PhD Student - Peg Murray-Evans
Details
email : p.murray-evans@sheffield.ac.uk
Working Thesis Title: Constructing the EU´s External Economic Policy: The Use of the Economic Partnership Agreements to Promote Regionalism
Start Year: 2010
Supervisors
Research Topic
This thesis revolves around the problems associated with explaining changes to the EU´s external economic policies in the 1990s and 2000s. Mainstream rationalist approaches to the EU´s external economic policy have had problems explaining the timing and content of two particular changes to the EU´s approach during this period. First, they struggle to account for the EU´s decision to replace non-reciprocal free trade access for the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries with reciprocal `Economic Partnership Agreements´ (EPAs). Second, they have problems explaining the EU´s shift in approach to the EPAs in the 2000s, which saw them more aggressively pursuing agreements on trade in services and controversial `behind the border´ issues such as investment, government procurement and intellectual property rights.
This thesis proposes that replacing the rationalist assumptions at the heart of the mainstream literature on the EU´s external economic policy with an approach that affords an independent causal role to ideas can help to shed light on these puzzles. It develops a constructivist framework for the study of the EU´s external economic policy, in particular drawing on insights from constructivist political economy and constructivist institutionalism. This framework emphasises the fundamental need for actors to employ conceptual tools to both interpret their context and develop strategic responses to it.
The thesis uses this constructivist framework to analyse the specific case of the EU´s use of the EPAs to promote regional integration amongst the ACP countries, with a focus on southern Africa. This aspect of the EPAs is understudied in the academic literature and throws up interesting empirical puzzles. For example, the thesis asks why the EU is promoting a particularly `deep´ brand of regional integration through the EPAs given the development concerns this policy raises and when it seemingly has less to gain economically and/or geo-strategically in the context of the ACP countries than it does through its pursuit of similar policies elsewhere. It also asks why the EU has had mixed success in persuading southern African countries to adopt its particular model of regional integration given its huge economic leverage in the region and the enthusiasm of many developing countries for regional integration. It is hoped that insights from this case can be used to draw broader conclusions about the drivers of changes to the EU´s external economic policies in the 1990s and 2000s.
Research Interests
Trade and Development Politics; EU Trade and Development Policy; Southern African Regionalism; Constructivist Institutionalism; Constructivist IPE.
Conference Papers
- Murray-Evans, P. (2011) “Constructing International Development Policy: The Case of the EU’s Economic Partnership Agreements with Developing Countries”, paper presented at the Sheffield International Development Network Postgraduate Conference, Sheffield, 7 March.
Professional Affiliations
- Political Studies Association (PSA)
- British International Studies Association (BISA)
Previous Education
- 2009-10: MA Research Methods in Politics and International Relations (University of Sheffield)
- 2005-8: BA Politics and International Relations (University of Sheffield)
Other Work
- March-April 2010: Research Assistant work for Tony Heron on United States Hegemony MA Module.