European diplomatic practices: contemporary challenges and innovative approaches

Bicchi, Federica; Bremberg, Niklas

doi:10.1080/09662839.2016.1237941

“…Some resort to extensive high-profile interviews (Adler-Nissen and Pouliot, 2014;Hardt, 2014;Pouliot, 2010); others study practices by actively being part of the institutions (Neumann, 2016;Schia, 2013), even resorting to participant observation and ethnographic inquiry (Bueger, 2014;Bueger and Gadinger, 2018). Similarly, those who aim to objectively capture the practitioners' meaning in their actual doings of international politics retain a neutral language of observation (Bicchi and Bremberg, 2016). Further, in keeping with the criticism that practice theory privileges stability over change, research on practices is divided between those who expect habits to be markers of stability versus practices conceived as fragile and uncertain in the social order (Bueger and Gadinger, 2015: 510;Hopf, 2010: 543).…”

Section: Practice Theorizing Critics and Polarizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A pragmatic methodology for studying international practices

Sundaram

¹

,

Thakur

²

2019

Journal of International Political Theory

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Practice turn marks an important advancement in International Relations theorizing. In challenging abstract meta-theoretical debates, practice theorizing in International Relations aims to get close to the lifeworld(s) of the actual practitioners of politics. Scholars from different positions such as constructivism, critical theory, and post-structuralism have critically interrogated the analytical framework of practices in international politics. Building upon these works, we are concerned with a question of how to examine the context of international practices that unfolds in multiple ways in practitioners’ performances. Our central thesis is that a distinct pragmatic methodology offers an opportunity to keep with the practice turn and avoid the problematic foundational moves of mainstream practice theorizing. This involves foregrounding three interrelated processes in examining practices: the role of exceptions in the normal stream of performances, normative uptake of the analysts, and the semantic field that actors navigate in political performances. We argue that this methodology is predicated on its usefulness to interpret practices through reflective social-science inquiry.

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“…Nationally-inspired ways of doing things (still) constitute good extent of the practical/normative 'fabric' of the CFSP/CSDP. Put in different terms, consequentialist practices are (still) the anchoring practices in CFSP/CSDP negotiations (Bicchi and Bremberg 2016), as they provide the space around which other practices develop. The rest of the section specifies two consequentialist practices, and then discusses why changing (consequentialist) practices is a difficult process.…”

Section: The Resilience Of Consequentialist Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is no shortage of definitions of practices. The conceptual debate around them has concerned also the epistemological and ontological commitments of a practice approach (Bicchi and Bremberg 2016). Practices are here understood in a broad sense, and, in line with Adler's and Pouliot's (2011: 4) definition, they are seen as 'socially meaningful patterns of action', which 'simultaneously embody, act out, and possibly reify background knowledge and discourse in and on the material world'.…”

Section: Promoting the National Interestmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transgovernmental networks and rationalist outputs? The partial social construction of EU foreign policy

Chelotti¹

2018

European Diplomacy in Practice

0

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EU foreign policy has gone beyond intergovernmentalism. It is largely formulated by (Brusselsbased) national officials, in a process characterised by a high number of cooperative practices, diffuse sentiments of group loyalty and possibly argumentative procedures. Yet, in many cases, the most likely output of this process reflects the lowest common denominator of states' positions or the preferences of the biggest states. The article intends to investigate this puzzle. In the first part, it corroborates its existence by using answers from an original database of 138 questionnaires and 37 interviews with EU negotiators. Next, it argues that cooperative practices remain often subordinated to nationally-oriented ways of doing things. Consequentialist practices perform an anchoring function, in that they define the parameters around which (social) practices operate. The last section looks more closely at the sites of and meanings attached to EU foreign policy-making. By discussing national diplomats' conspicuous leeway in Brussels, it also argues that negotiating practices are performed through a mix of partial agency and persistence of national dispositions. On a whole, changing practices is difficult, even in dense and largely autonomous settings such as EU foreign policy. The social construction of EU foreign policy occurs only to a partial extent. There is wide consensus that the foreign policy of the European Union (EU) has moved beyond intergovernmentalism. Although cooperation in foreign policy remains firmly in the hands of the member states, primarily gathered in the Council of the EU (hereafter: Council), the interactions between national representatives are hardly characterised by bitter disputes among ministers, zero-sum negotiations and detailed cost-benefit analyses of every diplomatic move. This consensus is built on very solid grounds. The literature has convincingly revealed that EU foreign policy is, to a large extent, formulated by groups of officials who, being mostly based in Brussels and sharing a set of common practices, engage autonomously (from the cabinets) in policy making. These dynamics produce a culture of consensus, which instils EU foreign policy with cooperative solutions and (possibly) collectively legitimised policies (e.g.

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“…The conceptual debate around them has concerned also the epistemological and ontological commitments of a practice approach (Bicchi and Bremberg 2016). Practices are here understood in a broad sense, and, in line with Adler's and Pouliot's (2011: 4) definition, they are seen as 'socially meaningful patterns of action', which 'simultaneously embody, act out, and possibly reify background knowledge and discourse in and on the material world'.…”

Section: Promoting the National Interestmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Interest-and powerbased relationships are accepted and regularly performed by national diplomats in the Council. Consequentialist practices perform an anchoring function, in that they define the parameters around which other (e.g., social) practices operate (Bicchi and Bremberg 2016).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Transgovernmental networks and rationalist outputs? The partial social construction of EU foreign policy

Chelotti

¹

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

EU foreign policy has gone beyond intergovernmentalism. It is largely formulated by (Brusselsbased) national officials, in a process characterised by a high number of cooperative practices, diffuse sentiments of group loyalty and possibly argumentative procedures. Yet, in many cases, the most likely output of this process reflects the lowest common denominator of states' positions or the preferences of the biggest states. The article intends to investigate this puzzle. In the first part, it corroborates its existence by using answers from an original database of 138 questionnaires and 37 interviews with EU negotiators. Next, it argues that cooperative practices remain often subordinated to nationally-oriented ways of doing things. Consequentialist practices perform an anchoring function, in that they define the parameters around which (social) practices operate. The last section looks more closely at the sites of and meanings attached to EU foreign policy-making. By discussing national diplomats' conspicuous leeway in Brussels, it also argues that negotiating practices are performed through a mix of partial agency and persistence of national dispositions. On a whole, changing practices is difficult, even in dense and largely autonomous settings such as EU foreign policy. The social construction of EU foreign policy occurs only to a partial extent.

show abstract

European diplomatic practices: contemporary challenges and innovative approaches

Cited by 56 publications

References 66 publications

A pragmatic methodology for studying international practices

A pragmatic methodology for studying international practices

Transgovernmental networks and rationalist outputs? The partial social construction of EU foreign policy

Transgovernmental networks and rationalist outputs? The partial social construction of EU foreign policy

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