European Foreign Policy Towards Hybrid Actors in the Middle East and North Africa: An Exploration of Diplomatic Practices

ABSTRACT

Diplomacy increasingly demands taking into account a large variety of polities, featuring not only state but also non-state actors (such as IGOs and NGOs) and ‘hybrid’ actors. Particularly in the broader Middle East and North Africa region, hybrid actors are important players in local, regional and international order. The European Union and its Member States have a distinct interest in gaining influence in the geopolitics of the region and are increasingly confronted with these actors in their external actions. Yet, little is known about how European foreign policy practitioners and diplomats deal with hybrid actors in practice. By providing a rich empirical account based on 37 interviews in the context of fieldwork in Brussels and Beirut, this research goes beyond existing analyses of official European policies and discourse towards hybrid actors. Building on recent advancements in practice theory and insights from political geography, the article emphasises the influence of space and the ubiquity of oblique routes shaping European foreign policy practices.

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful for the comments provided by the editors and anonymous reviewers. In particular, she would also like to thank Stephan Keukeleire, her colleagues from LINES and GGS and participants of the ECPR-SGEU, UACES and Aula Mediterrània conferences in 2021 for their feedback on earlier drafts of this study and suggestions to improve the content. This study would not have been possible without the generous participation of the European foreign policy practitioners that took the time to share their knowledge and experiences with me.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Ethical approval

The research went through a Privacy and Ethics (PRET) screening of the Social and Societal Ethics Committee (SMEC) of the University of Leuven for which formal approval was achieved. Informed consent by research participants was established.

Notes

1. This study adopts a non-restrictive definition of European foreign policy, which includes all types of engagement between the EU (its institutions and Member States) with the outside world or non-EU interlocutors (third countries or regimes, international organisations, and non-state actors) (Gstöhl and Schunz 2020; Keukeleire and Delreux 2022). European foreign policy practices include both the practices of officials working in EU institutions in Brussels and those of European diplomats working in the field.

2. Guiding questions included inquiries about how practitioners deal with hybrid actors in their day to day work, what are their personal experiences with hybrid actors, whether (in)direct engagement is possible and which form this took, how they assess the knowledge about the topic and how it is obtained, how they perceive hybrid actors and their impact on European foreign policy in a broader sense, which are the main possibilities and challenges for dealing with such entities. It is important to note that the nature of the research topic is politically sensitive, as hybrid actors are often related to terrorism and security concerns, which may have had an influence on access and sample bias. Interview requests consciously included a presentation of the research which included assumptions about the wider societal importance of hybrid actors. Respondents who agreed to take time for a conversation could be assumed to agree with this as opposed to non-respondents. Conversations therefore also included questions probing the general attitude towards the topic among colleagues and within EU institutions at large.

Additional information

Funding

This study benefited from funding by the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) Special Research Fund: C1 Project CONNECTIVITY