Suchergebnisse

20 Jahre nach Österreichs EU-Beitritt untersucht dieser Beitrag die Europäisierung österreichischer Diplomatie in ihrer Wechselwirkung mit globalen Trends und nationalen Herausforderungen. Dieser Beitrag beurteilt die Anpassung österreichischer Diplomatie im globalen, europäischen und nationalen Kontext über Zeit.Der Wandel österreichischer Diplomatie ist vorwiegend als reaktiv zu klassifizieren. Diplomaten haben ihr Rollenverständnis im Zuge von EU Mitgliedschaft und EU Sanktionen angepasst, während auf struktureller Ebene die österreichische Diplomatie globalen Trends folgt. Diese Neuorientierungen sind allerdings stark beschränkt durch andauernd nationale Budgetkürzungen und den Mangel einer strategischen Neuausrichtung. Auch die Einführung des Europäischen Auswärtigen Dienstes wurde als top-down Europäisierung akzeptiert: die verstärkt europäischen diplomatischen Koordinierungsversuche seit 2009 werden als zusätzliches Instrument aber nicht als Ersatz für österreichische Diplomatie bewertet.

Twenty years after Austria joining the EU, this contribution investigates how Austrian diplomacy has been adjusting to the changing European demands and opportunities next to global and domestic pressures for adaptation. Austrian diplomatic adaptation has predominantly been reactive. EU membership and EU sanctions pushed Austrian diplo- mats to re-adjust their role conceptions. On a more structural level, Austrian diplomacy followed global trends, while dome- stic budget cuts and lack of strategic reorientation acted as constrains. Also the introduction of the European External Action Service triggered a rather reactive response to top down Europeanization: the increased European diplomatic coordination attempts since 2009 are considered additional tools rather than a substitute for Austrian diplomacy.

20 years after Austria joined the EU, this article examines the Europeanization of Austrian diplomacy in its interaction with global trends and national challenges. This article assesses the adaptation of Austrian diplomacy in the global, European and national context over time. The change in Austrian diplomacy is primarily to be classified as reactive. Diplomats have adjusted their understanding of their roles in the course of EU membership and EU sanctions, while on a structural level Austrian diplomacy follows global trends. However, these reorientations are severely limited by ongoing national budget cuts and the lack of strategic reorientation. The introduction of the European External Action Service was also accepted as a top-down Europeanization: the increased attempts at European diplomatic coordination since 2009 are seen as an additional instrument but not as a substitute for Austrian diplomacy.

AbstractThe adoption of active learning pedagogy and, later, the institution of the employability agenda in Higher Education have resulted in a severe loss of agency for academics and students in the Social Sciences. In this article, we reflect on our experiences of applying active learning methods. We argue that we have been part of a change that has occasioned a loss of key skills development, especially those associated with traditional learning and academic thinking. An overly headlong rush to implement the "new" over the "old" saw the discarding of certain skills central to the active learning agenda. Further, the emphasis on student satisfaction, professionalisation and quality assurance pushed the academic to the sidelines, to the detriment of Higher Education. We, therefore, first critique the skills debate and identify shortcomings in the active learning application that emerged from that debate. We focus on the skills emphasised in practice, how they are portrayed in opposition (instead of complementarity) to academic skills, and how they undermine the agency academics and students really require. Next, we propose a reconsideration of necessary but undervalued skills like reading, listening and note-taking.

The Lisbon Treaty introduced far-reaching reforms for EU foreign policy co-operation. In the decade since, most scholarship has focused on the High Representative and EEAS. Far less consideration has been given to its consequences for member states' ownership of foreign policy. This article therefore examines how these institutional reforms have affected the PSC, established to enable member states to better manage EU foreign policy cooperation. Drawing on new empirical data, it shows that the PSC has found its capacity to act as strategic agenda-setter increasingly constrained because of greater opportunities for activism by the HRVP and EEAS; and by the emergence of the European Council as the key arbiter in foreign policy decision-making. While this indicates the PSC today finds it harder to perform the role originally assigned to it, it is gaining alternative relevance through an emerging oversight role, which has implications for member states' EU foreign policy engagement

The Common Foreign & Security Policy (CFSP) is a transnational policy framework to deliver collective foreign policy but also to manage differences among member states. As such, it has always been dependent on their support. Since 2019, however, disagreement within this system is said to have reached a new level. Taking this political trend as starting point, this article proposes a new, conceptual approach to understanding how contestation challenges the EU's foreign policy co-operation system. While the majority of research focuses on disagreements in decision-making, we argue for a broader conceptualisation - systemic contestation. Drawing on norm contestation scholarship, we argue that systemic contestation manifests itself in two ways: as passive contestation, when member states disengage from and fail to take ownership of CFSP initiatives and their implementation; and as tacit contestation, when they fail to act when faced with the need to safeguard the system. This approach accounts for the transgovernmental character of the CFSP; and the central role of member states within, and quality of their commitment to, it. Finally, we contend that our conceptualisation of systemic contestation offers promising new avenues for empirical research to understand the 'black box' of EU foreign policy co-operation.

Summary
Can diplomacy work without physical presence? International relations scholars consider the European Union (EU) the most institutionalised case of international co-operation amongst sovereign states, with the highest density of repeated diplomatic exchange. In a year, the Council of Ministers hosts on average 143 ministerial and 200 ambassadorial meetings, along with hundreds of working group meetings. These intense diplomatic interactions came to an abrupt halt in mid-March 2020, when the spread of COVID-19 forced the Council to approve — in a manner unprecedented in European integration history — the temporary derogation from its rules of procedures to allow votes in written form, preceded by informal videoconferences between ministers or ambassadors. This argumentative essay reflects on how we can use these extraordinary months of intra-European diplomacy to assess the viability of virtual diplomacy in the EU context and what lessons it provides as we seek more sustainable means of international engagement.

Can diplomacy work without physical presence? IR scholars consider the EU the most institutionalized case of international cooperation among sovereign states, with the highest density of repeated diplomatic exchange. In a year, the Council of Ministers hosts on average 143 ministerial and 200 ambassadorial meetings, along with hundreds of working group meetings. These intense diplomatic interactions came to an abrupt halt in mid-March 2020, when the spread of Covid-19 forced the Council to approve – in a manner unprecedented in European integration history – the temporary derogation from its rules of procedures to allow votes in written form, preceded by informal videoconferences between ministers or ambassadors. In this argumentative essay we reflect on how we can use these extraordinary months of intra-European diplomacy to assess the viability of virtual diplomacy in the EU context and what lessons it provides as we seek more sustainable means of international engagement.