Communicating Europe in Times of Crisis

External Perceptions of the European Union

N. Chaban, M. Holland, N. Chaban, M. Holland

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781137331168
• eBook ISBN: 9781137331175
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Diplomacy & Treaties
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The EU views itself as an important actor on the world stage, a perspective supported by the role it plays in global politics. This collection presents a true reflection of the EU as an international actor by exploring how it is viewed externally and the impact that events like the Eurozone debt crisis have had on external perceptions of the EU.

Section 1

Global Views on the EU

1

Leader, Bridge-Builder or ‘Hobbled Giant’? Perceptions of the EU in Climate-Change Negotiations

Ole Elgström

Introduction

The European Union (EU) for a long time enjoyed an unparalleled image as an environmental leader in climate-change policy. It was the driver behind the Kyoto Protocol of 2001 and the actor that ensured its ratification in the years thereafter. More recently, however, two major developments have occurred that may have threatened the EU’s position as a leader in climate-change negotiations: externally, the advent of emerging powers, notably China, has changed the balance of power in many areas of global governance, challenging the leading roles of Western powers; internally, the financial crisis has challenged the EU’s economic clout and its internal unity. To what extent and in what ways have these trends affected perceptions of the EU’s role in climate change?

In this chapter, the aim is to investigate perceptions of the EU in climate-change negotiations, from the talks leading to the Kyoto Protocol until the Conference of the Parties (COP) in Doha, in December 2012. This analysis thus draws attention to a hitherto overlooked issue area in the field of EU perception studies but also to EU perceptions in multilateral fora, an area where the number of actively engaged scholars has been ‘incredibly limited’ (Lucarelli, 2013, p. 431). The chapter focuses on outsiders’ perceptions of the EU, with particular attention being paid to 2008–2012 (COP 14–18), a time that also coincided with the European economic crisis. The emphasis will be on perceived roles and strategies, including leadership, mediation, bridge-building and coalition-building, and on the perceived influence of the EU. The analysis will also consider external actors’ evaluations of the EU: is it seen as a positive or negative force, as a partner or as a competitor? Particular attention will be paid to how relations between the EU and the ‘emerging powers’ (in particular China, India, Brazil and South Africa), and with the USA, are perceived. The research design allows for a discussion of changes over time and of possible causes behind such changes. It is in this context that this chapter will consider the impact of the economic crisis and the potential existence of a learning process, where the EU may have adapted its strategies to a changing external environment.

The chapter relies on three different types of data, besides secondary sources. The first consists of surveys, handed out to COP participants (members of party delegations as well as civil society representatives and researchers) between 2008 and 2010. This material was collected by a Swedish research team and has been presented in a number of scientific articles (Karlsson et al., 2011, 2012; Parker et al., 2012). The second is elite interviews, carried out by a previous co-author after COP 14 in Poznan 2008 (reported in Kilian and Elgström, 2010) and by me at the mid-term negotiation in Bonn in May 2012, covering the COPs in Copenhagen and Durban (reported in Bäckstrand and Elgström, 2013). These interviews are with key negotiators, mainly from outside the EU. The third is a review of selected newspaper articles (in English) published in connection with the Doha COP in 2012. One quality newspaper each from the UK (Financial Times), India (Times of India), South Africa (Mail & Guardian), China (China Daily) and the USA (Washington Post) were selected and all articles from these outlets on climate-change negotiations published between 21 November and 21 December 2012 were analysed. This media material is obviously limited, especially as it only includes newspapers in English, and the results are mainly suggestive. However, its inclusion provides an analysis of the Doha COP and the developments that took place there. The combined use of interviews, questionnaire data and media-based discourse analysis provides a basis for rich and multifaceted analysis. Furthermore, the credibility of empirical findings is strengthened if they are based on a combination of sources. Arguably, the validity and practical usefulness of perception studies would increase if multiple sources and methods were to be utilized in future research.

