The European Union's Foreign Policy in Comparative Perspective

Beyond the "Actorness and Power" Debate

Ingo Peters

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781317536543
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This ground-breaking volume provides a new perspective on the EU's foreign policy and offers a reconstruction of EU research that extends beyond narrow-minded concepts of 'power' and 'actorness'. Focusing on two intertwined research questions, it presents a more sustainable base for studying EU foreign policy:

• What is the EU's foreign policy quality in terms of 'actorness' and 'power' compared to other types of actors in international relations and global politics?

• What factors influence the EU's foreign policy performance in comparison to states and international organizations?

This guiding principle and application of a 'grounded theory' or 'heuristic case study' approach allows the book to deliver a structured comparative analysis of EU foreign policy, comparing findings across policy fields, different legal foundations and respective policy modes of governance.

This book will be of key interest to students and scholars of European Union studies, European Union foreign policy studies, international relations, and security policy studies.

1 Introduction

The European Union’s foreign policy “actorness and power”: foundations of and challenges for a comparative research design

Ingo Peters

When the Libyan rebels were facing Gaddafi’s troops besieging Bengasi in March 2011, they were using all possible communication channels and appealed for a military intervention by foreign powers, including the European Union (EU) and its member states. The responses coming from the EU were as pessimistic as might have been expected; instead of a quick consultation process resulting in a swift and decisive military action on behalf of the rebels, the EU was unable and unwilling to respond appropriately, leaving it up to individual member states, first and foremost France and Britain, to form a coalition of the willing in order to take military action on behalf of the rebels, based on United Nation (UN) Resolution 1973 (BBC 2011). Once again, the EU’s political weight in world affairs and its ability to act in times of acute crisis rose to the top of the political agenda as empirical evidence pointed out the Union’s inability to speak with one voice and to act in unity within the realm of its common foreign and security policy (Busse and Sattar 2011; Koenig 2011).

But was it really only the EU suffering from the diverging policy choices of its member states, about to betray the public search for democratic reforms in the Arab world they have allegedly supported as part of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership and European Neighbourhood policy for so long? What about the most successful military alliance in history, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)? In view of the overlap of member states between the EU and NATO, it was not surprising that the western alliance also failed to decide and act unanimously in view of the first unilateral French and British air strikes in Libya (Dempsey 2011). Instead, France and Britain had to be persuaded to act multilaterally through NATO, and thus the alliance could take over the coordination only two weeks after they had started the campaign. Nevertheless, NATO’s resolve and actions were praised and the alliance received mostly positive feedback for its military engagement – quite contrary to the public feedback the EU got in return for its “civilian” measures (Laity 2012; Perthes 2011; Francois 2011; Noetzel and Schreer 2012).

And what about the United States of America, another champion of “making the world safe for democracy”? The Obama administration joined the coalition of the willing and able, thus participating in the campaign to protect civilians from their own ruthless regime. However, this policy only emerged after some hesitancy due to the diverging positions of the Department of State and the Department of Defence as well as strong criticism from Congress, resulting in a quick reduction of US military engagement in this campaign (Fahrenthold 2011). Though all three international actors’ (though different they may be) performances were somewhat awkward, hardly anyone is discussing the “power” or “actorness” of NATO or the US in the same vein as people – politicians, journalists as much as scholars – continuously seem to question the quality of the EU’s “foreign policy”.

The relevant literature often focuses on the issues of “what kind of power” or “what kind of actor” the European Union actually is.¹ It is comprised of policy papers, conceptually and theoretically informed research, mostly drawing on mere illustrative examples that stress the abovementioned power attributes or is confined to specific policy fields (see for example Ginsberg 2001; Crawford 2002; Bicci 2010; Tocci 2008). Part and parcel of this literature is, however, a more critical stance on what and how writing about EU foreign policy is done. James Rogers (2009, 83) asserts that most of the contributions to this debate are lacking innovation and are rather repetitive, ‘the only difference is often the names used to describe’ the EU. Karen Smith (2005, 64–73) has repeatedly pointed to the literature shortcomings in terms of clear and unequivocal terms and concepts specifically regarding the distinction between “military power” and “civilian power”. Moreover, Helene Sjursen (2006a, 240–2; see also Merlingen 2007) has succinctly de(con-)structed Manner’s (2002) “normative power” approach, most notably criticizing its lack of substantial discussion on ideological and political Euro-centric connotations as well as issues of legitimacy, ultimately allowing for just another sort of “missionary politics”, which are not substantially different from the normative policies of the former Soviet Union or the United States.

