ABSTRACT
After years of collective fascination with the idea of the EU as a ‘special’ global actor, some scholars have started to investigate whether such a perception of distinctiveness is shared by people, institutions and intellectuals outside of Europe. Such investigations have already produced some interesting results, but they are still limited in terms of geographical and functional scope of research, and they tend to be under-theorised and to fail to engage to their full potential with other branches of literature. This article illustrates how the analysis of the external image of the EU can contribute to the overall understanding of the EU's identity and role in world politics. It goes on to review the main projects on the external image of the EU and their findings, as well as the main challenges to this type of research. It finally proposes avenues of research for the future.
Notes
1. The programme’s website (http://www.euperceptions.canterbury.ac.nz/) provides a detailed description of its various projects and publications, amongst which, particular attention should be paid to: Holland et al. Citation2005; Chaban, Holland and Ryan 2009; Chaban and Holland Citation2008, Citation2011; Holland and Chaban Citation2010a, Citation2010b; Chaban, Smith and Holland Citation2010; Brovelli et al. Citation2010.
2. A brief summary of the project with a list of publications is available at: http://www.onlineforum.it/onlineforum-ricerche.asp. The full reports are available online: Lucarelli Citation2007a (http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/garnet/workingpapers/1707.pdf); Lucarelli and Fioramonti Citation2009 (http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/garnet/workingpapers/6209_alt.pdf). Among the most relevant publications: Lucarelli Citation2007b; Lucarelli and Fioramonti Citation2010 and a series of articles and book chapters (e.g. Fioramonti and Poletti Citation2008; Fioramonti and Lucarelli Citation2008).
3. Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, Russia, Palestine, South Africa, United States and Venezuela.
4. See, respectively, http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cpi/research/funded-projects/chinese-eu/consortium.aspx and http://www.eurobroadmap.eu/. A third, Eumagine (2011–12), focuses attention on the impact of the perceptions of human rights and democracy on migrants’ aspirations and decisions to migrate to Europe (http://www.eumagine.org/default.aspx). A further project, begun recently, is the ‘Asian Perceptions of the EU’ Research Group at the Free University of Berlin (http://www.polsoz.fu-berlin.de/en/v/transformeurope/Associated_Projects/nfg/index.html).
5. See World Powers in the 21st Century (2006) by the Bertelsmann Stiftung (available at: http://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/bst/en/media/xcms_bst_dms_19189_19190_2.pdf).
6. See Holland and Chaban Citation2010a, 5; Chaban Citation2011, 18.
7. A rare and interesting contribution to this topic is Andretta and Doerr 2007.