In the next section the theoretical foundations of the chapter are outlined. Thereafter the EU’s role from the beginning of the climate-change discussions to COP 14 in Poznan 2008 is briefly reviewed. This is based on secondary sources, as no perceptual evidence exists from this period. The analysis continues by detailing perceptions of the EU at the time of COP 14, and then turns to the infamous meeting in Copenhagen and to the subsequent COPs in Cancun and Durban. The empirical analysis ends with a review of newspaper images of the EU in connection with COP 18 in Doha 2012, and it is followed by a summary of the perceptual changes that have taken place in the last decade and analyses what place the evolving configurations of global power and the economic crisis have had in these developments. The chapter concludes with a summary of its main findings, suggests avenues for future research and ponders upon the volatility of roles.

Theoretical foundations

This chapter is based on insights from role theory and leadership theory (a question that is also central to Chapter 2). Roles refer ‘to patterns of expected or appropriate behaviour’ (Elgström and Smith, 2006, p. 5). The presence and recognition of role concepts in the minds of policy-makers may affect and constrain their interests, as well as shape their policy choices (Orbie, 2008). Analysing roles takes into account (1) the construction of an actor’s self-conception and (2) the expectations and perceptions of others who interact with the actor in question. Most studies on the EU as an international actor do not focus on external (non-EU) actors’ views but merely consider the self-images of the EU. What makes role theory fruitful is its emphasis on the dynamic interplay between the actor’s self-conception and structurally guided external role expectations and role prescriptions (Elgström and Smith, 2006).

While the relationship between roles and perceptions has been further developed elsewhere (Bengtsson and Elgström, 2011), this chapter focuses on role change. Roles are often considered to be relatively stable phenomena. The external and internal perceptions (i.e. role prescriptions and role conceptions) that form the basis for roles are believed to be ‘sticky’ and resistant to rapid change. According to one perspective, only dramatic contextual change, internal or external shocks, is expected to trigger role transformation (Jervis, 1976). Folz (2011), taking a less radical standpoint, proposes three conditions under which change in the enactment of roles is more likely: uncertainty (when facing new situations), identification (when an actor identifies itself with another actor’s role conception) and resonance (when changes in public opinion facilitate role change). In this chapter, which emphasizes the leadership role of the EU in environmental diplomacy, another perspective is introduced – namely, that the type of leadership that the EU is engaged in may partly determine the volatility of its leadership role.

A typology of modes of leadership is therefore needed. Existing theories of multilateral leadership provide a fruitful basis for this enterprise. This chapter adopts a typology that is appropriate for climate-change negotiations provided by Grubb and Gupta (2000, pp. 18–23), where leadership is specified as being structural, instrumental or directional. To this an ideational mode of leadership is added, which is in Grupp and Gupta’s model subsumed under directional leadership. Structural leadership builds upon a state’s material or political resources. It is ‘associated with the exercise of power derived from political strength in the global order and the weight of an actor with respect to the problem at hand’ (Grubb and Gupta, 2000, p. 19). In the area of climate politics, this also equates to the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that a country causes. Put simply, the more emissions a country emits, the greater the potential to decrease emissions. This in turn means more (structural) power on the negotiation table. The instrumental mode of leadership is related to the exercise of political skill in negotiations and the creativeness of a leader to accommodate the needs of different parties regarding the instrumental design of a regime. Moreover, it involves fostering beneficial coalitions in order to achieve common ends (Underdal, 1994; Grubb and Gupta, 2000, p. 19). The directional type of leadership emphasizes ‘leading by good example’. Domestically developed solutions, accordingly, are portrayed as good examples or as potential standards of behaviour that may serve as a model to be disseminated internationally. Finally, the ideational leadership style implies the diffusion of values and ideas through active promotion of the leader’s vision (Kilian and Elgström, 2010).

