LOPEZ LUCIA Elisa

Units

REPI Recherche et Études en Politique Internationale

REPI is a research unit, mainly dedicated to research and studies in international politics at the Université libre de Bruxelles. It is linked to the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences. REPI fosters fundamental research in the field of international relations and aims at providing a high quality framework for the research in this field (PhD dissertations, publications, conferences...). Depending on available resources, members of REPI can also provide specific expertise for national and international institutions. Furthermore, the research centre encourages the dissemination of knowledge in international relations to a larger audience and represents a convenient space for discussing the teaching of international relations within the university. REPI also organises seminars and summer schools for professionals and young scholars.

Its scientific activities focus on two major areas of international politics: the study of security issues and international public policy (environment, health, international economics, development, etc.). These activities are rooted in several research traditions and schools of thought: foreign policy analysis, political sociology of international affairs, critical approaches to security, international political economy, etc., with the aim of better understanding power issues in international relations at different levels. The research agenda also includes the study of the European Union's external action and the main international institutions.

Director : Christian Olsson

Projetcs

Transforming regionalism: security politics and the 'remaking' of West Africa

This project asks whether transformations in the geographical boundaries of West African security regionalism are a functional adaptation to fluctuating boundaries of criminality and terrorism, or the result of actors’ struggles for legitimacy and to impose diverging security priorities. It analyses the politics of regionalism through the interactions between international and West African actors: the competition around the definition of legitimate security knowledge and of the spatial confines of the region. It analyses the adverse and unintentional effects of these transformations on the (des)institutionalisation of West Africa, the balance between security and development, and the re-shaping of intervention practices.