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Selected Online Reading on Foreign Affairs

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Selected e-articles

  • The EU global strategy: the dynamics of a more politicized and politically integrated foreign policy; Esther Barbe, Pol Morillas; Cambridge Review of International Affairs; 08 April 2019; Vol. 32(6)
    Publisher's note: The European Union (EU) has been portrayed as a force for good in the international system. However, due to systemic changes in the international environment and the crises of European integration, its role in the world is becoming more contentious. This paper applies the politicization literature to EU foreign policy and, using the case of the EU Global Strategy (EUGS), questions the effects of emerging politicization for EU political integration. The paper analyses how the EUGS has downscaled the transformative ambition of EU foreign policy, showcasing an adverse framing of its strategic narrative. However, it also argues that this narrative has been accompanied by more integrationist practices, as shown by the institutional developments during the making of the EUGS and its implementation in security and defence. The paper concludes that the effects of emerging politicization in EU foreign policy can simultaneously reflect a less transformative narrative but lead to more integrated practices and policies.

 

  • EU in Global Affairs: Constrained Ambition in an Unpredictable World?'; Sebastian Santander, Antonios Vlassis; European Foreign Affairs Review; Volume 25; Issue 1; 2020; pp. 5-22
    Publisher's note: The European Union (EU) has a number of different powers in its toolbox. One of these policies lies at the core of the EU’s external competences – the common commercial policy (CCP) or common trade policy. This enables the EU to ‘speak as one voice’ in multilateral bodies and with third parties. The CCP, which has become stronger over the years, has developed into one of the bloc’s key international projection levers. However, the EU’s place and role in globalization are today being shaken chiefly by three major political factors: the rise of new powers, the United States (US)’ neo-mercantilist policies, and political divisions within the EU. Together, these three external and internal factors may be hastening a crisis for the EU. This raises the question: to what extent can the bloc influence its own destiny during this stormy period?

 

  • Resilience and the role of the European Union in the world; Nathalie Tocci; Contemporary Security Policy; 08 July 2019; Vol. 42(2
    Publisher's note: The idea of resilience in EU academia and practice predates the EU Global Strategy. But it is with the 2016 EUGS that resilience was elevated into one of the five guiding principles for the EU’s role in the world. This article recounts the origins of the concept in the context of European foreign policy. Resilience reflected the implicit goal of the EUGS to foster a more joined-up approach to European foreign policy, it epitomized the philosophy of principled pragmatism enshrined in the EUGS, and it captured the transformative approach to complex change advocated by the EU. The implementation of the EUGS over the last three years has been a story of lights and shadows. However, the idea of resilience lives on also and perhaps even more importantly because of its changing interpretation in the European policy debate.

 

  • Leaderisation in foreign policy: performing the role of EU High Representative; Lisbeth Aggestam, Elsa Hedling; European Security; Volume 29; Issue 3; 2020; pp. 301-319
    Publisher's note: This article examines how the mediatised context of foreign policy provides new opportunities for political leaders to both frame and project their own leadership role to new audiences. The past ten years have witnessed a sharp rise in political leaders’ use of new social media to communicate on a range of foreign policy issues. We argue that this new media context of foreign policy, combined with a bolstered leadership mandate, has been central to the construction of a more visible public leadership role for the EU High Representative in the post-Lisbon era. Departing from recent scholarship on performative leadership and new media in International Relations theory, we develop an original theoretical framework drawing on Erving Goffman’s dramaturgy of impression management. We employ the concept of “leaderisation” to analyse how mediatisation shapes the leadership process in terms of personification and drama to enable new forms of interaction with followers. We apply this framework in an illustrative case study focusing on the process of negotiating the EU Global Strategy. This diplomatic process provided the High Representative Mogherini with a stage on which she could frame herself in a central leadership position visà-vis European citizens to mobilise greater legitimacy for the EU as a global actor.

 

  • Changing Practices in European Foreign Policy; Thomas Henökl; European Foreign Affairs Review; Volume 25; 2020; Issue 1; pp. 99-116
    Publisher`s note: Taking the EU’s hybrid foreign policy administration, the European External Action Service (EEAS) as a laboratory for study, this article examines the changing structures and processes of communication and coordination as well as various patterns of cooperation and conflict within the organization. Whereas research frequently focuses on foreign policy making at the national level and actors at the political level, I here want to zoom in on emerging practices and the role understanding of administrators within the EEAS in order to identify the dynamics and the consequences of organizational reform. In short, the article explores the emerging European diplomatic practices. The argument starts from the assumption that new forms of transnational administrations provide the opportunity to re-combine diverse cultures stemming from different institutional origins, professional backgrounds, traditions, cognitive dispositions and behavioural logics, routines and ‘ways of doing things’. The emphasis is put on how such processes unfold, and why the adaptation of and the emergence of new patterns of behaviour contribute, at the same time, to institutional innovation and ambivalence. This line of investigation may benefit our understanding of increasing fluidity and blurring of boundaries between the fields of international relations and public policy. Empirically, the study draws on interview and survey data from EU foreign policy makers (Total N=232), and finds that despite institutional resilience and continuity, the confluence of and conflicts between diplomatic and organizational cultures leads to behavioural innovation as a result of the need to deal with ambiguities and to replace practices that have ‘gone out of use’.

