Research Design in European Studies

This chapter explores the nature of EU foreign policy and external relations. Like much of EU foreign policy literature, the analysis springs from the premise that there is something fairly distinctive about the way the EU conducts its external relations. But it departs from much of that literature in eschewing any claim that the EU is in some way more virtuous than other international actors, or that it is motivated mainly by values, principles, or norms, rather than by its own interests. The analysis focuses on the EU's governance mode of foreign policy, namely its tendency to act collectively rather than unilaterally, and to establish and institutionalize stable external governance systems on a wide range of issue areas. The first part of the chapter explains the meaning of governance mode of foreign policy. The second part outlines the evolution of the EU's external role. The third part sets out a number of examples of the EU's governance mode of external relations. The final part raises a number of questions about the impact of the governance mode in international relations.

This chapter provides a critical discussion of the mediatization of policy in general, and of EU foreign and security policy in particular. A common argument in public debate and research is that the media logic is increasingly affecting how policy is formulated. Brommesson and Ekengren are critical of this (as they see it) oversimplified perspective, and they analyse EU foreign and security policy from the opposite point of view in this chapter. Foreign policy is usually described as a conservative policy area, in as much as it is informed by a long-term perspective, and foreign policy is not the subject of public debate to the same extent as other policy areas. Based on this reverse perspective, the authors ask whether policy actors are actually taking advantage of the opportunities provided by mediatization to strengthen long-term policy objectives. The chapter sheds light on the relationship between policy and mediatization through a comparative analysis of two important strategy documents of EU foreign and security policy: the European security strategy of 2003 and the EU global strategy of 2016. The authors discuss the overarching question of whether the formulation of EU foreign and security policy is dominated by media logic, in other words, whether this policy has been mediatized.

Preface 1: The study of EU foreign policy: Between international relations and European studies - Thomas Christiansen and Ben Tonra 2: Theorising the European Union's foreign policy - Knud Erik Jorgensen 3: International Relations or European integration: Is the CFSP sui generis? - Jakob C. Ohrgaard 4: Foreign policy analysis and European foreign policy - Brian White 5: Discourse analysis in the study of European foreign policy - Henrik Larsen 6: Role-identity and the Europeanisation of foreign policy: A political-cultural approach - Lisbeth Aggestam 7: Interests, institutions and identities in the study of european foreign policy - Adrian Hyde-Price 8: Theory and practice of multi-level foreign policy: European Union's policy in the field of arms export controls - Sibylle Bauer and Eric Remacle 9: Justifying EU foreign policy: The logics underpinning EU enlargement - Helen Sjursen and Karen E. Smith

This chapter assesses the compatibility of Turkish and EU foreign policies between 1959 and 2020. Based on the analysis of key international developments and Turkey’s alignment with the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), the chapter identifies four periods that were characterized by different degrees of convergence and divergence. In the period between 1959 and 1998 compatibility was relatively high as Turkish foreign policy was guided by the goal of remaining part of the Western community of states throughout the Cold War and its immediate aftermath. Between 1999 and 2002, Turkish foreign policy became regionally more active, in a similar way to that of the EU, but produced few results. The period between 2003 and 2010, up to the Arab Spring, is identified as the ‘golden age’ of compatibility between Turkish and EU foreign policies. Turkey’s prevailing ethos of this period, i.e., relying on soft power and cooperation with neighbors, was generally in line with the EU’s foreign policy approach. Since 2011, divergences between the EU and Turkey have increased, in particular with regard to Syria, Cyprus, and the Eastern Mediterranean. As Turkey defined its norms and interests differently from the EU, its rate of alignment with the EU’s CFSP decreased remarkably. The chapter concludes by looking to the future, arguing that cooperation between the EU and Turkey is likely to focus on issues where there is strong compatibility in selected areas only, such as pandemics, counterterrorism, migration, and energy, and will be primarily based on ad hoc mechanisms.

This article initially discusses reasons why Freud researchers turn to critical realism since this is what led me to compare causality in the two traditions in the first place. Three arguments on causality follow. First, it is argued that Freud's analyses of unconscious processes merit closer attention by critical realists, focusing on the relation between causal unconscious processes and rationality, and causal unconscious processes and social change. It may be objected that this does not concern the discussion of causality proper, to which I would reply that what we consider to be causally efficacious ultimately is relevant to our conception of causality. The second argument, which is the centrepiece, outlines Freud's conception of causality, his idea of overdetermination (complication of causes) and his treatment of motives and reasons as causes. His notions of causality are compared to those of critical realism. Freud's idea of retroactive causality is discussed in relation to delayed causality in critical realism and the idea of disembedded space-time components. Finally, Freud's concept of determinism and the related concepts of repetition and chance are discussed and compared to ubiquity determinism in critical realism and the distinctions between causal and non-causal correlations and necessary and accidental sequences of events. While the first argument concerns presuppositions for the discussion of causality in psychoanalysis and its relevance for critical realism, the third concerns implications and/or applications of the two views on causality. It is my contention that the second argument needs to be placed in context of the other two in order for the two conceptions of causality to be understood adequately and most revealingly compared.

