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Bridging EU- & Postdevelopment Studies: Four Avenues

By Sarah Delputte and Jan Orbie   | EADI/ISS Blog Series

In February 2019, we pushed ourselves out of our comfort zones to participate in a panel on “Re-thinking, Re-defining, Re-positioning: “Development” and the Question of “Alternatives”, convened by Julia Schöneberg at the Development Days Conference in Helsinki, in a first attempt to look at EU development policy from a postdevelopment perspective. As scholars studying the EU’s Development Policy we usually try to take a critical approach towards EU Development. However, and perhaps embarrassingly, postdevelopment debates were new to us. Continue reading “Bridging EU- & Postdevelopment Studies: Four Avenues”

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Three ways of looking at the EU’s Development Policy

By Sarah Delputte and Simon Lightfoot | EADI/ISS Blog Series

A few weeks ago, the new European Commission was established without a Commissioner for Development. Instead, Jutta Urpilainen from Finland will take up the newly named portfolio of “International Partnerships”. In the past decade, the EU’s development policy has been confronted with many different changes and challenges to the extent that one might speak of ‘the end of EU development policy’.  Most often, critics in policy and scholarly circles thereby point to the far-reaching dismantling of the “traditional” development policy principles. This evolution is defined as a “change from normative exceptionalism to a more interest-driven approach to development cooperation”. Continue reading “Three ways of looking at the EU’s Development Policy”

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Deal or No Deal? – ACP Countries and the Brexit

By Bernhard Tröster

Brexit is still in limbo ahead of the upcoming UK elections in December 2019. The answer to the ‘Deal or No Deal’ question has important implications not only for the UK and the EU, but also for the 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. Brexit creates much uncertainty and reduces opportunities for ACP countries. However, these risks come primarily from potential shifts in development cooperation and not so much from sudden changes in trade flows. Continue reading “Deal or No Deal? – ACP Countries and the Brexit”

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The Deadly Profits from EU Border Walls

By Mark Akkerman 

Over 1000 refugees have died this year trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea. According to recent statements by the UNHCR probably twice as many migrants died crossing Africa, largely outside the view of European press and public. Others end up in dire circumstances, in refugee shelter or detention camps inside and outside Europe, or living in illegality. Continue reading “The Deadly Profits from EU Border Walls”

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Challenges to EU Development Policy: Paradigm Lost or Stretched?

by Sarah Delputte and Jan Orbie

European Union (EU) development policy seems plagued by many challenges from within and outside. We argue that underlying these challenges lay more fundamental problems with the Eurocentric, modernist and colonial paradigm of EU development policy. We witness some cracks in the pillars of the current paradigm, namely in the form of policy failures, epistemic changes, and power shifts. However, this seems unlikely to entail radical paradigm change. Instead of moving in the direction of post-development, we merely observe experimental approaches stretching the prevailing paradigm. Continue reading “Challenges to EU Development Policy: Paradigm Lost or Stretched?”