Since its inception, the European Union has sought to play a strong role in promoting and safeguarding values at the global level. GLOBUS has reconsidered this ambition of the Union to be a norm setter and champion of global values and the challenges it entails, in particular against the backdrop of uncertainty, risk and contestation of present day international affairs. We have sought to impact mainly upon three types of audiences: the scholarly community; policy-makers (including civil society representatives and NGOs) and civil servants – ‘stakeholders’; citizens and students.
GLOBUS’ contribution to scholarly research is threefold:
Firstly, we have suggested a reframing of the scholarly debate regarding the EU’s role as a value based actor by developing a novel and nuanced vocabulary containing three different conceptions of what a value based foreign policy might look like. The conceptual apparatus, which draws on the political theory debate on global political justice, has allowed for a critical analysis not only of the EU’s own role, but also of scholarly research on the EU, and on the normative assumptions that underpin it.
Secondly, GLOBUS has collected new empirical data on the EU’s external policies with regard to climate change; trade and development; migration; security and crisis management; as well as gender. Drawing on the three GLOBUS conceptions of global political justice, we have reinterpreted the EU’s global role as well as critically analyzed its contribution to global justice within these issue areas.
Thirdly, GLOBUS has proposed a novel interpretation of the crisis of the liberal order and of its significance for the European Union. Rather than focusing on the Realist vocabulary of power and geopolitics, GLOBUS suggests a focus on the search for autonomy, which is central to any conception of justice. This allows for an alternative understanding of how present instability and contestation emanates from the resistance to patterns of domination in global affairs.
The threefold contribution to scholarly research provides the basis for our input to policy makers and practitioners. GLOBUS has provided EU policy makers and civil servants, as well as representatives of civil society organisations, with tools allowing them to disentangle the many-faceted principled dilemmas of justice arising in a global context, and to reflect on the implications of different courses of action for EU foreign policy. We have also outlined different policy options and discussed their strengths and weaknesses with regard to the implications for justice. We have further sought to advance the understanding of what we have found to be the distinguishing features of the Union as a value based actor, as well as to highlight advantages and disadvantages of these particular features of a foreign policy. The project has sought to develop concepts that may give meaning to, organize and structure ideas about EU foreign policy.
The above input has been provided through direct engagement with policy makers in combination with the production and wide distribution of shorter texts, summarizing key findings and recommendations.
GLOBUS has contributed to enhance citizens’ awareness of different ways of thinking about global justice and provided them with tools to assess what might be the normative implications of different approaches to foreign policy. Through such measures, which enhance their knowledge of international affairs, we have also contributed to strengthen citizens’ capacity to exercise their democratic rights and duties.
