The European Union and Europeanisation of Wider Europe and the World

The aim of this Chair is to enhance current teaching and research offerings and foster an interest in European and European Union Studies at the University of Canterbury and in New Zealand by providing a unique opportunity for students and the wider academic and professional public to familiarise themselves with European affairs, and develop an expertise in the relationship between the EU and countries of its closer and wider neighbourhoods. The teaching, research and other activities of this project will be focused on investigating and assessing the modes and mechanisms which the EU has used in promoting and assisting democratic reform and economic modernisation in its closer and wider neighbourhood. Herein, particular attention will be paid to the investigation of the importance and mutual differences in the use of EU enlargement on one side and the European Neighbourhood Policy and Eastern Partnership on the other in supporting post-communist transition and overcoming the East-West divide of the continent.

While the teaching and study for the courses offered within this Chair will provide students with a unique opportunity (not offered at any other university in NZ) to raise an awareness and develop expertise in the major political and economic trends and issues in the relationship between the EU as an institution and the post-communist and other countries in its neighbourhood, the project as a whole will contribute to the development of a new wave of foreign policy experts in NZ specialising in current EU affairs.

Jean Monnet Chair University papers

EURA224/EURA324/POLS224
Democratic and Economic Evolution of Europe

EURA226/ EURA326/HIST269/HIST329
The Rise and Fall of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe, 1944-1991

EURO409
The EU and the “Europeanisation” of Europe

Research Projects

Jean Monnet Chair Team

Jean Monnet Chair Dr Milenko Petrovic is an internationally respected expert in the fields of EU studies, Comparative politics and Post-communist democratisation and economic transition. During his three decade long academic career, Dr Petrovic has developed an extensive body of research work and has created, taught and coordinated several undergraduate and honours courses, including two Jean Monnet modules closely related to his research interests and academic expertise. Together with the NCRE Director Professor Holland and other NCRE staff members he has created and led several EU-funded multinational research projects over the last decade. His publications include several authored and co-authored books and numerous journal articles and other shorter contributions. The findings of his work have also been presented at international and national conferences, workshops, media interviews and at invited lectures. He is currently the Vice President of the Australasian Association for Communist and Post-Communist Studies and the executive member of the EU Studies Association of New Zealand and EU Studies Association of the Asia-Pacific.

Professor Martin Holland, holds NZ’s only Jean Monnet Chair ad personam, is Director of the National Centre for Research on Europe at the University of Canterbury and of the EU Centres Network New Zealand. He has taught at the Canterbury since 1984 and in 2000 established the NCRE, NZ’s only EU tertiary level centre. He is internationally recognised for his work on EU Development policy, CFSP and Perceptions of the EU. He leads the “EU External Perceptions Project” which was recognized by DG EAC as one of the top 20 “Jean Monnet Success Stories” and has supervised projects on perceptions of the EU in Asia, Africa and the Pacific. He has held a Jean Monnet Chair ad personam since 2008 and is the author of over one hundred articles and chapters and twenty-one books, the most recent being “Development Policy of the EU” (with M. Doidge, Palgrave, 2012) and Communicating Europe in the Times of Crisis: External Perceptions of the European Union (with N. Chaban, Palgrave-McMillan, 2014).

Associate Professor Dr Nikolaos Tzifakis is at the Department of Political Science and International Relations of the University of Peloponnese and Research Associate at the Centre for European Studies in Brussels. His research interests include contemporary Balkan politics, EU external relations, and international relations theory. His recent publications include articles in Cambridge Review of International Affairs, European Foreign Affairs Review, Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans, Perspectives on European Politics and Society, Problems of Post-Communism, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies and Southeast European Politics. He has also published three monographs and three co-edited volumes and has authored several book chapters and conference papers.

