Normative power Europe? The effect of EU human rights practice on the external perceptions of the EU in Turkey and Jordan
Date
2021
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Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
This Master’s thesis examines the effect of European Union’s (EU) human rights practice on the external perceptions of the EU. More specifically, it focuses on the consistency between EU human rights rhetoric and practice and explores how the possible inconsistencies affect the external image of the Union as a normative model on human rights. Previous research on Normative Power Europe (NPE) and external perceptions of the EU has shown that there are specific expectations to the foreign policy conduct of a normative actor. However, it has also been highlighted that the importance of a link between normative power and external perceptions has been underestimated in the literature thus far. Therefore, the thesis aims to investigate this link by focusing on the example of EU human rights consistency in its treatment of refugees and other migrants throughout its hotspot approach and to explore the effects of the human rights consistency on the external perceptions of the Union in regard of being a normative model on human rights and migration. To study this, the thesis first examines the human rights rhetoric of the EU and compares it to the human rights practice in the hotspot first reception facilities of migrants in Italy and Greece. The study then moves on to investigate the external perceptions of the EU as a normative actor on human rights and migration in Turkey and Jordan based on the statements of political elite and interviews with representatives of the civil society. The findings show that there are various inconsistencies between the EU’s rhetoric and practice in terms of human rights in the hotspots. Furthermore, these inconsistencies have negatively affected the external perceptions of the EU as a model on human rights and migration in Turkey and Jordan. Additionally, the study reveals that the external perceptions of the EU as a human rights protector in the world have suffered since 2015 as a response to the poor treatment of refugees within the territory of the Union.