ABSTRACT
While the nature of European power in the EU’s neighbourhood has been subject to academic debate, the concept of leadership has received scant attention in academic analysis. This is surprising, given that much of what has been written about the European Union’s (EU) role in the neighbourhood rests on latent assumptions of European leadership as a ‘model’ and ‘example’ – a power that attracts and inspires followers (Manners 2002; Leonard 2005; Börzel and Risse 2009). In contrast, scholars with a realist outlook on international relations point to the inherent strategic weakness of the EU as an actor and are more critical of European power and leadership in the neighbourhood (Hyde-Price 2008; Toje 2010). There is deep disagreement in the academic literature over the question of what kind of power and leadership the European Union exercises in and through the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) (Aggestam 2008; Nicolaidis and Whitman 2013; Sjursen 2006). This chapter seeks to go beyond the increasingly sterile debate on Europe as a power, focusing instead on the contested idea of European leadership in the neighbourhood.
