This article sets the scene for the Special Issue ‘Reaching for allies?’ by setting out the research questions and structure of the Special Issue. Specifically, this introduction reviews the state... Show moreThis article sets the scene for the Special Issue ‘Reaching for allies?’ by setting out the research questions and structure of the Special Issue. Specifically, this introduction reviews the state of the art of dialectics interweaving International Relations and Area Studies. Specifically, it focuses on tracing the genealogy of these debates, identifying the actors engaged with them, as well as, mapping those sites where such transdisciplinary knowledge is produced and circulated. We also provide an assessment of the interaction between the two disciplinary traditions as scholarly disciplines by reviewing the field as it had developed in the last decade since 2013. In order to do so, we present data on the brokers of this dialogue by analysing top-ranked Journals across regions, dedicated Special Issues on the matter as well as main international conferences and participants. Overall, this article provides a threefold contribution: first, we provide an account of the globalization of knowledge production and circulation that has also increasingly decentred, valuing local peculiarities and epistemological traditions beyond the Western academia(s). Second, we assess and discuss how Western and non-Western academics have contoured concepts which demand and entail site-intensive techniques of enquiry, exposure to complexities on the grounds, ethnographic sensitivity, and, at the same time, comparative endeavours going beyond area specialisms. Third, by looking at international and regional policy-making milieus with attention to context-specificity, we believe critical policy-relevant implications can be discussed, specifically in relation to local ownership and bottom-up approaches. Show less
This article introduces the Special Issue ‘European transnationalism between successes and shortcomings: Threats, strategies and actors under the microscope’. Specifically, it focuses on... Show moreThis article introduces the Special Issue ‘European transnationalism between successes and shortcomings: Threats, strategies and actors under the microscope’. Specifically, it focuses on transnationalism in terms of a key concept to be deployed while seeking to decode and evaluate EU political and legal governance-related choices, and particularly those made to address cross-border security threats. In doing so, it first explains the choice of ‘transnationalism’ as focal point while referring to the current momentum, namely legal and political developments that have recently taken place or are currently under consideration. In this context, it looks both at current and diachronic transnational challenges, such as terrorism and irregular migration. Second, it explores the links between law and politics with respect to security and transnationalism, in order to present the background of this Special Issue as well as its added value. Third, it provides an overview of the studies included in the latter and explains how those are connected to each other, while seeking to identify which threats, strategies and actors shall be put under the microscope. Show less
The overlapping of a series of events in the region has brought the Sahel under the spotlight of many European countries. It has been argued that the peculiar transnational nature of many terrorist... Show moreThe overlapping of a series of events in the region has brought the Sahel under the spotlight of many European countries. It has been argued that the peculiar transnational nature of many terrorist groups of the area represents a concrete threat to European security. France, specifically, has led and encouraged a series of European initiatives, which aim to stabilize the region, calling for different degrees of counterterrorism cooperation with its European allies. Many European countries, such as Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, or Italy, have indeed increased their engagement in the area. Yet, not only a variety of new actors are now involved in the response to terrorism, but European cooperation among key actors is also developing along political-strategic, organizational, and procedural dimensions largely unexplored by the existing literature. This paper specifically accounts for the different multilevel configurations of European counterterrorism cooperation in the Sahel between 2012 and 2018. More specifically, the aim of this contribution is twofold. First, theoretically, through the concept of “patchwork” the paper proposes a conceptual framework able to investigate and analyze the apparently confusing multidimensional and multi-actor European cooperation in counterterrorism. Second, it empirically researches and analyzes the types of cooperation and the actors that fulfil key strategic positions in the patchwork. Overall, this paper provides a first complete account of the universe of European actors involved in the region and the types of cooperative patterns. Show less
