used to examine how the EU has responded to BRI. The thesis first reviews the scholarship on geopolitics and EU's foreign policy. Next, it investigates how China applies geoplitics in BRI. Last, it focuses on how the...
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The Re-making of Normative Power Europe in Southeast Asia: A Reflection on EU Democratization Promotion in Myanmar and Thailand 2003-2019
Lerdrat, Voradon ; Kissack, Robert (vedoucí práce) ; Stepanovic, Vera (oponent)
'Normative Power Europe' is one of the most significant constitutions of the European Union (EU)'s international identity. Although it has long been studied, most literature largely neglect the dynamic of its reconstruction in the course of particular foreign relations. This thesis aims to fulfill this gap in the relational context of EU democratization promotion in Southeast Asia. It examines the research question: how has EU international identity as normative power developed in the context of EU democratization promotion in Southeast Asia during 2003-2019? To address the question, qualitative comparative study is conducted to compare relevant bundles of acts of identification between two time- cases: 2000s and 2010s. In each case, EU promotions in two most-different Southeast Asian states are focused: Myanmar and Thailand. As hypothesized, the thesis argues that in this context, the bundle of acts of EU identification as superior normative power has been losing its privilege.
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