Las asociaciones estratégicas en el sistema internacional de Posguerra Fría. El caso de la asociación estratégica China-Unión Europea

Abstract

During the post-Cold War Period some emerging countries began to establish cooperative relations among them through informal and flexible organizational agreements denominated as “strategic partnerships”. The strategic partnerships are means for an ad hoc cooperation, created on a conjectural context, and sometimes they do not need a concrete definition given by the involved actors. A strategic partnership can serve as a guide to coordinate certain aspects of the bilateral relation and ensure communications between high level authorities. The European Union (EU) have signed strategic partnership agreements with another international actors as a mean to extend its relations as in the case of the third countries. The objectives of the EU partnerships have been the diffusion of the European normative values about the good governance, and the support for the effective multilateralism. Besides, China established strategic partnership agreements with other international actors in order to create an environment of stability and cooperation in the international system. For the Chinese political leadership, a peaceful international system is needed for the project to modernize China. These Chinese strategic partnerships are based on the discourse about a multipolar world. The Doctoral research aims to make an approach to the study of the organizational links of bilateral nature, defined as strategic partnerships, that has been developed by the EU´s institutional system and the China´s foreign policy. The case study of the thesis is the China - EU strategic partnership. The dissertation studies the process about how the EU and China have conceptualized their strategic partnership agreement and the way their bilateral relationship has changed over time, including the discursive and rhetorical elements used by the actors to match their interests (sometimes on a symbolic way). The thesis define the symmetrical or asymmetrical nature of the EU-China strategic partnership agreement.

Date of Award	27 Feb 2015
Original language	Spanish
Supervisor	Nilda Nora Sainz Gsell (Director)