ABSTRACT
This volume seeks to understand and explain why privileged partnerships between the European Union (EU) and certain neighbouring countries have been established and/or are currently being revisited or negotiated, and how they have developed over time. This chapter therefore introduces the concept of privileged partnership, identifies major examples of such relationships and sets out an analytical framework based on historical institutionalism to help explain the choices underpinning their establishment and development. This allows it to provide a brief overview of how privileged partnerships have emerged and evolved, particularly in terms of the institutional arrangements overseeing them, and to hint at patterns of institutional reproduction in EU external governance, critical junctures, path dependence and unintended consequences as well as asymmetries of power.
