Inclusión de enfoques diversos de protección de derechos humanos

Concerning broadly more general notions related to the EU’s external actorness and the theoretical and conceptual debates underpinning this particular topic within EU studies, the present research has sought to explore the following central research question - how did the EU respond after the Arab Spring, with respect to reforming the ENP and can security governance aspects of the policy be shown to have been relevant to this response? In doing so, it implied a research focus not only on the nature of the EU’s post- Arab Spring ENP reform itself but also inferred the need to develop, conceptualise and apply a particular critical security governance question in order to illuminate some possible, yet probable, factors determining the character of such ENP reform in terms of its ‘substantiveness’ - indeed, two constituent components if you like. What specific and

general conclusions have thus emerged from the preceding analysis undertaken within Chapters 4 and 5 and with respect to our overarching research question?

The first component posed and appropriated - how ‘substantive’ were the changes made to the ENP, by the EU, following its post-Arab Spring reform of the policy in 2011 - was an explanandum formulated with respect to the EU’s repeated claims that its reform of the ENP was wholly ‘substantive’ in nature, and the need to validate such claims given the overriding focus of this thesis on how the EU actually responded after the Arab Spring. Taken up in Chapter 4, it was plainly concluded that the changes made to the ENP, by the EU, following its post-Arab Spring reform of the policy in 2011, were in fact not ‘substantive’. Indeed, despite the noted changes made to each of the key security governance goals of the ENP - democracy promotion, mobility and migration management and conflict management - in each and every case, such changes have either had little or no impact on the historic shortcomings and limitations associated with them pre-Arab Spring - in many instances serving to confound such sources of such criticism further. In the case of democracy promotion for example, despite notable conceptual, institutional and instrumental developments post-Arab Spring, the EU’s conception of both ‘democracy’ and ‘civil society’ remained vague and confused and its primary instrument of political conditionality persisted as weak and inconsistently applied in the southern Mediterranean. Similarly, although the EU also sought to change the mobility

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and migration management dimension of the ENP by shifting its strategic approach and again re-positioning its primary instrument of political conditionality, such changes were demonstrably unable to overcome the EU’s strong security logic towards migration in region, re-equalise its dialogue with ENP target countries or stop its instrument of conditionality being applied in an overtly oppressive manner. The final goal of conflict management was also subject to comparable conclusions: the EU appearing to have been unable to rectify its own historic inaction with respect to intervening in conflicts in the MENA region or to resolve its incapacity to strongly apply both sanctions and diplomacy where necessary. Thus, the final analysis of Chapter 4 clearly emphasises that the EU’s reform of the ENP post-Arab Spring was not in any sense ‘substantive’ as it itself had envisaged and has so often claimed. Indeed, such lack of meaningful change with respect to the southern Mediterranean clearly presents the EU as having asserted itself as neither a strategic nor a normative actor in actorness terms in its neighbourhood, but was instead largely a ‘bystander’ both during, and after, the Arab Spring. This compelling conclusion however, while notable in and of itself - offers little in the way of any possible explanations as to why the EU was indeed actually unable to ‘substantively’ reform the ENP in 2011. Thus, turning our attention to the inferences made in Chapter 5 - can security governance aspects of the policy be revealed to have been relevant to this response?

Satisfying the research focus of the second component of the central research question, and building upon the conclusions made in Chapter 4, Chapter 5 - through the application of a particular critical security governance question developed and conceptualised in the theoretical discussions of Chapter 2 - appropriated one probable reason as to why the EU was indeed unable to ‘substantively’ reform the ENP post-Arab Spring. By developing and conceptualising a specific critical security governance question based on both the case and research question at hand, an actionable, amended version of this critical security governance question was thus formulated; what evidence is there of contestation between France and Germany, with regards to the essentially normative- or interest- based nature of their respective foreign policies towards issues concerning democracy promotion in the MENA region? Indeed, the following expectation - drawn out from the in-depth theoretical and conceptual exploration of the concept of security governance

more generally in Chapter 2 - became the basis upon which such a critical question was applied in Chapter 5: while ENP actors’ norms and interests do not necessarily explicitly dictate the conceptualisation, development or implementation of the ENP with respect to EU-level policymaking and the development of its key goals, they likely both have a more nebulous, implicitly causal relevance in terms of either their ‘constraining’ or ‘enabling’ properties on the EU’s ability to shape the nature of the ENP, its direction and the best way to go about realising that policy.

