Amelie Kutter

Kutter, A. and Trappmann, V. (2010) Civil society in Central and Eastern Europe: the ambivalent legacy of accession

Given the particular incentives that the EU offered for the empowerment of non-state actors during pre-accession, it has often been assumed that EU intervention strengthened civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. We argue that, instead, the EU’s impact was highly ambivalent. Although the EU aid and EU-induced policy reform levelled the way for established actors’ involvement in multilevel politics, it reinforced some of the barriers to development that the civil society organisations face in CEE.

Forschungsprojekt: The common foreign, security and defence policy in the light of member states’ mass media (2007-2010)

The end of the Cold War brought about a strategic shift in the field of foreign, security and defence policies in Europe. In particular, events like wars, humanitarian catastrophes or terrorist attacks provoked public debates about the future role of the European Union in world politics both in the EU member and the candidate states. The project investigates whether these debates led to the construction of a common European identity. Amelie Kutter is co-investigator on that project, which is directed by Cathleen Kantner and Thomas Risse at Free University Berlin.