Borderlands is the fitting culmination of a long-term research project led by Raffaella Del Sarto. Inserted within debates on the EU’s external relations, with specific reference to the “Mediterranean Middle East” (MME), the project allowed Del Sarto to work with and draw on the expertise of a number of prominent scholars. This shows in the book, especially in the empirical substantiation of the arguments advanced, which cover issues ranging from trade to development, from security to migration in the EU’s relations with Arab Mediterranean countries, Jordan, Israel, and Turkey.
As much as the study focuses on this regional context, Borderlands is also a major contribution to theoretical discussions on the EU as a global actor, as Del Sarto successfully breaks through the impasse between rationalist and constructivist approaches. This is achieved through two major moves. First, Del Sarto develops a borderlands approach, which enables her to centre “the structural power asymmetry” (p. 4) in the EU’s relations with the MME without forsaking local agency on the part of (typically authoritarian) rulers on the southern and eastern Mediterranean shores. Second, and related, this allows Del Sarto to present the EU as “an empire of sorts” (pp. 25, 31, and elsewhere), and more specifically as a “normative empire.” Building on these two important conceptual innovations, Del Sarto argues that a focus on borderlands allows us to see “the multiple and disaggregated borders with different degrees of permeability” (p. 2) characterising the EU’s approach to the MME, simultaneously revealing both the EU’s nature as a normative empire and its ability to secure its security and economic objectives in the region.
The first three chapters in Borderlands set the stage for the empirical illustrations that follow in the second half of the book. The introduction (Chapter 1) defines the key terms mentioned earlier, identifies the two decades between 1995 and 2015 as the timeframe for investigation, and alludes to the broader relevance of a borderlands approach beyond EU-MME relations. Chapter 2 develops the borderlands approach in detail, expanding on the manifold theoretical and disciplinary influences, from literature in law and geography on borders and boundaries to core periphery approaches, and from the historical sociology of empires to literature on the EU’s external governance. In the process, Del Sarto also provides a very effective critique of the analytical blind spots of the “normative power Europe” literature, particularly with reference to its Eurocentrism, the inadequate consideration of “crude European interests and unequal power relations” (p. 24), and how such interests not infrequently follow on from the history of European colonialism in the region. This relationship between the EU’s current approach to the MME and the “European colonial enterprise” (p. 36) is at the heart of Chapter 3, which provides a historical reinterpretation of the early steps in European integration, and of how the then European Community approached the Mediterranean. Through this retrospective, Del Sarto outlines “a (post)colonial logic informing European policy towards its southern borderlands from the early days of the European integration process onwards” (p. 44). This formative influence is still visible in how “normative power Europe” engages with the MME.
If the first part of Borderlands sets out the book’s theoretical approach, the remainder of the book demonstrates its analytical usefulness through an impressive array of empirical illustrations. Chapter 4 focuses on the processes and mechanisms through which the EU exports its order beyond its border, through a set of asymmetric and differentiated arrangements, which Del Sarto explores with reference to trade, migration, security, and border controls. Chapter 5 then zooms in on how EU policies have played a significant role in the MME’s socio-economic and political restructuring. With respect to the former, the EU’s approach has not only produced hub-and-spoke patterns of differentiated integration, with the attendant increase in inequalities and employment, but has also contributed to well-documented dynamics of crony capitalism in the region. At the same time, Del Sarto argues, EU policies have also contributed to the reconfiguration and strengthening of authoritarian rule in many MME states. This is not to say that political regimes in the MME have passively accepted EU’s policies and preferences: Chapter 6 shows how contestation and leverage within a context of asymmetric interdependence allow MME governments to craft compromises “acceptable to both sides as long as the economic and political elites on both shores of the Mediterranean continue to benefit from it” (p. 132). Finally, the concluding chapter (Chapter 7) reiterates the key findings of the book, before briefly discussing their main theoretical and practical implications in the current global conjuncture, characterised by “Europe’s reduced influence and power of attraction” (p. 157).
Borderlands is a breath of fresh air in debates on the EU’s role in global politics, insofar as it provides an innovative framework that captures both the EU’s broader approach and its specific policies. Two theoretical contributions are especially noteworthy. First, a borderlands approach allows an assessment of the significance of local agency situated within a structure characterised by asymmetry. As a result, Del Sarto is successful in examining multiplicity (of fields, actors, and outcomes) within a broader unitary and asymmetric process of EU-driven differentiated integration. Second, a borderlands approach also allows for jointly analysing norm and practice export on the one hand and the pursuit of interests on the other under the concept of “normative empire.” In this respect, a minor point I would take issue with is Del Sarto’s characterisation of her approach as “realist-constructivist” (p. 32). I find this label unduly limiting, given the major non-realist and non-constructivist influences on Del Sarto’s framework. In fact, as it subordinates these myriad influences to the theoretical opposition that has led to the study of the EU’s external relations into a rather sterile impasse, I wonder whether reference to “realist constructivism” (p. 153) not only does not do justice to Del Sarto’s novel conceptualisation, but may in fact be counterproductive.
As with all successful books, Borderlands also opens up promising avenues for future research, particularly on how we could interpret the EU’s approach to the MME since 2015. In the conclusion, Del Sarto mentions only briefly the relatively new competitors that the EU faces in the region, listing “China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar” (p. 157). Considering the more general shift towards competition and conflict, including in the EU’s near abroad as we currently see in Ukraine, it would be interesting to see whether and how different imperial and post-imperial powers build their own borderlands, and what happens when these borderlands collide and are contested. Following from this, one may also wonder whether these global and regional transformations may lead to the EU’s decline as a normative empire. Recent remarks by the EU High Representative Josep Borrell, portraying the EU as a garden surrounded by the jungle, show that the “normative” in normative empire is still alive and well, with all its colonial implications. Reactions from the Global South, including the MME, suggest however that the EU’s normative allure may be more in its own inflated self-perception than in how it is seen by neighbouring governments and societies.
Del Sarto provides a novel and productive framework for thinking through not only the EU’s recent past, but also its challenging present. As such, Borderlands is not only required reading for anyone interested in EU’s external relations, the international relations and political economy of the Mediterranean Middle East, and how these two intersect, but will also influence debates on power and norm projection and diffusion more broadly.