Can gender equality quality criteria developed for assessing EU internal policies be used unequivocally for evaluating EU external policies? Or might a methodological adaptation be necesary? To engage with this dilemma, the author evaluates the two-dimensional quality model of Krizsan and Lombardo and examines what a reorientation of the model would entail to better allow for the analysis of gender policy implemented outside of Europe. The author argues that to allow for an in-depth analysis of EU gender policy abroad, the model’s procedural criteria ‘empowerment of women’s rights advocates’ and ‘transformation with reference to the prevailing context’ need to be brought centre stage and mainstreamed throughout the research design. The author suggests doing this by explicitly involving the views of gender activists from the national context in the analysis and using their perspectives as a touchstone for the evaluation of quality. To examine the proposed methodological model’s suitability for analysing the quality of gender policies in EU external relations, this operationalization is applied to the case of EU–South African development cooperation. The article concludes that the inclusion of gender advocates’ perspectives is necessary to avoid stereotypical, paternalist and Eurocentric ideas about the meaning of gender equality abroad and allow for a contextually grounded reflexivity on the quality of gender policy. Finally, it is argued that it is the role of feminist research to enhance women’s capacity for self-determination methodologically and to hear the voices of national actors that might otherwise not be heard in EU external relations.

TABLE OF CONTENT Chapter 01: Why is there a Need for New Approaches to EU Foreign Policy? (Ireneusz, Pawel Karolewski/Maciej Wilga) Part I: Internal Perspectives on EU Foreign Policy Chapter 02: The EU's 'External Action' According to the Lisbon Treaty: Institutional Choices and Their Explanations (Finn Laursen) Chapter 03: Approaches to Delegation in EU Foreign Policy: the Case of the Commission (Hylke Dijkstra Chapter 04: The High Representative the European External Action Service: Towards the Institutional Coherence in the Case of the Eastern Partnership (Monika Sus) Chapter 05: Committee Approach to the CFSP/CSDP: Characteristics, Profiles and Working Habits of EU Diplomats (Nicola Chelotti) Chapter 06: The Practice of Diplomacy and EU Security Policy (Mai'a K. Davis Cross) Chapter 07: Parliamentarisation Approach: Parliamentary Control in EU Foreign Policy (Kolja Raube) Part II: Challenges and Choices in External Perspectives on EU Foreign Policy Chapter 08: Normative Power and Military Means: the Case of the EU in FYR Macedonia (T. P. Palm) Chapter 09: A Post-Modern Foreign Policy: Can EU Foreign Policy Make a Difference in World Politics? (Dieter Mahncke) Chapter 10: Solving the Puzzle of EU Eastern Enlargement: Rhetorical Action in Diffuse Decision Contexts (Thomas Mehlhausen) Chapter 11: External Democracy Promotion as a Means of EU Foreign Policy (Irene Hahn-Fuhr) Chapter 12: Turkey and the European Union: Partners in Foreign Policy Cooperation in the South Caucasus (Meltem Muftuler-Bac/Aybars Gorgulu) New Approaches to EU Foreign Policy: Conclusions Chapter 13: EUFP Empirical Complexity, Theoretical Plurality and New Approaches to EU Foreign Policy: Conclusions (Maciej Wilga/Ireneusz Pawel Karolewski)

Principal–agent analyses have been frequently applied by scholars of the European Union (EU). The model helps to explain the reasons, modalities, and consequences of the delegation of authority from one (set of) actor(s)—the principal—to another (set of) actor(s)—the agent. Instances of delegation are omnipresent in the EU: not only is the EU founded upon the delegation of rule-making powers from the member states to the supranational level (European integration), but delegation is also frequently occurring from one actor or institution to another within the political system of the EU (EU decision-making). Assuming that institutions are forums for strategic behavior by rational actors, the principal–agent model has advanced our understanding of European integration and EU politics by zooming in on contractual, dyadic relationships that are characterized by an act of delegation and the controls established to minimize the risks related to delegation. Principal–agent analyses can be used to address two types of questions: first, on why and how the principal delegates authority to the agent (i.e., the “politics of delegation”), and second, on the ensuing game between the principal and the agent when the latter executes the delegated task on behalf of the former (i.e., the “politics of discretion,” or “post-delegation politics”). Principal–agent analyses in the field of EU politics have been conducted using a diverse set of methods and research designs, with large-N quantitative studies on how principals control their agent, over in-depth case studies of the formers’ motives for delegation, to more recent attempts to capture post-delegation politics and the agent’s discretion in a systematic and quantitative way. Under the condition that the principal–agent model is applied carefully and for questions on the politics of delegation and the politics of discretion, it remains a useful tool to understand contemporary EU politics.

