Exporting “Soft Norms” through the European Union’s External Policy

This article shortly reviews the literature on the circulation of norms in the context of accession to the European Union (EU) and European neighbourhood policy (ENP) in order to show that debates on transfer in other disciplines of social sciences can fruitfully nurture those on norm exportation in international relations and in the EU foreign policy in particular. The example of differentiated interpretations and translations of the “soft norm” of “good governance” in the field of institutional reforms shows that it is necessary to combine difference concepts in order to detail more precisely ongoing processes in relation to the eastern neighbourhood.