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EU Soft Power in the Eastern Neighborhood and the Western Balkans in the Context of Crises
[journal article]
Abstract
The article aims to assess a change in the EU’s soft power in the Western Balkan and Eastern Partnership states in the light of the crises the bloc has undergone in recent years. Generally agreeing with the common argument that the EU’s attractiveness for those countries has decreased, the author ch... view more
The article aims to assess a change in the EU’s soft power in the Western Balkan and Eastern Partnership states in the light of the crises the bloc has undergone in recent years. Generally agreeing with the common argument that the EU’s attractiveness for those countries has decreased, the author challenges the popular wisdom that such a decrease is likely to reverse those states’ pro-EU foreign policy orientations. To prove it, the author applies Joseph Nye’s and Alexander Vuving’s “power currencies” approach to operationalize soft power, considering the bloc’s attraction as a combination of “brilliance” (the actor’s relationship with its work), “benignity” (the actor’s relationship with other actors) and “beauty” (the actor’s relationship with values and ideas). Elaborating on the crises’ influence on each of these currencies, the author shows that their lessening, first, has mainly taken place in absolute rather than relative terms, so the EU’s attractiveness remains strong compared to that of its competitors, and second, it has primarily affected the bloc’s soft power potential rather than its actual behavior towards the target countries.... view less
Keywords
EU; Southeastern Europe; foreign policy; EU policy; formulation of political objectives; political influence; political crisis
Classification
International Relations, International Politics, Foreign Affairs, Development Policy
European Politics
Free Keywords
attraction; Eastern Partnership; European Union; power currencies; soft power; Western Balkans
Document language
English
Publication Year
2017
Page/Pages
p. 148-167
Journal
Baltic Journal of European Studies, 7 (2017) 2
ISSN
2228-0588
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed
Licence
Creative Commons - Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0