Shortly after the overwhelming victory of Hamas in the 2006 parliamentary and municipal elections, civil war broke out in the Gaza Strip between members of the two factions, Hamas and Fatah. The EU, along with the US, UN and Russia, not only gave its support to Fatah against Hamas, but also imposed a tough siege on the Hamas government in an attempt to force it to accept the Quartet’s political conditions, described by Hamas leaders as unfair and impossible. Many observers are convinced that the EU’s behaviour in this matter has been unreasonable and has conflicted with the EU’s own democratic beliefs and values. This book sheds light on the EU’s policies in Palestine mainly from 2003- 2013, and provides a thorough examination of the inconsistencies and paradoxes in the EU discourse towards Hamas, and the determinants underlying such contradictions. It explores the reasons behind the EU labelling the Hamas a terrorist organization and discusses why the EU has boycotted its democratically elected body since 2006. Significantly, the book looks at whether the EU jeopardized its reputation and contravened its core normative values and objectives (democracy promotion, human rights, the rule of law and fundamental freedoms) by such a categorisation of Hamas. Exploring the EU’s policy towards Hamas is vital for understanding how the relationship between the EU and the rest of the Islamists in the Middle East is perceived, as it enables both sides to have a cognitive basis upon which to construct better relations. This book, based upon a vast spread of primary EU documents and interviews, will therefore be a valuable resource for those studying the Arab Israeli conflict, Political Islamic movements, the Middle East Peace Process, and anyone with an interest in European Union Foreign Policy.

This book addresses how institutional and diplomatic rituals shaped the European Union’s sanction of Hamas after the latter’s success in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections. Through a lens of performance and performativity it explains how socialisation and the duress of performative rituals shapes agency and prevents the possibility of being creative with policy initiatives when confronted with difficult decisions. Interviews with senior Hamas representatives, EU bureaucrats, members of the European External Action Service, and electoral observers from Palestine and Europe, in addition to ethnographic research in Gaza and in Brussels, recreate the details of the failed diplomacy between Hamas and the EU. The book explores the social and visual cultures and discourses that shape the recognition of contemporary subjects, and it presents Hamas’s response to being treated as a terrorist movement. It advances queer and postcolonial understandings of European-Palestinian political encounter by interrogating the bureaucratic and professional pressures that shape the political agency of EU civil servants and the recognition of Palestinian politics. This is a performative and interdisciplinary text; it juxtaposes empirical investigation, with critical theory, performance art and everyday experiences. It will appeal to students of International Relations, Interdisciplinary Studies, Middle-East Area Studies, Foreign Policy and Diplomacy Analysis and Gender Studies.

Democracy promotion in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) remains a central pillar of the foreign policy the European Union (EU). Rather than concentrating on the relations between the incumbent authoritarian regimes and the opposition in the relevant countries, and on the degree to which these relations are affected by EU efforts at promoting democracy, human rights and the rule of law (an outside-in approach), this collection of articles inverts the focus of such relationships and attempts to look at them ‘inside-out’. While some contributions also emphasise the ‘outside-in’ axis, given that this continues to be analytically rewarding, the overarching thrust of this book is to provide some empirical substance for the claim that EU policy making is not unidirectional and is influenced by the perceptions and actions of its ‘targets’. Thus, the focus is on domestic political changes on the ground in the MENA and how they link into what the EU is attempting to achieve in the region. Finally, the self-representation of the EU and its (lack of a) clear regional role is discussed. This book was published as a special issue of Democratization.

7 Identity of the State, National Interest, and Foreign Policy: Diplomatic Actions and Practices of Turkey's AKP since 2002Bibliography; Index.

The EU's perceived lack of responsiveness to ordinary citizens has created a serious crisis of democratic legitimacy that threatens its very survival. In this timely book, Schneider presents a comprehensive account of how EU governments signal responsiveness to the interests of their citizens over European policies.

The establishment of a Palestinian state has long been a strategic objective of EU and Russian foreign policy in the Middle East. However, over a decade after the creation of the road-map, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state has still not been achieved. Palestine in EU and Russian Foreign Policy uses the school of constructivism to provide a new understanding of EU and Russian foreign policy. It explores the failure of these global actors to speed up the process of establishing a Palestinian state, despite this being a strategic objective and top priority of their involvement in the Middle East peace process. The book then analyses the role of identity and self-other perception in the making of EU and Russian foreign policy towards the Middle East peace process. It is argued that Palestinian statehood provides a telling empirical example of how, and to what extent, the search for global actorness, as a matter of international identity, informs foreign policy-making by global actors. The book then proceeds to discuss why the EU and Russia are so eager to be involved in initiating a peace settlement. Offering a new understanding of foreign policy-making by global players in Middle Eastern politics, this book will appeal to students, scholars and policymakers working in International Relations and European, Russian and Middle Eastern studies.

Influential armed groups continue to confound policymakers, diplomats, and analysts decades after their transformational arrival on the scene in the Middle East and North Africa. The most effective of these militias can most usefully be understood as hybrid actors, which simultaneously work through, with, and against the state. This joint report from The Century Foundation identifies the factors that make some hybrid actors persistent and successful, as measured by longevity, influence, and ability to project power militarily as well as politically. It finds that three factors correlate most closely with impact: constituent loyalty, resilient state relationships, and coherent ideology. The authors of this report examined cases in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, drawing on years of fieldwork, to distinguish hybrid actors, classic nonstate proxies, and aspirants to statehood--all of which merit different analytical and policy treatment. The report demonstrates the ways that groups can shift along a spectrum as they adapt to changing conditions.

This open access book explores the new complexities and ambiguities that epitomize EU-Turkey relations. With a strong focus on the developments in the last decade, the book provides full access to a comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted relationship through three entry points: (1) Theories and Concepts, (2) Institutions, and (3) Policies. Part I brings together complementary and competing analytical approaches to study the evolution of EU-Turkey relations, ranging from traditional integration theories to novel concepts. Part II investigates the institutional machinery of EU-Turkey relations by analyzing the roles and perspectives of the European Council, the European Commission, and the European Parliament. Part III offers analyses of the policies most relevant for the relationship: enlargement policy, trade and macroeconomic policies, foreign and security policy, migration and asylum policies, and energy policy. In Part IV, the volume closes with a systematic survey of the conditions under which cooperative trends in EU-Turkey relations could be (re)invigorated. The systematic setup and the balanced combination of distinguished experts from EU- and Turkey-based institutions make this book a fundamental reading for students, researchers, lecturers, and practitioners of EU-Turkey relations, European integration and Turkish foreign policy. Wulf Reiners is Senior Researcher and Head of the Managing Global Governance (MGG) Program of the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut fur Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Ebru Turhan is Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Turkish-German University in Istanbul, Turkey.

"The U.S.-Israel relationship is in trouble," warn Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellows Robert D. Blackwill and Philip H. Gordon in a new Council Special Report, Repairing the U.S.-Israel Relationship. Significant policy differences over issues in the Middle East, as well as changing demographics and politics within both the United States and Israel, have pushed the two countries apart. Blackwill, a former senior official in the Bush administration, and Gordon, a former senior official in the Obama administration, call for "a deliberate and sustained effort by policymakers and opinion leaders in both countries" to repair the relationship and to avoid divisions "that no one who cares about Israel's security or America's values and interests in the Middle East should want."