Dr Iana Sabatovych has recently completed and successfully defended (in March 2019) her PhD thesis at the NCRE, University of Canterbury. Her thesis investigates the patterns of Ukraine’s post-communist transition and limitations of Europeanisation with an emphasis on Europeanisation beyond Europe and in an absence of EU membership. Iana has published several journal articles on the topics related to her research interests, including Iana Sabatovych, ‘Conceptualising the Role of International Financial Organizations in Post-Communist Economic Transformations’, American Journal of Economics, 2016, 6(1): 86-91 and Iana Sabatovych, ‘Does nationalism promote democracy? Comparative analysis of Ukraine’s “Euromaidan” revolution and Poland’s “Solidarity” mass mobilisation’, Contemporary Politics, 2018, 24(2): 131-152.

Dr Nicholas Ross Smith is Assistant Professor at the School of International Studies at the University of Nottingham, Ningbo Campus. He has published extensively on topics which have concerned post-Soviet Eastern Europe and South Caucasus, with specific focus on democratisation and relations with the EU. He is the author of ‘EU-Russian Relations and the Ukraine Crisis’ (Edward Elgar, 2016) and numerous articles published in peer-reviewed journals such as International Relations, European Security and European Foreign Affairs Review.

Professor Božo Drašković is on the full-time faculty at the Institute of Economic Sciences in Belgrade where he has worked on and published a number of academic and commercial research projects in the field of enterprise restructuring, market research, capital assessment and foreign direct investment. He teches Microeconomics at the Faculty for Banking, Insurance and Finance, University UNION in Belgrade and Ecology Economics at the Faculty for Applied Ecology Futura, University Singidunum, Belgrade.

Associate Professor Dr Maja Kovacevic is at the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Belgrade. Dr Kovacevic teaches courses on European Integration, EU Common Foreign and Security Policy, Justice and Home Affairs and the European Union as a Global Actor. Her research fields include EU enlargement policy, State Aid and EU Competition Policy. In 2005 Dr Kovacevic was part of the evaluation team for the European Agency for Reconstruction since 2015 she has been a trainer for the TEMPUS programme DEPOCEI specialising in free movements of persons, asylum and immigration.

Dr Mihajlo Djukic is Research Fellow and Coordinator of the Centre for Strategic Cooperation at the Institute of Economic Sciences (IES), Belgrade, Serbia. His research focuses on economic policy, finance and local development. He has participated in several projects commissioned by the state institutions at the national and local level, as well as by international organizations (SDC, GIZ, European Commission), which have dealt with the issues related to drafting and evaluation of strategic documents and policy analyses.

Daviti Mtchedlishvili is a PhD candidate at the NCRE, University of Canterbury. His thesis looks at Foreign Policy of the European Union towards the South Caucasus. His research work has been supported through a number of competitive scholarships and grants, including Erasmus Mundus+, Erasmus Mundus Traineeship scholarship and the NCRE PhD Scholarship. Daviti has already published a monography Europeanization Process in Georgia during the period from 2003 to 2014 (LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, 2016 97 pp).

Xiwen Wang is a Ph.D. student at the National Centre for Research on Europe, University of Canterbury. Her thesis focusses on EU – China relations in the context of the 16+1 cooperation framework. For the presentation of her initial findings at the European Union Studies Association Asia Pacific (EUSAAP) conference held in Taiwan on 28-29 June 2018 she was awarded a “Student Best Paper Presentation” award.

Academic conferences, Symposia & invited lectures

Petrovic, M. (2020). Does the Covid-19 crisis signal the end of EU enlargement?. NZPSA International Relations Network Workshop (16 presenters), Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, 23 November 2020.

