Call for Applications:Erasmus Mundus GEM Doctoral Fellowships, Belgium 2012

A coordinated research initiative focused on the normative components of European and international politics. It aims at comparatively examining European and non-European perspectives on issues of justice related to globalization and global politics.
The normative component of international affairs is increasingly recognized as a key element in order to understand the international relations we live in. Since the seventies, political philosophers, political theorists, and political sociologists have forcefully claimed the necessity to take into full account the normative side of international politics. Issues of justice such as global poverty and global redistribution,

minority rights and social inclusion, war and deterrence, self-determination and intervention, environmental degradation and global health, human rights and nationalism, sovereignty and supranational institutions, migration and citizenship cannot be fully analysed without considering their axiological component. The European Union is a key case study for a normative approach to international relations. From the original discussion on the civilian power of the EU, up to the most recent interpretations as normative and ethical power, the EU actorness cannot be fully grasped without a proper consideration of it as a normative endeavour.
International political theory is the discipline that provided the best avenue to investigate these issues and it is the discipline that is central in AMETRINE, together with IR, political sociology, and political philosophy. AMETRINE will thus provide an opportunity to investigate the range of issues of international political theory and IR that are most related to the case of EU and other regional cooperation processes. Issues of civilian, normative and ethical power EU will be investigated, together with the other major normative dimensions of the EU internal and external action such as EU standardization. Especially interesting will be the comparative study with other regional normative endeavour which will allow for a better understanding of the European experience. Finally, normative issues in and models of global politics will also be studied from a multidisciplinary perspective which include IR, political theory, and political sociology. Accordingly, research proposals from political theorists, political philosophers, sociologists, and researchers in European and International studies will be welcome.

Further Scholarship Information and Application