In the past few years decision‐making processes and the normative underpinnings of EU external relations have become subject to intense debate in the European institutions, member states and the wider public. Previous research suggests that there is variation in the extent to which individual domains of EU external relations are politicized and contested. This special issue aims to theorize further and investigate empirically this, using the example of European development policy and its relations with other external policies. We introduce two new mechanisms that drive politicization dynamics. We argue that politicization can be diffused horizontally from one policy field to another, which we call horizontal politicization. We also investigate how the politicization of EU external policies in third countries occurs and influences politicization dynamics in the EU, which we call outside‐in politicization. The introduction to the special issue presents our theoretical approach and summarizes the key findings from the special issue.

中文翻译：

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发展政策遭到抨击？欧洲对外关系的政治化*

在过去的几年中，欧盟外部关系的决策过程和规范基础已经在欧洲机构，成员国和广大公众中引起了激烈的争论。先前的研究表明，欧盟对外关系中各个领域的政治化和竞争程度各有不同。本期特刊旨在以欧洲发展政策及其与其他外部政策的关系为例，进一步进行理论化和实证研究。我们介绍了两种驱动政治化动态的新机制。我们认为，政治化可以从一个政策领域横向扩散到另一种政策领域，我们称之为横向政治化。我们还研究了第三国欧盟对外政策的政治化是如何发生的，并影响了欧盟内部的政治化动态，我们称之为外部政治化。特刊的引言介绍了我们的理论方法，并总结了特刊的主要发现。