Petrovic, M., F. Bieber and N. Tzifakis, (main organisers and programme coordinators, 2020), International conference (virtual): The future of EU enlargement and partnership policies: EU actorness in South-Eastern Europe and the Eastern Neighbourhood, 15-16 October 2020. Conference Website

Petrovic, M. (2020). The EU and the Western Balkans in the 2020s: More integration or divergent paths? (conference panel with M. Kovacevic. G. Wilson and X. Wang), International conference (virtual): The future of EU enlargement and partnership policies: EU actorness in South-Eastern Europe and the Eastern Neighbourhood, 15-16 October 2020. Conference Programme

Petrovic, M. (2020). Two decades of the Western Balkan EU Accession process: mired between domestic political instabilities and the EU’s tightened conditions, International conference (virtual): The future of EU enlargement and partnership policies: EU actorness in South-Eastern Europe and the Eastern Neighbourhood, 15-16 October 2020. Conference Programme

Petrovic, M. and Mtchedlishvili, D. (2019). EU Enlargement and the Eastern Partnership after Brexit: new prospects or new challenges?, New Zealand Political Studies Association (NZPSA) 2019 Conference, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, 27-29 November, 2019.

Petrovic, M. (2019). Powerful Norms with Weak and Inconsistent Policy Support: The EU’s normative power and the EUropeanisation of the post-communist Western Balkans (full conference paper). CEEISA-ISA Conference “International Relations in the Age of Anxiety”, University of Belgrade, 17-19 June 2019.

Petrovic, M. (main organiser and the programme coordinator) 2019, Western Balkan accession to the EU: A new strategy or a new postponement?, International Symposium (12 speakers), Institute of Economic Sciences, Belgrade, 14 June, 2019.

Petrovic M. and Garth Wilson (2019), Bilateral relations in the Western Balkans as a challenge to EU accession, International Symposium: “Western Balkan accession to the EU: A new strategy or a new postponement?”, Belgrade, 14 June 2019.

Petrovic, M. and Akimov, A. (main organisers and programme coordinators) 2019. 14th Bienial AACaPS Conference: ‘30 Years since the Fall of the Berlin Wall. How Communism and Post-communism are tracking’, Gold Coast, Australia 31 January – 1 February, 2019 https://custom.cvent.com/D3BC0E88AA9F41B9BA6DC9D1F85A6C2A/files/26826e075f754c2dab2f04343a7894fa.pdf

Petrovic, M. (2019), The Troublesome post-Communist Transition of Wider Europe – can the EU (still) assist? (Conference panel with: N. Smith, I. Sabatovych and X. Wang), AACaPS Conference: ‘30 Years since the Fall of the Berlin Wall. How Communism and Post-communism are tracking’, Gold Coast, 31 January – 1 February, 2019.
https://jeanmonnet.nz/7076-2/

Petrovic, M. (2019), The EU and the post-communist Western Balkans: democratisation with a very small enlargement carrot, AACaPS Conference: ‘30 Years since the Fall of the Berlin Wall. How Communism and Post-communism are tracking’, Gold Coast, 31 January – 1 February, 2019.

Petrovic, M. and Nikolaos Tzifakis, (main organisers and programme coordinators) 2019, International conference: ‘The EU and the Balkans at the End of the Second Decade of the 21st Century’, University of the Peloponnese, Corinth, Greece, 4-5 June 2018.
https://pedis.uop.gr/?p=9473
https://pedis.uop.gr/?p=9889

Petrovic, M. (2018), “EUropanisation of the Balkans: a near future or ‘mission impossible’?“ (full conference paper), EU Studies Association Asia Pacific Annual Conference:“The Future of the EU and European Integration in the aftermath of Crisis”, Taipei, 28-29 June 2018.

Petrovic, M. (2018), Will Montenegro and Serbia really join the EU by 2025…or not?, International conference: “The EU and the Balkans at the End of the Second Decade of the 21st Century“, University of the Peloponnese, Corinth, Greece, 4-5 June 2018.

Petrovic, M. (2018), The Western Balkans and the EU: membership but when?, Invited Lecture, Political Science Department at the University of the Peloponnese, Corinth, Greece, 7 June, 2018.

Publications

Jean Monnet Chair and his PhD students, 2017-2021

Special journal Issues/Edited volumes
Petrovic, M., Tzifakis, N. (Guest editors, 2021) EU enlargement to the Western Balkans: The geopolitical turn or another postponement?Journal of Contemporary European Studies (Special issue), 29 (2).

