CEPED and OUISO organize:
Conference: Tribulation of a “territorial champion” and a “model pupil” of the European Union: Moroccan foreign policy with the prism of role theory
Speaker: Irene Fernández-Molina, Lecturer at the University of Exeter
Discussant: Marc-Antoine Perouse de Montclos, Research Director at the IRD (CEPED)
Venue: R 229 Conference Room (Main Building, 2nd Floor)
Université Paris Descartes
45 rue des Saints-Pères
Paris 6ème arr.
Date: June 4, 2018; Hours: 18h-20h
Abstract: This conference will address the Western Sahara conflict as a central issue in Moroccan foreign policy, arguing that the key to explaining its management lies in the articulation between its international and domestic dimensions. After examining the four steps that can be distinguished in this sense from 1999 to the present, the analysis will focus on the growing contradictions observed in the last phase, initiated in 2009. The aim is to show how the displacement of the conflict towards the interior of Western Sahara annexed by Morocco gave rise to a new Saharawi international strategy of “low politics”, centered on the politicization of the human rights and natural resources of this territory. This new situation has provoked diplomatic crises between Morocco and the UN, the United States and the European Union, revealing unprecedented tensions and shocks between the two priority roles that have guided Moroccan foreign policy and post-colonial still compatible – that of “territorial champion” and that of “model pupil” of the West, more particularly of the EU.
Free but compulsory registration at: contact.ouiso@gmail.com