The Politics of Normative Power Europe: Norm Entrepreneurs and Contestation in the Making of EU External Human Rights Policy

Abstract

The literature on Normative Power Europe (NPE) largely omits the question of why the EU chooses to focus on particular norms in the first place. This paper goes beyond the assumption that the EU simply externalizes its internal norms, because such a perspective does not sufficiently explain why the EU prioritizes certain norms over others, particularly in the case of contested norms. Using LGBTI rights and Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) in the EU's external human rights policy as two cases, I demonstrate how norm entrepreneursboth external and internalhave been essential for bringing these norms to the EU's attention. Only after initial internal resistances had been overcome, were these norms able to reach the EU's external agenda. The two cases illustrate the internal political struggles that precede norm selection, supporting recent calls for a more politics-oriented perspective on Normative Power Europe.

Norm collisions in European Union sectoral governance during the COVID‐19 pandemic: How the European Commission reconfigures norms in crises

“…Studies have, for example, investigated the diffusion of EU norms to other local sites, both in the direct EU neighbourhood as well as other regional organisations (for an overview, see Björkdahl et al, 2015). Furthermore, the contestation of EU external action norms among member states such as in the areas of human rights and security has been extensively touched upon already (for instance, Elgström, 2017;Jenichen, 2022;Saltnes, 2019).…”

The unwrapping of various understandings of statelessness in Latvian media discourse

“…The paper assumes that some articulations of statelessness can be linked to a specific human rights norm promoted by the European Union acting as a ‘normative power’ (see for example Manners 2002; Keene 2013). The article takes at its a starting point a reflexive approach to Manners’s initial concept, what is sometimes labeled a ‘third wave’ of theorizing about the EU as a normative external actor, where internal and external dynamics are viewed as being interconnected (Jenichen, 2020; Wagner, 2017; Whitman, 2013). The recent normative power literature stresses that the norms the EU promotes are the result of political struggles at various levels including member states’ and non-state actors’ (Wagner, 2017); and that the analysis should target the ‘politics’ of normative power (Jenichen, 2020).…”

“…The article takes at its a starting point a reflexive approach to Manners’s initial concept, what is sometimes labeled a ‘third wave’ of theorizing about the EU as a normative external actor, where internal and external dynamics are viewed as being interconnected (Jenichen, 2020; Wagner, 2017; Whitman, 2013). The recent normative power literature stresses that the norms the EU promotes are the result of political struggles at various levels including member states’ and non-state actors’ (Wagner, 2017); and that the analysis should target the ‘politics’ of normative power (Jenichen, 2020). A more reflexive approach to ‘normative power’ also acknowledges that the promotion of norms externally also contributes to the creation of an internal EU identity (Mudge and Vauchez 2012).…”

Effective Human Rights Promotion and Protection? The EU and its Member States at the UN Human Rights Council

“…The EU has been highly cohesive at the HRC (Smith, 2010(Smith, , 2017, even if this cohesion cannot be taken for granted. Internal struggles for promoted norms may increase due to politicization (Jenichen, 2022). However, this was not perceived as a daily problem in Geneva, even if some signs of disagreements are evident.…”

“…Russia has promoted a conservative agenda and defended so‐called traditional values. There is also increasing politicization of these themes inside the EU (Jenichen, 2022). This makes it more difficult to further these issues effectively.…”