The EU in climate-change negotiations before and after Kyoto: From laggard to leader

According to Oberthür and Kelly (2008, p. 35), ‘since the early 1990s, the EU has increasingly established itself as an international leader … most prominent[ly] in the paradigmatic area of climate change’. This and similar assessments (e.g. Grubb and Gupta, 2000; Vogler, 2005) reflect a consensus on EU leadership on climate change among academics. The shouldering of the leadership role by the EU has mainly been associated with the abdication of US leadership in connection with the Kyoto Protocol.

However, it took the EU considerable time and effort to develop leadership capacities in this area. The EU has been described as a laggard in international negotiations about the protection of the ozone layer in the 1980s mainly due to diverging national positions and interests, institutional constraints and attempts from some member states to protect their chemical industries. The USA was the frontrunner in establishing the framework for the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (1985) and its Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (1987) (Oberthür, 1999; Vogler and Bretherton, 2006, pp. 98–99). In the 1990s, however, Europe developed a ‘partial leadership role’ (Oberthür, 1999) in the ozone regime.

In 1995 the first meeting of COP of the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change took place in Berlin. The EU pushed for an agreement with binding timetables and emissionreduction targets, and it succeeded in reaching such an outcome in Kyoto two years later. The creation of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol represented a high point for EU global leadership. In the negotiations ‘the EU was the most proactive and ambitious actor among industrialized countries’ (van Schaik and Schunz, 2012, p. 179). The Kyoto Protocol established that the developed states should reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5–8 per cent from 1990 levels in the period 2008–2012. Furthermore, the ‘common but differentiated obligations’ for the more than 150 developing countries that are exempt from mandatory emission cuts was reaffirmed. This solution represented a success for EU environmental diplomacy (although it failed to realize other key objectives other than the agreement on fixed reduction targets) mainly due to its well-prepared proposals (ideational leadership) and its unilateral promises (directional leadership). The firm commitment of the EU to restrict binding reductions to industrialized countries garnered support from the developing states.

Over the eight years that it took until the Kyoto Protocol entered into force in 2005, it was repeatedly proclaimed dead. Between 2000 and 2005, the EU’s leadership was guided by the objective to save the Kyoto Protocol. With the Bush administration’s rejection of the protocol in 2001, the EU embarked on a mission to secure support in terms of ratification from industrialized countries, such as Japan, Russia and the USA. The EU gained Russia’s ratification in exchange for EU support of Russia’s candidacy for World Trade Organization membership, which can be seen as example of structural leadership (Parker and Karlsson, 2010). Thanks to the EU’s efforts at COP 7 in Marrakesh in 2001, the Kyoto Protocol was made operational. However, the price was that the EU had to make concessions with regard to environmental integrity.

Perceptions of the EU at COP 14 in Poznan: Still an environmental leader

There was in our interview material unanimous agreement among external negotiators that the EU was at the time of the Poznan meeting (2008) still a leader in climate-change diplomacy. This was the case regardless of whether the interviewee represented a developing or a developed country. Noteworthy in this context is that even the ‘heavyweights’ on the international scene – the USA, Japan and China – all affirmed the EU’s leading role. This indicates that the international weight of the EU in climate-change politics at this time was considerable. Observers underlined that ‘[the EU] has been on the forefront for many years. It’s been the strongest advocate of action’ (UN Environment Programme (UNEP)) and has been showing ‘a number one leadership compared to other countries’ (Japan). The EU’s own leadership rhetoric was echoed by interviewees, from both developing and developed countries, which stated that ‘the EU plays a key role in the making and implementation of climate change policy’ (Iceland, cf. Indonesia; China). What adds to this evaluation is that EU leadership was also assessed as consistent, across EU actors and over time (all interviewees; cf. Gupta and van ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction: The Evolution of EU Perceptions: From Single Studies to Systematic Research
• Section 1: Global Views on the EU
• Section 2: EU External Perceptions in Asia-Pacific
• Section 3: Images of the EU in the European Neighbourhood
• Conclusions: Perceptions, Prisms, Prospects
• Index