Reconfiguring EU Peripheries: Political Elites, Contestation, and Geopolitical Shifts

Reconfiguring EU Peripheries explores the diverse nature of the European Union's interactions with its peripheries. Focusing on a period of rising regional tensions marked most recently by the war in Ukraine, the volume casts new empirical and conceptual light on the diverse motivations that underpin the political elites' attitudes towards the EU in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Hungary, Kosovo, Moldova, Romania, Türkiye and Ukraine.

The volume engages with various understandings of the EU's interactions with its different peripheries and shows how these dynamics are closely related to the self-perceived nature of the societies in question in relation to the EU. The impact of recent crises and conflicts underscore in some cases the need for strengthening solidarity and for 'more EU', whereas others highlight the doubts and disappointment over the challenges these societies have faced over recent years.

The empirically rich case studies enable both interpretations of and debates on the EU integration processes. A comparative exploration of countries at different stages in the EU accession process and the various political elites' attitudes towards the EU outlines the essentially constructed nature of peripherality. By challenging the conventional understanding of contestation and peripherality, this volume is a worthwhile first step towards looking at the EU and the peripheries it creates from an alternative, and sometimes ignored, point of view.

Miruna Butnaru Troncotă is an associate professor, a PhD advisor, and the director of the Centre of European Studies in the Department of International Relations and European Integration of the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration in Bucharest, Romania.

Ali Onur Özçelik is an associate professor in the International Relations Department at Eskişehir Osmangazi University, Türkiye.

Radu-Alexandru Cucută is a lecturer with the Department of International Relations and European Integration of the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration in Bucharest, Romania.

Miruna Butnaru Troncotă, PhD, is an associate professor, a PhD advisor, and the director of the Centre of European Studies in the Department of International Relations and European Integration of the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA) in Bucharest, Romania. She has a direct research interest in EU integration, the Europeanization research agenda, EU foreign and security policy, and the post-conflict reconstruction of the Western Balkans. She has published numerous academic articles and policy papers in this field and is a commentator on recent geopolitical events in South East Europe for national and international media outlets.

Ali Onur Özçelik, PhD, is an associate professor in the International Relations Department at Eskişehir Osmangazi University, Türkiye. He holds an MA in transatlantic relations from the University of Birmingham and a PhD in politics from the University of Sheffield. His research focuses on Europeanization, multi-level governance, the politics of non-state actors, interest representations, and lobbying. He is co-editor of two books: The World Community and Arab Spring (Palgrave) and EU Conditionality in Turkey: When Does It Work? When Does It Fail? (Rowman & Littlefield). Özçelik has contributed to youth projects supported by the EU and UN and has served as a regional coordinator for the Anatolian Centre of Excellence and a researcher for the Jean Monnet Networking Project 'Linking to Europe at the Periphery' (LEAP).

Radu-Alexandru Cucută, PhD, is a lecturer with the Department of International Relations and European Integration of the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA) in Bucharest, Romania. His research interests lie within the fields of theories of revolution and theories of international relations. His most recent writing deals with the influence that liminality has on the use of fashionable concepts in Romania's strategic documents.