Transatlantic Relations in a Changing Mediterranean Context: Smaller Steps to Security?

This research project runs from January 2008 to December 2009. It seeks to examine what has changed in respect of transatlantic relations in the Mediterranean region in the last six years. It will focus specifically on the new and, it will be argued, more piecemeal, policy approaches adopted towards key Mediterranean states by the US and individual European states as well as the European Union as an actor in its own right.

The project will critically examine whether differences in Transatlantic policy approaches towards Mediterranean states and societies are more imagined than real, or whether they reflect more enduring and fundamental divergences in transatlantic perceptions and priorities towards this region.

The study will specifically focus on North African states, in which the impact of developments further east (especially Israel-Palestine) are felt, but do not determine relations with the US and Europe.

The study will introduce a new, and often underestimated element in security assessments, namely, the role of private, as well as public investment in the economies and societies under examination. As a factor in stabilising and promoting 'soft' security initiatives within Mediterranean societies, bilateral investment and the growth in trade and new forms of local entrepreneurship have increased considerably in the past six years.

The local and regional impacts of these new developments now need to be considered in conjunction with more traditional approaches to security cooperation in countering trans-national crime, terrorism and illegal migration.

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