Search results
This book represents the first ever comprehensive study of the EU’s foreign and security policy in Bosnia since the dissolution of the Yugoslav Federation in 1991. Drawing on historical institutionalism, it explains the EU’s contribution to post-conflict stabilisation and conflict resolution in Bosnia. The book demonstrates that institutions are a key variable in explaining levels of coherence and effectiveness of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and that institutional legacies and unintended consequences have shaped CFSP impact over time. In doing so, it also sheds new light on the role that intergovernmental, bureaucratic and local political contestation have played in the formulation and implementation of a European foreign and security policy. The study concludes that the EU’s involvement in Bosnia has not only had a significant impact on this Balkan country in its path from stabilisation to integration, but has also transformed the EU, its foreign and security policy and shaped the development of the EU’s international identity along the way.
This book reviews a variety of approaches to the study of the European Union's foreign policy. Much analysis of EU foreign policy contains theoretical assumptions about the nature of the EU and its member states, their inter-relationships, the international system in which they operate and the nature of European integration. The book outlines the possibilities for the use of discourse analysis in the study of European foreign policy. It sets out to explore the research problem using a political-cultural approach and seeks to illuminate the cognitive mind-maps with which policy-makers interpret their political 'realities'. The book provides an overview and analysis of some of the non-realist approaches to international relations and foreign policy, and proposes an analytical framework with which to explore the complex interplay of factors affecting European foreign policy. The book suggests one way of seeking theoretical parsimony without sacrificing the most defining empirical knowledge which has been generated about Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) over the years. It argues that while the sui generis nature of CFSP presents an acute problem for international relations theory, it is less pronounced with regard to traditional integration theory. The book discusses the dimensions of European foreign policy-making with reference to the case of arms export controls. Situated at the interface between European studies and international relations, it outlines how the EU relates to the rest of the world, explaining its effort towards creating a credible, effective and principled foreign, security and defence policy.
coordination in turn gave way to the aspiration of developing a common foreign policy. Concern over foreign policy was the precursor to endeavours to cooperate in matters of security and eventually defence policy. And the desire to maintain the national veto over decision-making within the ‘second pillar’ of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) gave way to the acceptance that, at least in some agreed areas, detailed policies
The uneven but manifest emergence of a more coherent EU Common Foreign and Security Policy, which now includes significant elements of defence and military cooperation, makes it even more imperative to refine a theory and a set of analytical tools for studying the role of the EU as an international actor. As has often been noted, however, CFSP and its predecessor, European Political Cooperation, have not been well
the elaboration of EU development cooperation policy and programmes. This chapter shows that their overall impact on development policy has been significant, especially since the 1990s. In particular, (prospects of) expanding EU membership, Constituent Treaty changes, the Common Foreign and Security Policy, and the pressure to increase accountability, transparency and efficiency, have diluted the Union’s interest in development cooperation with the South. The implications of changing EU membership for development cooperation Between 1957 and 1995, the original six
This chapter addresses two key objectives of this book identified in the introductory chapter. It makes a case for a new theoretical approach to the study of the European Union as a global actor based explicitly upon an adapted foreign policy analysis. It also seeks to broaden the focus of the analysis from the Common Foreign and Security Policy to the much more broadly based concept of European foreign
should ‘we’ intervene in international or domestic crises? The third class of question is oriented towards meaning – What is the meaning of this or that? – leading to interpretive theory. Examples from this area include the following: What does ‘common’ in the common foreign and security policy mean? Equally important, what does ‘foreign policy’ mean, given that we are dealing with an actor like the European Union
defence questions. The Maastricht Treaty clearly stipulated that the Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy should aim to assert the EU’s identity on the international stage. This progressive deepening and widening of European integration in foreign policy raises a number of interesting questions, particularly regarding the significance and future role of the state in foreign policy: Are states no longer the most important
Minister Jacques Poos famously proclaimed that the ‘hour of Europe’ had come and that the European Community (EC) could and would handle this crisis on its own. 1 This rhetoric was not, however, matched by decisive EC intervention in the former Yugoslavia and many voices were raised to condemn the paralysis of the nascent Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The conflict that erupted in Bosnia
institutional changes, including the establishment, not without symbolism, of a Common Foreign and Security Policy. While still firmly intergovernmental, under a single institutional framework, the CFSP could rely on a stronger Secretariat, access to EC funding and the possibility of adopting operational decisions through joint actions and common positions (see Chapter 2 ). However, as I will show below