In their attempt to explain change in international politics, an emerging group of scholars in the 1990s emphasised the importance of ‘non-material factors’. Questions about the creation, evolution, and impact of norms obtained a prominent place in their theorising. Cast in a constructivist frame, this norm research promised to be a viable alternative to established approaches and while it has indeed broadened the perspective on state behaviour in International Relations, we argue that at the same time it entailed major conceptual and methodological problems which have not yet been spelled out comprehensively. Mainly, the insight that norms are constantly renegotiated in social interaction has been lost in the translation of social-theoretical claims of early constructivism into empirical research agendas. The ensuing research is best characterised as a cultural-determinist framework which is ultimately ill-equipped for the initial proposition of explaining change. We develop this critique by reconstructing the theoretical and methodological decisions of constructivist norm research. We then propose to re-conceptualise the connection between norms and action and suggest an interpretive methodology that allows delivering on the ambitious promise to explain processes of normative change in international politics. We illustrate this claim by reviewing constructivist norm research on ‘humanitarian interventions’ and by outlining a relational-processualist perspective on this issue.

Lost in translation : a critique of constructivist norm research

German foreign policy has come under scrutiny due to its decision to abstain in the vote on UN Security Council Resolution 1973 in March 2011 on the Libyan no fly zone. Germany's decision not to support France, the UK and the USA ensured that no common EU position emerged and NATO's response to the crisis proved difficult. German foreign policy was caught between enlarging its influence and role in crisis management and reserving the right to reject involvement in operations that do not fit with its national interest. Drawing on the work of Robert Gilpin, the article argues that Germany's decision to abstain on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 can be explained by understanding the cost/benefit calculations of the German government, pressured by the protracted Eurozone crisis.

German foreign policy and the Libya crisis

In June 2005, the European Council proposed a ‘period of reflection’ responding to the concerns of its citizens about the future of Europe. It was a necessary reaction to the difficulties encountered in ratifying the Treaty that was to establish a Constitution for Europe. Reflecting and stocktaking have also shaped academic scholarship on the European Union (EU)1 during recent years. What has emerged is an increasing interest in the actual impact of the EU on its member states. Two waves of scholarship on the multi-level governance structures in the EU can be discerned. The first wave of EU studies was geared towards an understanding of the development of common political institutions and policies on the supranational European level. This first stage of European integration theory was dominated by bottom-up thinking and focused mainly on the role played by member states in the evolution of European integration. Only during the 1990s did this focus start to shift. The term ‘Europeanization’ characterizes the second wave of scholarship which reverses this perspective and has looked top-down.2 The established political structures and policies on the European level are now taken for granted, only now are their effects on domestic structures and policies being analysed. This volume contributes to this new research agenda by providing a comparative analysis of the impact of the EU on the policies and politics of immigration control in its member states as well as on its neighbouring states.

The Europeanization of National Policies and Politics of Immigration: Research, Questions and Concepts

The consolidation of immigration and asylum as security concerns on the European Union (EU) legislative agenda has been a recent, but steadfast, phenomenon within European integration. To be sure, the European heads of state and government have repeatedly asserted the added-value of European cooperation in these two fields vis-a-vis third countries even before formal competence was extended to the supranational institutions in 1999. This paper will show that the formation of the external dimension of European asylum and migration cooperation has been in the making since the early 1970s and did not originate as the security problematique as it is now conventionally perceived and articulated. It will be argued that the evolution of European asylum and migration cooperation can be explained as the outcome of converging external and internal pressures for change (fluctuation in migratory flows and policy failures). However, a distinct security discourse emanated from these developments and has been r...

The European Security Agenda and the ‘External Dimension’ of EU Asylum and Migration Cooperation

(Title: Decentralized asylum policy discriminates: A comparision of asylum recognition rates in the federal states of Germany) This article examines whether the asylum recognition rates differ in the German federal states, despite the uniform provisions of the asylum law and jurisdiction by a federal authority. We build on the principle-agent theory of federalism and argue that the decision-makers in the foreign offices of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees are partly guided by the regional environment. A panel analysis on asylum decisions from 2010 to 2015 supports the thesis that the asylum system is influenced by country-specific interests and attitudes. Although our macroanalysis does not allow inferences about individual discrimination to be made, it reinforces the suspicion that asylum seekers have very different chances of being recognized as refugees. Especially the negative influence of xenophobia on the recognition rates is troubling.

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Dezentraler Asylvollzug diskriminiert : Anerkennungsquoten von Flüchtlingen im bundesdeutschen Vergleich, 2010-2015

Since the end of the Cold War and unification, Germany's policy toward and within the European Union (EU) has undergone significant changes. Once a model “Europeanist,” Germany has become increasingly reluctant to support the progressive implementation of key projects of European integration. Neither an instance of a planned strategic change nor a result of an inevitable adaptation to structural shifts at the systemic level, these changes in German foreign policy, incremental yet significant as they are, evade both deterministic and voluntaristic accounts of foreign policy change. Integrating insights from foreign policy analysis, integration theory, and social theory, the article develops an innovative framework for analysis that is applied to Germany's European asylum and refugee policy as well as its security and defense policy. The origins of both policy fields at the European level can be traced back to initiatives that were supported by or even originated in Germany. However, as the 1990s progressed Germany increasingly obstructed further institutionalization. While in the field of asylum and refugee policy the Amsterdam summit marks a clear turning point in Germany's position, the transformation of German policies on European security and defense proceeded rather as an incremental decrease in material support, aggravating substantive progress in the policy field more broadly. An unanticipated consequence of earlier initiatives, in both cases Germany has found it increasingly difficult to live up to the expectations it has helped to raise.

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De-Europeanization by Default? Germany's EU Policy in Defense and Asylum

During the 15 years or so since the end of the Cold War and unification, Germany’s policy towards and within the European Union has undergone significant changes. Once the ‘Musterknabe of Europe’ (Le Gloannec, 1998, p. 21), Germany has become increasingly reluctant in supporting the progressive implementation of key projects of European integration. The most recent example is the refusal of the German government to adhere to a strict interpretation of the Stability and Growth Pact that empowers the Commission to monitor fiscal discipline. Instead of curbing government spending or accepting an infringement procedure, Germany has managed to build a blocking minority that rendered the Stability and Growth Pact ineffective. This has been a dramatic break with its former policy of imposing fiscal discipline on the members of the euro-area. While at first sight this episode may only provide anecdotal evidence for the claim that Germany’s European policy has changed substantially, it is not without precedence: for instance, since the European Council in Amsterdam in June 1997, Germany has repeatedly vetoed the introduction of majority voting to asylum and refugee policy. This has been an equally striking break with its policy of having justice and home affairs communitarized. As regards security and defence policy, Germany’s position has also changed dramatically. Whereas Germany used to be a vanguard of security and defence integration in the early 1990s, it has lagged behind in implementing the commitments agreed at the European Council in Helsinki and has thereby endangered the success of the entire project.

Monika Bösche

Papers

De-Europeanization by Default? Germany's EU Policy in Defense and Asylum

German Foreign Policy in Europe: An Interactionist Framework of Analysis