| Abstract: | By way of an inquiry into the European Union's border assistance mission to Moldova and Ukraine (EUBAM), this paper articulates two moves. Firstly, deploying intervention to study the relations of the European Union with its self-designated neighbours is heuristically relevant because such a move draws attention to the deployment of a patronizing rationale towards ‘intervened populations’. This is captured in the paper by the notion of tutelage. Secondly, analyses in terms of intervention remain unsatisfying in how they account for the linkage between the planning and ‘programming’ of intervention and its effects. While they work with the idea that intervention like any other practice of rule is a perpetually failing activity, they have yet to articulate this observation analytically. This paper advances the discussion by arguing that the notion of subversion may provide such an articulation. |
