@article{article_450438, title={Power and Integration. An Historical Overview on Euro- Mediterranean Relations}, journal={International Journal of Political Science and Urban Studies}, volume={6}, year={2018}, author={Trentin, Massimiliano}, keywords={Integration,European Union,Euro-Mediterranean,Space,Power}, abstract={<p>This contribution aims to analyze the power relations underlying the international relations of the </p> <p>Mediterranean space since the late XIX century in order to assess if and how the most recent initiatives </p> <p>implemented by the European Union (EU) represent continuity or discontinuity with the modern past. </p> <p>The main idea is that the European Union has tried to shape the Mediterranean space along its basic </p> <p>preference for free access to the markets of the southern and eastern countries of the Mediterranean, </p> <p>similar to what European powers did in late XIX and early XX century: the liberal order of the “Levantine” </p> <p>period combined the patterns of cooperation and consent, which were needed to foster market and elite </p> <p>integration, with those of conflict and coercion, which in turn were required to enforce the Europeanled </p> <p>economic and political order against restive and opposition forces. Compared to the past, however, </p> <p>the European Union has succeeded only partially in enforcing a “neo-liberal order” because it lacks </p> <p>meaningful political and military capacity for coercion against partners and rivals. The current crisis </p> <p>of liberal forces across Europe and the Mediterranean has enhanced those forces advocating a return </p> <p>to “state sovereignty” and control over flows of people, goods and ideas. This might recall the early </p> <p>postcolonial period of the 1950s and mid-1970s where the states struggled either to retain power and </p> <p>wealth, or overcome related asymmetries, by standing firm and “tough” in negotiations and resisting </p> <p>foreign interventions. However, if the centralized state was the main political and institutional driver of </p> <p>that period, it is highly difficult that today current states might effectively claim a monopoly over the </p> <p>economy and the public space on highly differentiated, secularized and interconnected societies like </p> <p>the Mediterranean ones. </p>}, publisher={Marmara University}