EU external policy at the crossroads: The challenge of actorness and effectiveness

Abstract

The goal of this Special Issue is to improve our conceptualisation and empirical understanding of EU actorness and effectiveness in International Relations. While the European Union aspires to play a greater global role, its actorness and effectiveness cannot be taken for granted given the nature of the EU as a multi-level and semi-supranational polity encompassing 28 Member States with diverse foreign policy preferences. The EU is presently at an important crossroad. On the one hand, its external policy stature and capacity have been boosted by institutional innovations and by the Union’s increased involvement in the full spectrum of international issues. On the other hand, a number of factors cast doubt on the EU’s real external policy actorness and effectiveness: slow and often only modest internal reforms, an increasing politicisation of formally ‘low politics’ issues, the prolonged sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone, and a less favourable external environment, with the US shifting its focus to the Asia-Pacific region and emerging powers creating a more polycentric world order. In view of these changes and subsequent developments in the scholarly literature, our aim is to re-evaluate earlier conceptions of EU actorness. Central to this re-evaluation will be a shift in focus from notions of actorness to effectiveness. This introductory article will unpack and further elaborate the issues raised in this abstract by delineating the EU as an international actor in the empirical context, by reviewing the existing conceptual literature, defining and conceptualizing key notions and by providing an overview of the contributions to this Special Issue.

Multiple Principals’ Preferences, Types of Control Mechanisms and Agent’s Discretion in Trade Negotiations

“…Others show how growing capabilities, preferences and entrepreneurship lead to more emancipation of the agent from principals (Niemann and Huigens 2011). Yet others investigate how agents are able to weaken principals' incentives to control (Delreux and Kerremans 2010;Heldt 2017), how national administrations maintain their capacity to control the agent (Adriaensen 2016), and how internal cohesiveness together with the bargaining context shapes the external effectiveness of the EU in trade negotiations (Conceição-Heldt 2014;Elsig 2013;Niemann and Bretherton 2013). This contribution complements the other chapters assembled in this edited volume, for example Niemann and Plank's study of the conditions under which agents are more likely to acquire more discretion vis-à-vis the principals (Plank and Niemann this volume), Helwig's examination of how agent interaction affects the EU High Representative's level of discretion (Helwig this volume) and Kroll's piece on the Council having different mechanisms of control at its disposal to control the European Council (Kroll this volume).…”

Speaking with a single voice: internal cohesiveness and external effectiveness of the EU in global governance

“…Internal cohesiveness does not automatically translate into more external effectiveness (Elsig 2013;Niemann and Bretherton 2013;Smith 2010b;Thomas 2012). Recent studies have shown this to be the case especially in foreign policy.…”

“…More recent conceptualizations from International Relations literature define external effectiveness in terms of actors' 'ability to realize the goals they set for themselves' (Acharya and Johnston 2007: 13). Literature on European integration is now starting to employ the concept of external effectiveness defined as the EU's ability to reach its objectives by influencing other actors (Laatikainen and Smith 2006;Niemann and Bretherton 2013;Van Schaik 2013).…”

“…A low degree of cohesiveness among member states does increase the discretion of the Commission in multilateral trade negotiations (Conceição-Heldt 2011, but this has the negative effect that other trading partners bypass and undermine the Commission's authority by negotiating informally with single member states (Conceição 2010). Cohesiveness can also lead to third party resistance and reduce effectiveness (Carbone 2013;Niemann and Bretherton 2013).…”

“…Recently, however, a second wave of scholarship has actively started to question the causal links between actorness, cohesiveness and effectiveness (Elsig 2013;Falkner and Müller 2014;Gehring et al 2013;Jørgensen et al 2011;Niemann and Bretherton 2013;Oberthur and Rabitz 2013;Thomas 2012). The conjunction of the expansion of external powers brought about by the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (referred to in this contribution for reasons of simplicity as the Lisbon Treaty) and by the accumulation of examples of the EU's seeming ineffectiveness in the international realm prompted this new line of inquiry.…”