Our article analyses the impact of the European Union (EU) on border conflicts, in particular how integration and association are related to conflict development. We approache this issue from a theoretically as well as empirically grounded constructivist perspective. On this basis we propose a stage model of conflict development, based on the degree of securitisation and societal reach of conflict communication. We argue that the EU can act as a "perturbator" to such conflict structures and propose a four pathway-model of EU impact. We then apply this model to the study of concrete conflicts, the Northern Irish and the Greek-Turkish conflict. We finish with a specification of the conditions of successful EU involvement.
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AbstractThis article sets out an analytical framework of differentiation derived from Sociology and Anthropology and argues that it can and should be applied to International Relations (IR) theory. Differentiation is about how to distinguish and analyse the components that make up any social whole: are all the components essentially the same, or are they distinguishable by status or function? We argue that this approach provides a framing for IR theory that is more general and integrative than narrower theories derived from Economics or Political Science. We show why this set of ideas has so far not been given much consideration within IR, and how and why the one encounter between IR and Sociology that might have changed this -Waltz's transposition of anarchy and functional differentiation from Durkheim -failed to do so. We set out in some detail how differentiation theory bears on the subject matter of IR arguing that this set of ideas offers new ways of looking not only at the understanding of structure in IR, but also at structural change and world history. We argue that differentiation holds out to IR a major possibility for theoretical development.What is handed on from Anthropology and Sociology is mainly designed for smaller and simpler subject matters than that of IR. In adapting differentiation theory to its more complex, layered subject matter, IR can develop it into something new and more powerful for social theory as a whole.
So far, securitization analysis has proceeded on the basis of an assumption that there are sectoral differences between securitization dynamics. However, sectors in this context were primarily seen as analytical ‘lenses’, as complexity-reducing cuts through a complex social reality. In this article, we first reflect on the ontological status of ‘sectors’. Do they represent functionally differentiated realms of world politics or world society, or do sectors and functional realms need to be separated from one another clearly? After giving a short introduction to the notion of ‘functional differentiation’ in international relations and briefly reflecting on the ontological/analytical distinction, we scrutinize the relation between sectors and functionally differentiated realms of society. Although sectors hang together with functional differentiation, much depends on the version of functional differentiation theory used. In the communication theoretical version, securitization would be firmly located within the political system. References to functionally specific sectors would then – contra Waltz – point not only towards functional differentiation between the political and other functionally defined realms of (international) society, but also towards ongoing functional differentiation within the (international) political system.
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