Hence, the topic of the EU’s role in international or global affairs is thoroughly covered by academic literature. The usual starting point is the premise that the EU is neither a state nor an international organization, but rather a phenomenon sui generis which requires special treatment (Øhrgaard 2004). Indeed, as Rogers (2009, 832) asserted, a screening of the existing literature reveals that ‘almost all of the well-known approaches seem to accept, sometimes unquestioningly, that the Union is a sui generis international actor.’ Despite Risse-Kappen’s (1996) as well as White’s (1999) argument in favour of comparative research and the viability of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) to examine the EU’s foreign policy, respectively, the broader perspective of a ‘structured and focussed comparison’ (George 1979; George and Bennett 2004) of the “power and actorness” of the EU with that of states or international organizations, remains substantially neglected.

In view of the evolution of the EU, in terms of institutionalization as well as actual policy-making, it may well be right to assume that the EU is neither a nation-state nor an international organization.² Undoubtedly, the European integration process and what has become the European Union of 28 member states is still a unique experiment with a special history and specific structures, processes and mechanism of policy-making, categorizing the Union as a sui generis ‘self-contained regime’ (Phelan 2012, 380–2). However, at the same time, considering the many faces of globalization, nation-states may no longer be “nation-states” and (at least some) international organizations are no longer “international organizations” in terms of the ideal models used for comparison to the EU. Thus, in comparative terms of “power and actorness”, the uniqueness of the EU ought to be questioned and should therefore be analyzed in greater detail. The example of the Libyan incident mentioned above at least questions the presumption that there are, in principle, differences when comparing policy output, outcomes and impact of the EU “foreign policy” with those of an international organization like NATO or a powerful nation-state like the US.

This multifaceted problematique, which goes beyond the conceptual debate on EU power and actorness, points towards the following research questions (RQ), which might best be tackled by empirical research:

• What is the quality of the EU’s foreign policy in terms of a) distinctive features (RQ 1) and b) of policy “effectiveness” (RQ 2) – regarding its “actorness and power” – compared to other actors in international relations and global politics, first and foremost states and intergovernmental organizations?
• What factors influence the EU’s performance in comparison to the performance of a state or international organization? (RQ 3)

To sum up, the premise of this project is that even though there might be some truth to the argument of the EU being a special case requiring special concepts and designs for well-founded analyses, this special quality might, in fact, be overstated. As a consequence, the large body of existing literature on this topic might still be missing conceptual opportunities offered by foreign policy analysis and comparative studies to put the claims and the practice of a European Foreign Policy into perspective (Risse-Kappen 1996, 57). Notwithstanding the inherent interconnectedness of identity and actual policy-making, Karen Smith (2005, 81) is correct to say that it may be more important to know what the EU actually does than what it is. At the same time, this study takes up Helene Sjursen’s (2006b, 170) pertinent argument for ‘systematic empirical investigation’. Thus, this study attempts to make use of the aforementioned missed opportunities by designing a comparative research project that combines evaluation with causal analysis in terms of a comparative design, applying the basic features of a “grounded theory” or “heuristic case study” approach.³

This investigation proceeds as follows: Section 1 will incorporate the various concepts of “actorness” used in the pertinent literature for qualifying the EU and will deconstruct them in comparative perspective. Second, power concepts ascribed to the EU will also be examined in comparative perspective. Both subsections contain analytical literature reviews organized along distinct “theses” focusing on the core problems and challenges of the debate. They will show the problems of “fuzziness” and ambiguous terms and concepts as a major feature of the contemporary debates on the EU’s “actorness and power”. In Section 2, the “uniqueness” of the EU will be compared to the evolution of the nation-state and international organizations to support the author’s claim that a comparative research design incorporating the “foreign policy” of the EU, state actors and other non-state actors should be a promising approach. In Section 3, the findings of the first two sections will be incorporated into a reconstruction of EU research that extends beyond narrow-minded concepts of power and actorness. Here we will investigate some opportunities to study EU foreign policy in a more productive way by making use of comparative studies and Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) to guide the case studies following in the next chapters of this volume.

