Ben Tonra
I joined UCD Dublin in 1999 as Deputy Director of the Dublin European Institute. Today I hold a Jean Monnet (ad personam) Chair as Professor of European Foreign, Security and Defence Policy and I am also Professor of International Relations at the UCD School of Politics and International Relations.
Prior to UCD I enjoyed two terrific years at the Department of International Politics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth working with colleagues to develop European Studies and contributing (in a very small way!) to what is, and what has been, an outstanding centre for the study of International Relations.
Earlier still, I was a graduate student and contract lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Trinity College Dublin. There I had the very great good fortune of working with Professor Patrick Keatinge and ultimately completed my PhD.
My publication profile is centred on EU security and defense, Irish foreign policy and International Relations theory. I'm the Project Co-Leader at the Irish Institute for International and European Affairs for its policy group on European Security and Defence. I was also chairperson of the Royal Irish Academy’s National Committee on International Affairs and the Church of Ireland’s working group on Europe.
My current research interests focus on identity and foreign policy and transatlantic relations.
August 2010
Phone: + 353 1 716 8195
Prior to UCD I enjoyed two terrific years at the Department of International Politics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth working with colleagues to develop European Studies and contributing (in a very small way!) to what is, and what has been, an outstanding centre for the study of International Relations.
Earlier still, I was a graduate student and contract lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Trinity College Dublin. There I had the very great good fortune of working with Professor Patrick Keatinge and ultimately completed my PhD.
My publication profile is centred on EU security and defense, Irish foreign policy and International Relations theory. I'm the Project Co-Leader at the Irish Institute for International and European Affairs for its policy group on European Security and Defence. I was also chairperson of the Royal Irish Academy’s National Committee on International Affairs and the Church of Ireland’s working group on Europe.
My current research interests focus on identity and foreign policy and transatlantic relations.
August 2010
Phone: + 353 1 716 8195
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Papers by Ben Tonra
There are perhaps four key themes which have occupied scholarship with respect to Ireland and its membership of the European Union. The first is the question of a small state and its sovereignty. It is a point of ongoing interest to understand and to explain why a small state – which secured its formal independence only in 1921 and which continues to grapple with issues of sovereignty and nationality – should be so willing to enter into a complex shared sovereignty arrangement with other European states, including its former coloniser? A second question of evident scholarly interest has been the economic development of the state within the EU. What was the impact of EU membership on a fragile, largely agricultural, peripheral European economy? How did European engagement contribute to Ireland's stunning economic successes in the 1990s, and what was its role in Ireland's economic crisis of 2008-2013 and subsequent (partial) recovery? A third series of questions relate to the EU and democracy. To what extent has Ireland's engagement with European integration strengthened or weakened its own democracy and how engaged are citizens with the European project? Finally there's the issue of Irish foreign policy. How and why has Ireland's tradition of military neutrality, which was an outlier within the EU throughout the Cold War, continued to impinge on both domestic debates on Europe and how has it shaped Ireland's contribution to EU foreign, security and defence policy?