Petrovic, M. (Guest editor, 2018). Serbia on its Way to EU Membership – the remaining challenges and obstacles, Australian and New Zealand Journal of European Studies (Special issue), 10 (3).

Petrovic, M., Graeme, G., and Fish, S.M. (Editors, 2017). A Quarter Century of Post-communism Assessed, Palgrave Macmillan.

Journal articles/Contributions to edited volumes
Petrovic, M., Tzifakis, N. (2021) EU enlargement to the Western Balkans: The geopolitical turn or another postponement? (Guest editors’ introduction), Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 29 (2), pp. 157-168.

Petrovic, M., Wilson, G. (2021) Bilateral relations in the Western Balkans as a challenge for EU accession, Journal of Contemporary European Studies (Special issue), 29 (2), pp. 201-218.

Petrovic, M. and Adam Griffin (2021) The EU’s Eastern enlargement as an opportunity for increasing trade and economic relations between the EU and New Zealand, Australian and New Zealand Journal of European Studies, 13 (2), pp. 66-79.

Petrovic, M (2020). The Post-communist Transition of the Western Balkans: EUropeanisation with a small enlargement carrot in Akimov Aleksandr and Gennadi Kazakevich (Eds). 30 Years since the Fall of the Berlin Wall: Turns and Twists in Economies, Politics, and Societies in the Post-Communist Countries, Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 57-82.

Petrovic, M. (2018). Serbia on its Way to EU Membership – the remaining challenges and obstacles (Editor’s introduction), Australian and New Zealand Journal of European Studies (Special issue), 10 (3), pp. 3-8.

Petrovic, M. and Wilson, G. (2018). Serbia’s relations with its Western Balkan neighbours as a challenge for its accession to the EU, Australian and New Zealand Journal of European Studies (Special issue), 10 (3), pp. 49-68.

Petrovic, M., Graeme, G., and Fish, S.M. (2017). Introduction in Petrovic, M., Graeme, G., and Fish, S.M. (eds.), A Quarter Century of Post-communism Assessed, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1-7.

Petrovic, M. (2017). Post-Communist Transition under the Umbrella of Uneven EUropeanisation: East Central Europe, the Baltic States and the Balkans in Petrovic, M., Graeme, G., and S.M. Fish (eds.), A Quarter Century of Post-communism Assessed, Palgrave Macmillan, pp.41-74.

Wang, X. and Markovic Kaze, N. (2020). Is China’s rising influence in the Western Balkans a threat to European integration?, Journal of Contemporary European Studies (published online in September):
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14782804.2020.1823340?needAccess=true

Daviti Mtchedlishvili (2018), Is there a room for optimism for the near-future enlargement of the European Union, Australian and New Zealand Journal of European Studies (Special issue), 10 (3), pp. 87-95.

Daviti Mtchedlishvili (2018), Theorising Europeanisation in European Literature: Conceptualisation and Operationalisation, Australian and New Zealand Journal of European Studies, 10 (1), pp. 79-91.

Sabatovych, I. (2018) Does nationalism promote democracy? Comparative analysis of Ukraine’s ‘Euromaidan’ revolution and Poland’s ‘Solidarity’ mass mobilisation, Contemporary Politics, 2018, 24(2), pp. 131-152.

PhD Theses

Iana Sabatovych, the thesis title: “Is there a successful transition without European Integration. Investigating the key determinants of Ukraine’s post-communist transformation”, successfully completed and defended on 21 March 2019.

Daviti Mcdashvili: ‘Dilemmas of Europeanization: Foreign Policy of the European Union towards the South Caucasus’, started in 2017, in progress.

Xiwen Wang: ‘China’s relationship with the European Union in the context of 16+1 Cooperation Framework (2012-2018): an Investigation of the cases of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania’, started in 2018, in progress.

Aleksandar Malkov: ‘Russia’s interactions with Central-Eastern Europe: Power-driven or interest-driven cooperation’, started in 2019, in progress.