Constructive Incoherence: Contesting Kosovo's Status in the European Union
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Date
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Wednesday, 2 December 2015
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Time
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6:00 - 7:30pm
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Venue
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Cañada Blanch Room, (COW 1.11), 1st floor, Cowdray House, LSE, London WC2A 2AE
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Speaker
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Dr Lorinc Redei, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin
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Chair
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Dr James Ker-Lindsay, LSEE Research on SEE, London School of Economics
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Dr Lorinc Redei (left) with Dr James Ker-Lindsay, chairing the event
Abstract: Both academics and policymakers regularly bemoan the lack of coherence in the external action of the European Union (EU). Often, this is shorthand for the unresolvable problem that both the EU and its member states engage in foreign policy. Yet the problem runs deeper—even the different institutions of the EU itself routinely disagree on fundamental international questions, and they each engage with outside actors according to their own conceptions of what EU foreign policy should look like. This talk examines a particular instance in which such inter-institutional contestation was especially prevalent: the EU response to the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo in 2008. The European Parliament argued strongly for recognizing Kosovo as an independent state and the Council was split due to some national objections to recognizing the sovereignty of minority populations. The Commission tried to walk a tightrope that antagonized neither the Kosovo authorities with whom they were routinely negotiating, nor the member states whose support was essential for stabilizing the region. Kosovo’s status was therefore highly contested within the EU’s structures—which would suggest incoherence and, thus, an ineffective foreign policy. Yet this internal inconsistency may have benefited the EU, by allowing it to remain a relatively trusted interlocutor for both Kosovo and Serbia. The talk thus explores a double contradiction: the various EU institutions espoused incompatible views of Kosovo’s status, but these contradictions in some ways facilitated the EU’s foreign policy in the region.
Dr Lorinc Redei joined the LBJ School of Public Affairs as a full-time Lecturer in 2013. He had previously been Adjunct Professor at the LBJ School and at Southwestern University. He earned his B.A. in Political Science from Middlebury College, his M.A. in European Studies from the BMW Center for German and European Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and his Ph.D. in International Relations from Central European University in Budapest.
He also has policy experience within the institutions of the European Union: from 2005-2008, he worked as a Press Officer at the European Parliament, primarily focusing on the work of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Parliament's relations with actors outside of the EU. He returned to Brussels in 2011 to handle the Hungarian-language press communications for the European Parliament during Hungary's six-month Presidency of the European Council.
Dr. Redei's research takes advantage of these experiences, focusing on the role of the European Parliament in the EU's foreign policy-making process, especially its parliamentary diplomacy. He also writes on the image of the EU as a normative power, the EU's contribution to the European security architecture, and various topics in transatlantic relations.
A complete listing of the 2015-16 Visiting Speaker Programme is available here.