During the last two decades the study of European foreign policy has experienced remarkable growth, presumably reflecting a more significant international role of the European Union. The Union has significantly expanded its policy portfolio and though empty symbolic politics still exists, the Union’s international relations have become more substantial and its foreign policy more focused. European foreign policy has become a dynamic policy area, being adapted to changing challenges and environments, such as the Arab Spring, new emerging economies/powers; the crisis of multilateralism and much more. The SAGE Handbook of European Foreign Policy, Two-Volume set, is a major reference work for Foreign Policy Programmes around the world. The Handbook is designed to be accessible to graduate and postgraduate students in a wide variety of disciplines across the humanities and social sciences. Both volumes are structured to address areas of critical concern to scholars at the cutting edge of all major dimensions of foreign policy. The volumes are composed of original chapters written specifically to the following themes: • Research traditions and historical experience • Theoretical perspectives• EU actors• State actors• Societal actors• The politics of European foreign policy• Bilateral relations• Relations with multilateral institutions• Individual policies• Transnational challenges The Handbook will be an essential reference for both advanced students and scholars.

The EU and Human-Rights Promotion

The EU and Human-Rights Promotion

The EU and human-rights promotion
Robert Kissack

Introduction

This chapter critically reviews the literature assessing the purpose, significance and impact of the EU promoting human rights. Its focus is on why promoting human rights is important to the EU and how it has been understood theoretically, rather than on empirical questions such as what rights have been promoted, where and whether or not the EU was successful. The timeframe under review is the two decades since the end of the Cold War, beginning in the early 1990s with the development of the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), the introduction of human-rights (HR) promotional policies in the external relations of the EU, the rapid rise of ...

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