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to pursue this line of enquiry. The specifics of historical institutionalism were discussed in Chapter 1 . But, to summarise, it is associated with the identification of path dependencies and critical junctures. New or re-evaluated policy is rarely detached from long-standing policy making traditions and outlooks. Path dependencies are about organisational reliance on familiar routines and practices
This chapter proposes an analytical framework for studying changes to EU foreign policy. The Introduction explained how the ambition to draw up such a framework for the EU level is founded on a theoretical dialogue between historical institutionalism (HI), foreign policy analysis (FPA) and public policy studies. The key argument of this study is that to understand changes of EU foreign policy in the wake of critical junctures we need to understand the decision-making process following those critical junctures, in order to
This book provides readers with an analytical framework that serves to investigate and explain how the EU adapts its foreign policy in the wake of crisis. While a range of studies dedicated to foreign policy stability and change exist for the US context, such analyses are rare for the assessment and measurement of foreign policy change at the European Union level. This book explores a range of theories of (foreign) policy change and assesses their value for explaining EU foreign policy change. Changes to EU foreign policy, this study proposes based upon an in-depth investigation of recent episodes in which foreign policy has changed, are not captured well using existing typologies of policy change from other fields of study.
Offering a new perspective on the question of change, this book proposes an analytical framework focused on how institutions, institutional ‘plasticity’ and temporal context impact on the decision-making process leading to change. It thus provides readers with the tools to analyse, explain and conceptualise the various change outcomes in EU foreign policy. In so doing, it sets the theoretical approach of historical institutionalism to work in an EU foreign policy setting. Based on a rich empirical analysis of five case studies it provides a revised typology of EU foreign policy change. It proposes two novel forms of foreign policy change, symbolic change and constructive ambiguity, as frequent and important outcomes of the EU decision-making process.
The critical juncture in Europe's relations with its Eastern neighbours commenced ten days before the Vilnius Summit of November 2013, 1 where Ukraine was about to sign an Association Agreement (AA) and a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) with the EU. Both are core parts of the European Neighbourhood Policy and provide an agenda and priorities for political and economic reforms. Until August of that year, it appeared as if the Ukrainian government led by
additional tests. This also allows me to assess further the design and handling of the analytical framework. Rather than testing a theory through the use of large- n studies, Welch ( 2005 : 9) argues, test-drives have the purpose of judging the performance of the newly developed framework, to assess ‘its comfort, its fit-and-finish’, whilst keeping the focus on detailed process tracing. The test-drives illustrate the various change outcomes that are possible in the wake of a critical juncture, as well as several reasons for this variety in outcome. They also provide more
, Libya and Syria. The revolutions that swept the Arab world thus constituted a critical juncture for the ENP, culminating in ‘A new response to a changing neighbourhood’. This revised policy, presented in May, was the EU's strategic response to the Arab 2011 uprisings (Commission and HR/VP 2011a ). The first part of this chapter describes the structural context and outlines the various political institutional initiatives guiding EU relations with the Middle East and North Africa. Subsequently it details how the European Union was struggling on many
Legacies, for some post-Cold War developments were not totally new after 1991 but were rooted in both internal and external developments of the two nation-states. It is also necessary to study the breakpoints at which new policy departures occurred on both sides, and an informal theory of Critical Junctures can aid in that discussion. Further, Realist Theory is the heart of the matter in penetrating the basic motivations of both Russian and American leaders at different points after the Cold War ended. The last theory to receive attention will be Revised Realist Theory
into norms and values, institutional contexts, agents and ideas, path dependency and critical junctures, all of which assist in the analysis of institutional persistence and change. It is in facilitating consideration of the context in which parliament, and its reform, exists that the application of the historical institutionalist lens provides the most value. Historical analysis coupled with the conceptual framework provided by institutional theory structured this inquiry into parliamentary reform, and has helped us provide a richer analysis of what does, and does
, Spain, France and Poland and discuss problems presented by each country. Finally, my research methodology and methods are set out. I adopt an approach to the explanation of change which is rooted in historical institutionalism and critical juncture theory and a methodological stance which is based on the work of Blatter and Haverland ( 2012 ). Research methods are also delineated, involving semi-structured research interviews and analysis of relevant documentation. Conceptualizing European labour movements The goal
At each of these three critical junctures on its way to overcoming the mythical relation of law to violence, Menke’s argument, it seems to me, intersects the path of contemporary “political liberalism” and by no means runs counter to it or supersedes it. Notes 1 W. Benjamin, “Critique of Violence,” in Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings (New York: Schocken Books, 1978), 277–30; J. Derrida, “Force of Law: ‘The Mystical Foundation of Authority’,” trans. M. Quaintance, Cardozo Law Review, 11 (1990), 920–1038. 2 For a more detailed account of