From “Imperial Overreach” to “Blowback”: the EU, the Mediterranean borderlands and the Syrian crisis

This paper locates EU-MENA relations within the competing paradigms of normative power Europe vs. empire. It explores the macro level context of EU-MENA relations, namely globalization, thru seen through Neo-Gramscian lens. Under this heading it analyses the mechanisms of neo-liberal export from Europe and periphery resistance to liberal norm diffusion. It further examines the institutionalizing of EU-MENA Relations under the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP), examining both the origins and internal contradictions of the EMP. It examines the European role in the Arab Uprising and the blowback unleashed by this attempt at social engineering. It illustrates the argument through an examination a case study of EU-Syrian relations.