A comparative deconstruction of actor and power concepts ascribed to EU foreign policy: a critical literature review

The Lisbon Treaty (ToL, 2009) has raised great expectations through its accentuated impetus on changes regarding the EU’s objectives in foreign policy-making in terms of ‘unity, consistency, and effectiveness of action by the Union’ (Art. 26, 2 ToL), as well as affected its external representation through revitalizing institutions such as the upgrading of the High Representative and establishment of new agencies and instruments like the European External Action Service (EEAS) (see for example Dagand 2008; Biscop and Algieri 2008). Whether or not this new treaty is once again codifying existing practices rather than facilitating a new quality of political unity and policy coherence is still open for debate. However, this debate opens additional research opportunities along the lines of problematizing power and actorness beyond this paper’s and project’s approach (see Héritier 2007; Caporaso 2007).

The successive subsections will discuss various distinctive arguments in order to shed some light on the utility, as well as the conclusiveness, of available writings. However, the purpose is not to summarize or compare all possible contributions to the debate on the EU’s “actorness and power” (for other literature reviews, see Ginsberg 1999; Manners 2002, 236–8; Toje 2008b, 203–5; Rogers 2009, 832f; Koops 2012, 95–146). Moreover, please note that the following “theses” are not “hypotheses” being tested later on, but are rather meant as central statements, summarizing core problems found in the existing and reviewed body of literature, and thus core challenges for any study that investigates the “actorness and power” of any type of international actor.

Deconstruction of actor concepts ascribed to the EU

Thesis A1 (and P1): The debates on the EU’s actorness and power features are indeed overlapping and intrinsically linked. The EU is an international actor and power of varying quality across issues and time!

Going back to Sjöstedt’s groundbreaking and still noteworthy contribution of 1977, the first challenge is to ‘separate actors from non-actors in the international system’ (Sjöstedt 1977b). Both are incorporated as “units” that constitute ‘some sort of social system’ exemplified by reference to states or international government organizations (IGOs). Nowadays, we have to add non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to this typology of units possibly qualifying for varying degrees of actorness. The delineating criterion for actors/non-actors is (according to Sjöstedt) the respective unit’s autonomy, defined in varying degrees of separateness (in terms of being ‘discernible from its external environment’), and ‘a minimal degree of internal cohesion’ (Sjöstedt 1977b, 15). However, “autonomy” is merely considered as a necessary but not sufficient criterion. In addition, an actor’s possession of “actor capabilities” are, in principle, defined as ‘a measure of the autonomous unit’s capacity to behave actively and deliberately in relations to other actors in the international system’, which has to become part of the equation (Sjöstedt 1977b, 13–19, 15).

In his 1977 article, Sjöstedt (1977a, 26f) also suggested that the conceptualization of “power exertion” is, by definition, ‘a purposeful, deliberate action on the part of nation A’. Hence, power is not only understood in terms of available capabilities, but also as ‘power over outcomes’ inherently incorporating action, where the ability to act becomes the ability to exert power. The respective quality to act is then conclusively related to different variations of a respective “power base” (military, economic, civilian, etc.). Hence, first, without being an actor, no subject in IR (or “unit” according to Sjöstedt) can ever be any sort of power and vice versa. Secon...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Contributors
• 1 Introduction: the European Union’s foreign policy “actorness and power”: foundations of and challenges for a comparative research design
• Part I Foreign economic policy
• Part II Common foreign and security policy/peace- and state-building
• Part III Crisis management, missions and operations
• Index