EGMONT – The Royal Institute for International Relations

Abstract In 1924, during the First United Front under Soviet auspices between the Chinese Nationalist Party and the Chinese Communist Party, Sun Yat-sen, founder of the former, introduced Leninist organisational principles such as the dangguo (party-state), vanguardism, and democratic centralism into his party. Concurrently, Sun systemised his ideas on democracy through a series of lectures on his doctrine of minquan (democracy) and the Outline for National Reconstruction , a treatise proscribing a three-step democratisation process leading to xianzheng (constitutional governance). This essentially created a ‘democratic promise’ to be fulfilled. This article explores the seemingly contradictory influences of Sun’s ideas on authoritarian and democratic developments in Taiwan and reveals his enduring impact on Taiwan’s political institutions and norms.

Norms can be adopted without modifications or adapted to regional contexts for strategic or principled reasons. Norm adoption and adaptation can also happen by chance. When adoption takes place without consideration of the norm’s effectiveness or appropriateness, we speak about imitation. When adaptation takes place in such a manner, we lack conceptual tools to analyse it. We propose a novel concept of incidental adaptation – divergence between promoted and adopted norms due to fortuitous events. This completes the typology of scenarios leading to norm adoption and adaptation. We apply the typology to the transmission of the protection of civilians norm in peace operations from the United Nations (UN) to the African Union (AU). The AU adopted the UN’s approaches in pursuit of interoperability and resources, and out of recognition of the UN’s normative authority. It also happened incidentally when the AU temporarily followed the UN’s approaches. The AU engaged in adaptation to reflect the nature of its operations and normative orientations of AU member states. Incidental adaptation accounted for the presence of the rights-based tier in the AU’s protection of civilians concept. These findings nuance our understanding of norm diffusion, inter-organisational relations and the role of chance in international affairs.

Strategic partnerships have flourished since the 1990s. In the late 2000s, when the EU consolidated its ten strategic partnerships, there were more than 200 similar agreements between countries worldwide. However, these partnerships have now mostly disappeared from foreign policy doctrines and discourses. This concluding chapter puts the EU’s strategic partnerships reviewed in this volume into a broader perspective, describing the rise and fall of a foreign policy notion once regarded as promising, but now mostly neglected. This chapter first goes back to the history of strategic partnerships, exploring how and why they emerged in the post-Cold War era, before looking more deeply into the concept, as a form of “alignment” (different from alliances or coalitions) and “engagement” (such as hedging, containment or balancing). Then, this chapter looks at the rise and fall of EU strategic partnerships, before providing a short assessment of these partnerships based on the various contributions to this volume.

Just as the shift of the American strategic focus to Asia and the Pacific forces strategic autonomy upon Europeans, the financial crisis limits their means. In the age of austerity, dispersed efforts and spending on secondary issues have become unaffordable. Prioritizing and making strategic choices have become more important than ever. As no single European state can face all these challenges alone, a joint European strategy must assess where collective foreign and security policies can bring the most added value to the national effort. Through the European Union, Europeans have attempted as much in the 2003 European Security Strategy, but for lack of prioritization, the EU has so far underperformed. Yet the EU does have access to substantial means and possesses all the necessary instruments to pursue a comprehensive strategy. The key to their effective use is a collective European strategic review, starting from the vital interests that all European states have in common. Two priorities stand out: making a new start in Europe's relations with its southern neighbours after the Arab Awakening, and deciding which responsibilities Europeans will assume as security providers outside their borders after the American pivot' to Asia.

The UK, with France, initiated the European, today Common, Security and Defence Policy (ESDP/CSDP) in 19989. A strong consensus on the need to address capability shortfalls, which the UK accepted to attempt under the EU flag, however masked the lack of consensus about the extent to which the EU would also make policy and launch operations (which would require permanent planning and conduct structures). This debate about the degree of EU autonomy vis-a-vis NATO and the US is one of the reasons why Europeans collectively have no strategic vision on the regions and scenarios for which they should assume responsibility, as the Libyan crisis demonstrated. But also on the capability side, the UK in the end never fully committed, withholding the necessary budget to allow the European Defence Agency to operate as intended and resisting moves towards military integration, such as Permanent Structured Cooperation, in favour of bilateral arrangements such as the 2010 agreement with France. Meanwhile, however, the US came to demand that Europe take charge, autonomously, of crisis management in its own neighbourhood. British policy now seems to have struck a dead end. London has managed to slow down the CSDP. NATO has seen even fewer results in capability development, but when it comes to operations, in the absence of US leadership NATO is equally blocked by the lack of a collective European strategic vision. London, with Paris, remains the only European actor able and willing to engage in crisis management and war, but cannot mobilize many other capitals to join in. Unlike the US, the UK does not have the means to go in alone if necessary. A fundamental revision of policy is needed if the UK wants to maintain its level of influence in security and defence.

La Stratégie européenne de sécurité (SES), adoptée en 2003, est la première vision stratégique commune de l’UE des vingt-cinq, couvrant l’ensemble de la politique étrangère de l’UE, à travers les trois piliers. Contrairement aux prévisions des observateurs les plus critiques, la SES ne fut pas qu’une simple démonstration de l’unité sans impact sur le processus politique actuel. Particulièrement au sein du deuxième pilier, la SES est constamment une référence. Les États membres et les acteurs institutionnels font un bon usage tactique de la SES, en liant les initiatives politiques à cette stratégie de façon à accroître leurs chances de les faire accepter. Jusqu’à un certain point, la politique étrangère est effectivement définie à l’intérieur des limites des grandes orientations exposées dans la SES. On pourrait même dire qu’une culture stratégique est en formation, c’est-à-dire l’habitude de se référer automatiquement au cadre stratégique de la SES au moment de prendre une décision et la volonté de planifier des actions et d’engager les moyens requis pour atteindre les objectifs stratégiques.

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