{"id":558,"date":"2019-12-13T10:23:08","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T09:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/?p=558"},"modified":"2020-01-29T12:16:48","modified_gmt":"2020-01-29T11:16:48","slug":"three-ways-of-looking-at-the-eus-development-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/?p=558","title":{"rendered":"Three ways of looking at the EU\u2019s Development Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sarah Delputte and Simon Lightfoot <\/em>| EADI\/ISS Blog Series<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

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<\/a> of \u201cInternational Partnerships\u201d. In the past decade, the EU\u2019s development policy has been confronted with many different changes and challenges to the extent that one might speak of \u2018the end of EU development policy\u2019<\/a>.\u00a0 Most often, critics in policy and scholarly circles thereby point to the far-reaching dismantling of the \u201ctraditional\u201d development policy principles. This evolution is defined as a \u201cchange from normative exceptionalism to a more interest-driven approach to development cooperation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Whereas the development discourse of the early 1990s and the early 2000s clearly originated in a sense of \u2018moral duty\u2019 to eradicate poverty, since the second half of the 2000s we can clearly see a shift towards a stronger emphasis on the EU\u2019s own interests. The adoption of the EU Global Strategy<\/a> (2016) and the New European Consensus on Development<\/a> (2017) only seem to consolidate this evolution. However, this debate suggests a rather false dualism between a \u2018morally good\u2019 and a realist \u2018selfish\u2019 approach to development. A third critical perspective is necessary to engage in a more profound assessment of how fundamentally EU development policy is really changing. In this blogpost we briefly discuss these three ways of looking at the changes in the EU\u2019s Development policy, taking the name-change of the Development portfolio into \u2018International Partnerships\u2019 as an illustration. In doing so, we aim to stimulate a more fundamental debate on the EU\u2019s role as a so-called \u2018Development\u2019 actor within the EADI Working Group and beyond.<\/p>\n

Development for foreign policy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Driven by a more \u2018realist worldview\u2019 in which \u2018competition\u2019, \u2018conflict\u2019, \u2018power politics\u2019 and \u2018national interests\u2019 dominate state interactions, the EU\u2019s development policy is stated to be increasingly driven by migration, trade, and security objectives at the expense of a commitment to international solidarity and global justice. In this sense, EU development policy mirrors the spirit of the EU\u2019s Global Strategy for Foreign and Security Policy which stated that EU development policy \u201cwill become more flexible and aligned with our strategic priorities\u201d. A good illustration of this shift is the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF<\/a>), which was established at the migration summit in Valetta in 2015, to address the so-called \u201croot causes of destabilization, forced displacement and irregular migration\u201d. From a realist perspective, the rebranding of the European Commission\u2019s Development portfolio into \u2018International Partnerships\u2019<\/a> may involve a shift towards a more \u2018strategic\u2019 approach with \u2018developing countries\u2019<\/a>, in line with Von Der Leyen\u2019s ambition to become a \u2018geopolitical Commission\u2019.<\/p>\n

Development to help the poorest<\/strong><\/p>\n

The evolution towards a more interest-driven approach to EU development has been strongly criticized by various scholars, NGOs, think tanks and officials working on EU Development. These deplore the shift away from a value-based development policy which puts poverty eradication as the primary objective. For example, the above mentioned EUTF has been widely contested<\/a> by all major civil society organizations and think tanks working on development. There is a widespread fear that development aid is misused for the EU\u2019s interest in terms of controlling and restricting migration at the expense of the EU\u2019s primary commitment to poverty eradication. Arguably, this perspective also nourishes a certain nostalgia to the period of \u201cEuropean normative exceptionalism\u201d during the so-called new season<\/a> in EU development in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n

This conception of development starts from a more liberal cosmopolitan worldview, in which international cooperation and solidarity function as the central tenets. Accordingly, the EU\u2019s international identity should be built on its normative engagement towards the \u201cdeveloping world\u201d. This resonates very well with the slogans of the EU as the \u2018largest donor in the world\u2019<\/a> and \u2018the world\u2019s leading development actor<\/a>\u2019. Ideally, from this perspective, the name-change of the Development portfolio into \u2018International Partnerships\u2019 should signal a focus on establishing \u2018true partnerships\u2019, based on the principle of respecting ownership. However, given the current context, some observers have warned against the loss of focus on \u2018development\u2019. Or as the Director of CONCORD \u2013 the European confederation of Relief and Development NGOs – Tanya Cox commented<\/a> on the new Commission: \u201cDevelopment is more than just partnerships\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Towards a problematization of \u2018Development\u2019?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A third assessment of how fundamentally EU development policy has been changing, is less widespread and inspired by insights on post-development<\/a>. This perspective helps to go beyond the dichotomy between a \u2018morally good\u2019 and a realist \u2018selfish\u2019 approach which is adopted most frequently to assess the changes in EU Development. From this perspective the very notion of development (policy) is problematized as it is inherently based on a dominance of western perspectives on what constitutes the \u2018good life\u2019. From this point of view, the EU\u2019s development policy contributes to the reproduction of structural patterns of exploitation and power asymmetries. Consequently, talking about \u2018partnerships\u2019 via development policy without tackling the underlying structural injustices, does not herald any structural change. On the contrary, the name change of the portfolio can be interpreted as yet another reinvention of the Eurocentric modernist development paradigm<\/a> to save itself against the various pressures.<\/p>\n

With these insights in mind, the EADI Working Group on \u201cThe European Union as a Development Actor\u201d\u00a0 <\/a>is co-convening two panels at the \u00a0EADI\/ISS General Conference 2020 <\/a>. In the first (harvest) panel on \u201cPartnerships or development in EU external relations?\u201d<\/a>, in collaboration with the \u201cDevelopment Cooperation Policies and Performance\u201d<\/a> Working Group, we aim to make sense of the current challenges to EU Development policy, taking into account the different ways to look at them. More specifically, we aim to unravel the evolution from a social justice norm-based approach to a more instrumentalised and pragmatic approach and explore the role and impact of increased internal contestation and politicization. In the second (seed) panel on \u201cViews on the EU as a development actor in conversation with post-development\u201d<\/a>, in collaboration with the EADI Working Group on \u201cPost- and Decolonial Perspectives on Development\u201d<\/a>, we aim to explore ways of incorporating post-development insights into our analysis of EU development policy. More specifically, we aim to discuss what post-development means in practice at the policy level and how \u2018alternatives (to) EU development policy\u2019 could look like.<\/p>\n

This article is part of a series launched by\u00a0 EADI (European Association of Development\u00a0Research and Training Institutes) and the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in preparation for the 2020 EADI\/ISS General Conference<\/a> \u201cSolidarity, Peace and Social Justice\u201d. It was also published on the ISS Blog.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sarah Delputte<\/strong> is post-doctoral researcher and lecturer and the Centre for EU Studies at Ghent University and co-convenor of the EADI working group on the EU as a development actor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Simon Lightfoot<\/strong> is Professor of Politics at the University of Leeds and co-convenor of the EADI working group on the EU as a development actor.<\/a><\/p>\n

Image: <\/strong>The European Parliament<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 \u201cInternational Partnerships\u201d. In the past decade, the EU\u2019s development policy has been confronted with many different changes … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Three ways of looking at the EU\u2019s Development Policy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,19],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinionpieces","category-solidaritypeaceandsocialjustice","tag-european-union"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/papI3v-90","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Urpilainen-2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=558"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":598,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions\/598"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.developmentresearch.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}