^aInstitut d'études politiques/CERI, 27 rue Saint-Guillaume, 75337 Paris Cedex 07, France. E-mail: julien.jeandesboz@sciences-po.org

Abstract

This article investigates the drafting of the most recent initiative developed by the European Union (EU) to manage its relations with the countries lying in its geographical vicinity: the European neighbourhood policy (ENP). It argues that a functional reading of this policy, as being the response to externally given problems, does not allow for a satisfactory understanding of the various processes at work under the ENP. It tries to depart from such an outlook by analysing the ENP as an administrative label, structured by a variety of discursive strategies and the struggles among differentially positioned agents of the European bureaucracies. In this, it draws from proposals for a sociology of practices initially developed in the field of critical approaches to security studies. Its main conclusion on the ENP is that, despite the official discourse highlighting the need for a rapprochement between the EU and its neighbours based mainly on a programme of 'good governance', the ENP is now largely structured by a perspective focusing on the management of potentially threatening developments stemming from the EU's vicinity.