Operationalising the decentring agenda: Analysing European foreign policy in a non-European and post-western world
| Date | 01 June 2018 |
| Published date | 01 June 2018 |
| Author | Sharon Lecocq,Stephan Keukeleire |
| DOI | 10.1177/0010836718766394 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836718766394
Cooperation and Conflict
2018, Vol. 53(2) 277 –295
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0010836718766394
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Operationalising the
decentring agenda: Analysing
European foreign policy
in a non-European and
post-western world
Stephan Keukeleire and Sharon Lecocq
Abstract
Eurocentrism in the analysis of European foreign policy often renders scholars blind to other world
views and realities, although engaging with these may be critical for understanding the relevance and
impact of this policy in other parts of the world. Notwithstanding calls for decentring the study of
International Relations and European foreign policy in particular, scholars of European foreign policy
generally lack the tools and conceptual lenses to overcome Eurocentrism in their analyses. This article
proposes an analytical framework to systematically open up for difference, and to see and understand
dynamics and realities that go beyond dominant Eurocentric accounts, while trying to avoid the pitfalls
of simplification and knowledge fragmentation. The framework consists of six partially overlapping
decentring categories – spatial, temporal, normative, polity, linguistic, and disciplinary decentring –
and is developed through two dimensions of the Decentring Agenda proposed by Fisher Onar and
Nicolaïdis: ‘provincialising’ (questioning Eurocentric perspectives) and ‘engagement’ (learning from
other perspectives). In this way, this article aims to support scholars of European foreign policy in
overcoming Eurocentrism and in operationalising the Decentring Agenda.
Keywords
Decentring, Eurocentrism, European foreign policy, European Union, foreign policy,
provincialising
Introduction
In The Decentring Agenda: Europe as a post-colonial power, Fisher Onar and Nicolaïdis
(2013: 283) call for ‘a paradigm shift that decentres the study and practice of Europe’s
international relations . . . necessary both to make sense of our multipolar order and to
Corresponding author:
Stephan Keukeleire, Leuven International and European Studies (LINES), University of Leuven (KU Leuven),
Parkstraat 45 (bus 3602), 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
Email: stephan.keukeleire@kuleuven.be
766394CAC0010.1177/0010836718766394Cooperation and ConflictKeukeleire and Lecocq
research-article2018
Article
278 Cooperation and Conflict 53(2)
reconstitute European agency in a non-European world’.1 Their plea fits within a broader
academic debate about the need to overcome Eurocentrism and to decentre Europe, the
West and the International Relations (IR) discipline (Chakrabarty, 2000; Jørgensen,
2010; Morozov, 2013; Nayak and Selbin, 2010), to open up for ‘difference’ (Inayatullah
and Blaney, 2004; Tickner and Blaney, 2012) and to explore non-western IR theories and
approaches (Acharya and Buzan, 2010; Bischoff et al., 2016; Tickner and Wæver, 2009).
This plea is also reflected in the development of the ‘local turn’ in peacebuilding (Mac
Ginty and Richmond, 2013) and in critical analyses of the ‘Arab Spring’ (Huber and
Kamel, 2016), state making (Bartelson et al., 2018) and international interventions in
general (see the contributions in this special issue – Schröder, 2018).
When focussing on the literature on Europe’s international relations, some strands clearly
go beyond Eurocentric accounts, such as the external perceptions literature (Chaban and
Holland, 2013; Ejdus and Juncos, 2018; Lucarelli and Fioramonti, 2010; Mayer and Zielonka,
2012), assessments of Normative Power Europe (NPE) that point to its Eurocentric discourse
(Diez, 2013; Sjursen, 2006; Staeger, 2016), and specific publications on the policy of the
European Union (EU) towards the Arab world (Börzel et al., 2015; Cavatorta and Pace, 2010)
or China (Chen, 2016; Pan, 2012). Nevertheless, Eurocentrism remains predominant in the
analysis of European foreign policy (Keuleers et al., 2016). Although this may seem logical
within EU studies (Dijkstra and Vanhoonacker, 2017), it raises questions about the relevance
of a scholarship on foreign policy that is rather inward-looking and from which the ‘foreign’
is often missing.
However, a framework for the systematic analysis of what ‘difference’ may entail and
what it means to go beyond a Eurocentric perspective has not yet been developed. The
purpose of this article is to provide an analytical framework to support scholars of
European foreign policy in overcoming Eurocentrism and opening up for difference by
operationalising the Decentring Agenda. It offers an invitation as well as guidance to
‘critically unpack extant categories and assumptions at the level of ontology and episte-
mology’ (Fisher Onar and Nicolaïdis, 2013: 295). The framework can help both EU
scholars and practitioners to better understand and deal with what was labelled by High
Representative Federica Mogherini and the EU’s Global Strategy as an increasingly
‘connected, contested and complex world’ (EU, 2016; Tocci, 2017).
Operationalising the Decentring Agenda: building blocks
and challenges2
Building on earlier ventures into analysing European foreign policy from the outside
(Keukeleire, 2014; Keukeleire and Thépaut, 2012), we propose six partially overlapping
and co-constitutive categories for decentring (Table 1). The first five categories deal with
ontological questions: spatial decentring mainly refers to material context, while time,
norms, polity and language tackle immaterial contextual factors. These categories – and
further developed subcategories – allow us to systematically cover major facets of what
‘difference’ may entail and what it may mean to go beyond a Eurocentric perspective. A
separate sixth category is disciplinary decentring, focusing on epistemological and meth-
odological challenges.
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