Affiliated Ph.D. Fellow, Cohort 2024

Research Interests

 European Politics, Deep-Sea-Mining, Common Foreign and Security Policy, Securitization, Role Theory 

Dissertation topic
The Debate of Deep-Sea Mining in the European Union and the Global Race for Raw Materials

Dissertation abstract
This PhD project aims to contribute to a better understanding of the evolution of the often puzzling EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) by taking a closer look at one of these: The EU's opposition to deep-sea mining. Deep-sea mining appears to be a promising option to secure the EU’s access to critical raw materials. This could prevent bottlenecks that could pose a risk to success in global technology competition, the energy transition or European security. Surprisingly, the EU has so far ruled out to engage in commercial deep-sea mining. Narrow economic and se-curity concerns are being outweighed by broader marine conservation interests. The EU is heavily dependent on imports of critical raw materials and is trying to become more inde-pendent and resilient in a global race for these resources. The EU’s stance on deep-sea mining therefore seems puzzling. This project aims to unravel that puzzle, asking: How can the EU's position on deep-sea mining be explained? It tries to shed light on the EU’s formation of foreign policy preferences through internal interests, ideas and institutions and through role conceptions. Further it examines the process that translate through which those aspects translate into EU foreign policy preferences. Thereby it contributes to a cru-cial debate on how the EU’s CFSP is shaped. Further it takes a closer look on the EU’s stance on deep-sea mining, which will be of growing importance and is already subject to a global race for raw materials but is still largely neglected in the academic debate. Finally, it sheds light on how the EU operates as a global actor. This project will be a cumulative dissertation consisting of three individual but interrelated papers to be submitted to inter-national journals. Methodologically, this project is based on discourse analysis, thematic analysis and process tracing.

Academic Supervisors
Wiebke Rabe