Causally charged and theoretically grounded, the critical security governance question specifically devised for the research purpose of Chapter 5 was thus applied to two ‘representative’ EU MS and key players of the ENP - France and Germany. It has been evidenced that both have largely opposing and divergent foreign policy outlooks towards democracy promotion in the southern Mediterranean historically and more recently, and thus both have emerged with general, but distinctive, foreign policy characters towards issues of democratisation abroad (interest-based and normative-based respectively) - ‘contested’ foreign policy natures if you like. Given such a proposition, Chapter 5 then went on to assess the likelihood that this ‘contestation’ had a ‘constraining’ influence on the EU’s ability to have substantively reformed the ENP post-Arab Spring. In assessing such likelihood, recourse to the findings of Chapter 4 and the use of more general literature on the subject of the ENP’s reform post-Arab Spring, allowed some broad but insightful suppositions to be made in this regard: EU MS interest and norm contestation with respect to democracy promotion was observed in a number of instances - the EU’s inability to commonly define ‘democracy’ and ‘civil society’ and its weak and inconsistently applied instrument of political conditionality following the Arab Spring - reasoned to have been down to, in part at least, such recognisable cases of EU MS interest- and normative-based contestation. Given both the proven capacity to apply critical security governance questions to cases such as the ENP, and the likelihood that cases of interest- and norm-contestation between EU MS underlying the key democracy promotion goal of the ENP played a role in ‘constraining’ the EU’s ability to reform the ENP post-Arab Spring, it was thus determined in Chapter 5 that security governance aspects of the ENP could indeed be revealed to have been relevant to the EU’s response in this regard.

What then of mobility and migration management and conflict management, two key ENP goals detailed in Chapter 4 but not specifically analysed with respect to Chapter 5 in this manner? Can it similarly be expected that the lack of ‘substantive’ change made to such goals may also be partially linked to such cases of EU MS norm and interest contestation more generally? The likely answer appears to be yes, but clearly more research employing a similar methodological philosophy to the present work would be needed to resolve such questions fully. Indeed, the polarising trends of refugees and migrants within many EU MS today, and the continued threat of terrorism around the time of the Arab Spring and currently, for many EU MS, has heightened their propensity towards an interest-based foreign policy character, and this can largely be seen to be reflected within the policies of the EU towards the southern Mediterranean. Indeed, the security logic guiding ENP migration both pre- and post-Arab Spring and the continued disagreements between EU MS with respect to sanctions and diplomacy in the MENA region in terms of conflict (Chapter 4), have likely been born out of some sense at least of EU MS contestation, given the conclusions of the present thesis and the similar policy making apparatus underpinning all ENP goals at the EU-level. There seems good ground to suggest that the reform of both mobility and migration management and conflict management - in many ways more politically sensitive ENP goals for EU MS than democracy promotion - were also subject to the quasi-causal influence of EU MS interest- and normative-based contestation, thus also limiting their ‘substantiveness’. Given what appears to be a distinct mark of merit with respect to applying critical security governance perspectives in order to elucidate such frictions and dilemmas associated with specific EU foreign policies such as the ENP, it is somewhat surprising, not more research has been carried out in a similar manner to that used throughout the present study. Indeed, while there has also been growing curiosity concerning Critical forms of security governance themselves, research beyond providing only more general critical frameworks for future scholarship in this area remain limited. It is hoped by the present author, that both the subject matter and conclusions of this thesis, with respect to the fruitful application of a developed and conceptualised critical security governance question, may provide a more specific direction to follow for interested scholars. Given

the relatively limited scope and scale of the present thesis, such potential forthcoming academic research into the ENP in security governance terms at least, may find likely benefit in growing the quasi-causal properties of the concept theoretically, but also grounding such efforts in a more empirically rigorous manner than has been attempted here. Interesting perspectives could also look towards the presence of various institutional constraints on EU ENP governance - focusing instead on longer-term structural aspects rather than ideational or normative ones in the first instance. Indeed, some may wish to even go beyond the ENP itself and assess instead other related EU foreign policies in a security governance context, such as the CFSP and CSDP for example. Regardless, the multifaceted and complex nature of both security governance and EU foreign policy more generally, and the curious links between them both conceptually and in practice highlighted by the present thesis, will themselves likely stimulate more insightful and novel research into such areas in the future.

In the final analysis, a clear answer can be given to the overarching central research question; how did the EU respond after the Arab Spring, with respect to reforming the ENP and can security governance aspects of the policy be shown to have been relevant to this response? Indeed, the EU has been shown to have responded inadequately to the Arab Spring with respect to reforming the ENP; despite notable changes being made to each of the key goals of the policy in this regard, none in fact have overcome their respective historic shortcomings and limitations. In this manner, the EU wholly failed to respond ‘substantively’ after the revolts, but why? One aspect of ENP security governance specifically has been revealed by the present research to have had likely clear quasi-causal relevance to this response - that being the occurrence of EU MS interest- and normative-based foreign policy contestation underlying the key goals of the ENP, thus effectively ‘constraining’ the EU’s ability to respond after the Arab Spring more profoundly. Although it remains to be seen how successful the EU’s current, on-going call for reform of the ENP will be in the end, it is likely however - in light of the conclusions drawn here - that the entrenched, divergent, contested identities of the EU’s

diverse MS will likely shape the course and conclusion of such a reform when attempted once again.

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