PSIA Seminar Discusses ‘Europeanizing the Other: an EU Model of State-Building’

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YEREVAN, Armenia – On February 9, 2015, the American University of Armenia (AUA)’s Political Science and International Affairs (PSIA) program hosted a seminar on ‘Europeanizing the Other: an EU Model of State-Building’ with speaker Aram Davtyan. The event was attended by PSIA faculty and graduate students and is part of a series of PSIA seminars that are held every Monday at 3:30 PM. Dr. Simon Clarke, Chair of the PSIA program, introduced the speaker.

Davtyan discussed how, with the adoption of a wide range of crisis management tools within the framework of Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP), the European Union (EU) has shifted towards an active international role in crisis management. This represents an instance of the EU’s state-building practices, with state-building understood as the externally-assisted construction and reconstruction of the institutional infrastructure.

The EU’s highly invasive forms of external regulation seem to be a legitimate way of assisting underdeveloped, post/under-conflict countries. The example of the EU illustrates that policies of state-building have become an important crisis management and crisis prevention strategy.

The EU is hardly the sole actor in launching state-building strategies. Its role has emerged in close involvement with other players. Davtyan’s seminar aimed to outline the perspective of the EU-United States-United Nations dynamics to draw out this shifting interdependence of expectations and roles. It also summarized the strategies of state-building demonstrated by the EU and the United States in order to examine whether they represent different approaches to shaping ‘the other’ and thus serve as an attempt to protect ‘the self’.

Aram Davtyan is the Head of the Department of International Cooperation and Foreign Affairs at the Public Administration Academy of the Republic of Armenia.

Founded in 1991, the American University of Armenia (AUA) is a private, independent university located in Yerevan, Armenia and affiliated with the University of California. AUA provides a global education in Armenia and the region, offering high-quality, graduate and undergraduate studies, encouraging civic engagement, and promoting public service and democratic values.

The Political Science and International Affairs (PSIA) program hosted a seminar on ‘Europeanizing the Other: An EU Model of State-Building’ with speaker Aram Davtyan