The Role of the EU and Member States in the Arab Spring

The objective of this thesis is to explain if the way the EU assesses its interests (both norma-tive and rational) and foreign policy goals corresponds to its actions in North Africa during the Arab Spring process. It seeks to understand whether the EU's conduct in the areas of security, economic prosperity and value projection in Tunisia and Libya was based more on material interests or on values by also taking member state involvement into consideration. This study adopts an original approach, using insights from neoclassical realism. The research findings it presents are based on the author's extensive analysis of EU documents, expert interviews, primary sources and secondary literature. The author moved to Ankara after the completion of her doctoral studies in Cologne. Her research interests are EU foreign policy, Turkish foreign policy and foreign policy analysis.