Missing in action? EU crisis management and the link to the domestic political debate

Abstract

One of the key themes in recent discussions about the EU’s foreign and security policy has been the question of Europeanization. This article seeks to contribute to this field of research by investigating the way in which a single EU military crisis management operation, the EUFOR Chad/CAR, has been perceived and debated on a national parliamentary arena in two member states, Sweden and Finland. The results suggest that a marked discontinuity prevailed between these nations’ policies in the context of the CSDP/ESDP and the discourse on CSDP/ESDP in the respective parliaments. While highlighting the need to pay more attention to the domestic dimension of Europeanization, these findings also call into question some of the basic premises of the discussion on Europeanization.

Parliament as an arena for politicisation: The Finnish Eduskunta and crisis management operations

“…Particularly important are the plenary debates, where MPs are not afraid to challenge the government or to voice their dissent publicly. At the same time, we must not exaggerate the influence of the Eduskunta, with particularly decision-making on individual operations very much in the hands of the government (see also Koivula and Sipilä, 2011). The Eduskunta has at no point vetoed or tried to veto participation, but it is nonetheless clear that the legislature constrains the executive.…”

Refusing to be Sidelined: The Engagement of the FinnishEduskuntain Foreign Affairs

“…This is quite understandable in light of Finland's geopolitical location and modern history. For example, debates on crisis management, particularly those held in the plenary, have often focused on the effects the operations will have on either the defence forces or on Finland's ‘non‐aligned’ status, and not so much on the actual operations (Koivula & Sipilä ), and the same applied to the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty. Regarding policy‐making culture, the approach is very consensual, both in the plenary and in FAC, but the meetings of the latter nonetheless feature quite active discussions that also see coalition partners keeping tabs on each other.…”

“…FAC also receives various ex post reports from the government on the operations, for example through the biannual crisis management overviews. The debates have nonetheless become less intense in recent years, and nowadays there is broad cross‐party support in the Eduskunta for stronger international engagement in crisis management and for EU‐led operations in particular (Tiilikainen ; Koivula & Sipilä ; Häkkinen ).…”

What happens when a new government enters office? A comparison of ideological change in British and Swedish foreign policy 1991–2011

“…Some research has focused on the difficulties of changing because foreign policies are believed to be influenced by deep structures (such as discourses that are not so easily changed), to which governments of different ideologies have to relate (Campbell, 1998;Doty, 1996;Larsen, 1997;Zannakis, 2009). However, according to another strand of research looking at domestic factors that may explain foreign policy change, various compositions of coalition governments (Kaarbo, 1996(Kaarbo, : 509, 519, 2012, the role of national parliaments (Kesgin and Kaarbo, 2010;Koivula and Sipilä, 2011) and changes of political regimes (Hagan, 1989;Holsti, 1982;Moon, 1985) are believed to alleviate change in a nation's foreign relations. One example of this is earlier studies by Juliet Kaarbo (1996Kaarbo ( , 2012 on coalition governments, where junior coalition parties were found to be able to change a nation's foreign policy if they were very determined and united.…”