 

  • The European Union as a Normal International Actor: An Analysis of the EU Global Strategy; Filip Tereszkiewicz; International Politics; Volume 57; Issue 1; February 2020; pp. 95–114
    Publisher's note: For a long time, the European Union (EU) has been described by many scholars and policymakers as a civilian and a normative power. This article argues that these concepts do not accurately capture the foreign policy behaviour of the EU as prescribed in the European Union Global Strategy (EUGS). It first situates EU identity and role played in international relations within role strain theory. Then, it notes that the EU has difficulties fulfilling duties connected with its international identity and role. The second part of the article uses three indicators to examine whether the EU is pursuing 'normal' international actor status or not, drawing on the Strategy and relevant literature to do so. In conclusion, this article argues that the EU is still a unique actor, although changes prescribed in the EUGS could begin the evolution towards the role of a normal international actor.

 

  • Between Normative Visions and Pragmatic Possibilities: The EUropean Politics of State Recognition; Doris Wydra; Geopolitics; 18 December 2018; Vol. 25(2)
    Publisher's note: During the last decades the map of Europe has changed considerably. New claims for independent statehood were brought forward and demanded for recognition. These claims had to be answered by the European Union and its member states. This article evolves around the idea that state recognition is as much a matter of politics as it is of law. It starts from the assumption that ‘who we are defines what we see’, claiming, that EUropean identity, the images the EU and the member states hold about themselves, shape the mental maps they hold of territories and space. Building on this identity a geopolitical imaginary is formed, which can be defined as ideas, allowing actors to ascribe meaning to territories, establish order in a seemingly chaotic world by means of classification and categorisation and allow to develop strategies for action. The geopolitical imaginary of EUrope contains the vision, that if all states were more like EUrope itself, the world would be a better place:  a world determined not by power and coercion, but by rules, norms and values; with conflict mechanisms, not based on the rule of the strongest, but the rule of law; stability, created through common rules, negotiation and economic prosperity; and a determination not to let ‘blunt power-politics’ prevail. This imaginary shapes the way in which Europe makes meaning of claims for statehood and decides which claims to recognise as legitimate. The different elements of the imaginary sometimes contradict each other: law may have to take the back seat in the quest for stability or justice. Law is open to creative interpretations to allow the ‘right’ claims for recognition to prevail and the ‘wrong’ ones to be rejected The tool of recognition is caught between legal arguments and political considerations, between normative visions and pragmatic possibilities.

 

  • EU external relations law: Time for a reality check? Allan Rosas; Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law; Volume 27; Issue 3; 2020; pp.:277-283
    Publisher's note: With the increasing importance of EU external relations within the broader framework of EU policies and strategies, it is no wonder that there has also been a considerable increase in legal research and publications relating to external relations law. This is a welcome development, not only for the sake of understanding the legal and politico-legal aspects of EU external relations as such but also because any meaningful study of the Union constitutional order should include the external relations dimension.

 

  • Normative transformations in EU external relations: the phenomenon of ‘soft’ international agreements; Ramses A. Wessel ; West European Politics; Volume 44; Issue 1; 2021; pp.72-92
    Publisher's note: The European Union increasingly uses ‘soft’ international arrangements rather than formal international agreements in establishing relations with non-EU states. This contribution aims to raise the question of to what extent a move from hard to soft law in relations between the EU and its partners can be seen as allowing the Union to ‘step outside’ the legal framework (if that indeed is what is happening) and disregard the rules and principles that define the way in which EU external relations are to take shape. Possible consequences include the risk that these instruments are not subject to appropriate safeguards, that parliamentary influence (by the European Parliament as well as by national parliaments) is by-passed and that transparency is affected. There are various reasons for the EU not to use formal procedures, but a turn to informality does come at a price.

 

  • Lilliput Effect Revisited: Small States and EU Foreign Policy; Jean Crombois; European View; Volume 19; Issue 1; Spring 2020;  pp. 80–87
    Publisher's note: The role of small member states in EU foreign policy is increasingly being challenged, especially in view of the reforms being proposed to make the EU more effective as an international actor. These reforms, if adopted, will require the small Central and Eastern European member states, such as Bulgaria, to rethink their old foreign-policy strategies and practices. Instead of band-wagoning and balancing conflicting interests, these small member states will have to learn to be more proactive, to build their reputations and to form alliances if they want to continue to have any influence on EU foreign policy. These issues are discussed in the light of the EU sanctions adopted against Russia in the aftermath of the Ukrainian–Russian conflict of 2014. 

 

  • Learning to Lead? Germany and the Leadership Paradox in EU Foreign Policy; Lisbeth Aggestam Adrian Hyde-Price; German Politics; Volume 29; Issue 1; 2020; pp. 8-24
    Publisher's note: Germany’s growing leadership role in the European Union over recent years has been subject to a broad-ranging debate. The changed EU foreign policy-making procedures introduced by the Lisbon Treaty, with a significant delegation of formal leadership functions to the EU level, have created a new dynamic between EU institutions and member states, thereby complicating the picture of how and why Germany exercises leadership in the CFSP. We use social role theory to analyse Germany’s emerging leadership role in European foreign and security policy. We begin by drawing an important distinction between German power on the one hand, and its capacity for leadership on the other. German leadership in European foreign policy has emerged as a result of the Ukraine crisis and is being shaped by the interaction between domestic level factors and the role expectations of its key allies and partners. The form of German leadership in the CFSP reflects the paradoxical nature of post-Lisbon European foreign policy, which we argue can be explained in terms of ‘crossloading’ dynamics of Europeanization that are horizontal and informal. We illustrate the evolving form of German leadership with original data from an extensive interview survey and a case study of the Ukraine crisis.

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