This article explores the potential added value of online news media in reporting European Union (EU) politics. Precisely, it examines the extent to which online reporting could generate more prominent, more pluralistic and less ethnocentric coverage of EU politics. The above issue is scrutinised in the Cypriot context. A context where the economic crisis has negatively affected both the working conditions in newsroom and the public opinion on EU. The study is based on a corpus of news reports delivered by online news media that vary regarding their journalistic culture, political identity, organisational structure and volume and degree of establishment. Drawing on a multi-method research design, this article argues that online news media in Cyprus do not make effective use of online medium in favour of more prominent, comprehensive and pluralistic reporting. Instead, they exploit the online potential for decreasing their investment in both personnel and time for the coverage of “not so important” topics as EU politics. The article highlights how journalistic processes of news production and journalism culture in synergy with digitalisation processes contribute to the persistence of narrow coverage and ethnocentric framing of EU news.

ABSTRACTThis paper demonstrates the merits of governmentality as a tool for studying EU external relations. Existing research tends to fall into the trap of reifying the dichotomy between realist and ideational conceptions of EU external action. Governmentality can serve as a hybrid between these two strands of research, incorporating the preoccupancy with power of the former with the ethical considerations of the latter. It can open up our understanding of power operating in and through the EU’s external relations, by looking at the discursive constructions rendering issues governable and the micro-political practices that follow from it. We provide an overview of existing applications of governmentality in EU external relations and construct a framework allowing researchers to use governmentality to its full analytical potential.

ABSTRACTIn this article I enquire into the sources of legitimacy of the European Union's (EU) Common Foreign and Security Policy. I suggest that as the EU has moved beyond intergovernmentalism in this policy field, it cannot derive its legitimacy solely from the national systems of the member states. It must establish an additional channel of legitimacy, which is derived directly from the EU. Challenging the conventional position on the legitimacy of global governance institutions, I further suggest that EU institutions can only make a reasonable claim to prevail over the member states in this policy field if they contribute to enhance the normative status of the foreign policy. That the co-operative endeavour is mutually beneficial is not a sufficient basis for the legitimacy of EU foreign policy. Drawing on a deliberative perspective, I suggest that we may expect to find two mutually reinforcing sources of legitimacy at the EU level. However, these would mainly contribute to enhance the external legitimacy of the CFPS. Paradoxically, they may at the same time constrain the internal legitimacy of the EU's foreign policy.

This article argues that the study of EU foreign and security policy has been hampered by its conceptualization of the sovereign state. Realist and constructivist scholars share Stanley Hoffmann's formulation of states as either ‘obstinate or obsolete’. EU foreign and security policy is puzzling in this respect as it corresponds to neither. Drawing on two examples – the EC's role in the Conference on Security and Co‐operation in Europe (CSCE) in 1973–75 and the contemporary workings of the Political and Security Committee (PSC) – this article suggests that we think of EU foreign and security policy as driven not by the obstinacy or the obsolescence of the nation‐state but rather by its transformation. In line with this claim, the article proposes a social theory of EU foreign and security policy with democracy and bureaucracy as two competing political forms within the framework of the modern state. It is the changing balance between these two political forms that drives forward closer foreign and security co‐operation in Europe.

This chapter outlines how to analyse and explain changes to EU foreign policy. After reviewing various theories of foreign policy change, it argues that how the EU changes its foreign policy after crisis remains under-studied and explains how and why this book intends to complement traditional, cumulative typologies in which each order of policy change is progressively significant. The central premise of this book is that to understand EU foreign policy after crisis, one must understand the decision-making process following those crises in order to grasp what kinds of policy changes – however minor or unsubstantiated – were seen, at what level, their substance, and why this output emerged from the decision-making process. To understand how EU foreign policy changes after crisis, we should consider how institutions and temporal context affected this process. This argument is founded on a theoretical dialogue between historical institutionalism, foreign policy analysis and public policy studies.

The European Union is still emerging as a fully fledged foreign policy actor. The vagaries of this process are clearly visible, yet insufficiently explained in the EU policies towards the post-Soviet space. EU Foreign Policy and Post-Soviet Conflicts examines EU intervention and non-intervention in conflict resolution, with a specific focus on the EU’s role in the post-soviet conflicts in the South Caucasus and Moldova: Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Transnistria. It explains how EU foreign policy affected these conflicts, but more importantly what EU intervention in these conflicts reveal about the EU itself. Based on extensive field research, the author argues that the reluctant EU intervention in post-Soviet conflicts results from a dichotomous relationship between EU institutions and some EU member states. Popescu argues this demonstrates that EU institutions use policies of ‘stealth intervention’ where they seek to play a greater role in the post-Soviet space, but they do so through relatively low-profile, uncontroversial and depoliticised actions in order to avoid visible Russian opposition. Exploring an array of questions related to the EU as a foreign policy actor, this book traces the politics of conflict intervention by EU institutions using original empirical data related to the EU decision making process and will be of interest to students and scholars of European politics, conflict resolution, foreign policy and Post-Soviet politics.

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