Institutionalization, Policy Adaptation and European Foreign Policy Cooperation

TL;DR: The expansion of European Union (EU) foreign policy cooperation since 1970 presents a number of puzzles for theorists of regional integration and International Relations as mentioned in this paper, which is not directed by supranational organizations, does not involve bargaining over policy alternatives, and is not dominated by the largest EU states.

Abstract: The expansion of European Union (EU) foreign policy cooperation since 1970 presents a number of puzzles for theorists of regional integration and International Relations. It is not directed by supranational organizations, does not involve bargaining over policy alternatives, and is not dominated by the largest EU states. Nor do the EU’s common foreign policy decisions reflect ‘lowest common denominator’ preferences. Instead, cooperation has been achieved through decentralized institutional mechanisms, involving processes associated with both intergovernmental and social constructivist theories. This article first explains how changes in institutional context — in terms of intergovernmental, transgovernmental and supranational procedures — affect the propensity for cooperation. It then links processes of institutionalization to an expansion of foreign policy cooperation among EU member states. Finally, it explores three policy areas (the Middle East, South Africa and nuclear non-proliferation) where EU states have adjusted their national foreign policies in line with EU foreign policy norms.

Summary

Rationalism, Constructivism and Institutionalization

• If EU foreign policy cooperation is indeed ‘less than supranational but more than intergovernmental’.
• Thus, national policy positions are not formed in a social vacuum; they are highly contingent on regular (that is, institutionalized) interactions with other states (Sandholtz, 1996).
• The role of institutional mechanisms is intensified in such a setting, since arguments about the means or form of EU foreign policy cooperation are necessarily linked to discussions about the ends or substance of such cooperation.
• Three general propositions illustrate this transition from instrumental rationality based on predetermined national positions to socially constructed rationality based on collective positions.
• Through shared participatory roles, understandings and expectations, a new reference point, even vocabulary, would emerge.

EPC and Intergovernmentalism

• EPC was based on the Luxembourg Report of 1970, a document prepared by the representatives of EU member state foreign ministers.
• Within the context of enlargement’,20 the foreign ministers and their representatives merely created a vague forum for discussions about foreign policy.
• EPC was a compromise between these visions — it was intergovernmental, yet it was located outside the institutions of the EC and thus would not ‘contaminate’ the Community with intergovernmental procedures.
• Nor would it involve security or defense issues.
• This compromise was embedded in a much larger bargain —.

The Transgovernmental EPC Network

• The importance of these structured conversations became more evident when EPC ceased to be dominated by EU heads of government and their foreign ministers.
• As it developed between 1970 and the present, this network involved an increasing number of regular meetings of EU foreign ministers and their political directors (i.e. the Political Committee), a group of European Correspondents to prepare the meetings, and regular meetings among EU diplomats in non-EU capitals and in international organizations and conferences (Jörgensen, 1997; Tonra, 2000).
• 21 From 1973, EPC also enjoyed its own dedicated encrypted telex network, the COREU (correspondance Europeène) system.
• They may develop personal sympathies, and, not to be forgotten, is the fact that a common institutional memory is created.
• The case of EPC shows how such networks can evolve among diplomats in addition to technical experts.

EU Foreign Policy Rules

• Familiarity with another’s point of view may not by itself lead to changes in behavior (Mercer, 1995: 249).
• This is especially effective when states are considered equal partners and all have an opportunity to contribute to the common good; it would be self-defeating for them to push their own national preferences on others.
• The importance of discourse in confining the domaines réserves is reflected in Simon Nuttall’s observation (1992: 12–13) that EPC mainly operated by ‘talking incessantly’: officials simply pestered each other in hundreds of meetings and COREUs until a common view emerged which was understood to be morally if not legally binding upon all.
• Further, each presidency publicly announces its goals for ‘Europe,’ and is thus closely watched by other EU states, which involves reputation, demonstration and socialization effects (Wallace, 1983).
• Later, EPC established its own small secretariat to help administer its regular activities (da Costa Pereira, 1988), and it began to involve other EC organizations (chiefly the Commission) in order to make its decisions more consistent with EC activities.

Aggregate Measures of European Foreign Policy Adaptation

• EU foreign policy is now far more than an informal forum for discussions.
• EU foreign policy has its own unique discourse — coordination reflex, acquis politique, COREU, coutumier, receuil, domaines réserves, and so on.
• Third, EPC also added to its repertoire of policy tools over the years.
• One can also detect a change in emphasis from ‘reactive’ foreign policy actions taken in response to particular events, to more proactive actions (even common strategies) that anticipate problems and devote resources to handling them (Holland, 1991; Schneider and Seybold, 1997).
• You didn’t think about speaking to ‘Europe’, you thought about speaking to French and Germans, and to close allies.

National Adaptation on Substantive EPC/CFSP Issues

• The EPC/CFSP mechanism clearly has produced numerous collective foreign policy actions among EU states.
• The Nordic states are forced to consider problems in the Balkans and the Mediterranean; Spain and Portugal must become more sensitive to Central and Eastern Europe; and all EU states must help forge common positions on countries or regions (such as Africa, the Americas and Asia) far removed from their normal (that is, preEU) foreign policy agendas.
• As Trevor Salmon (1982: 217) has written of Ireland: Community and EPC involvement have transformed Irish foreign policy.
• Non-uniform votes among EU states also may reflect tactical differences rather than basic disagreements over policy (Nuttall, 1992: 28).
• The cases also represent different types of challenges for EU foreign policy — cooperation on principled issues like human rights (South Africa), finding a common position on a major regional conflict (Middle East) and cooperation on a sensitive security-related matter (non-proliferation).

Palestine and the Euro–Arab Dialogue

• European attention to the Arab–Israeli conflict is one of the longest-running EU foreign policy initiatives, dating back to the first meetings of EPC in 1970 (Allen, 1978; Edwards, 1984).
• Germany suggested doing so at a regular meeting of EU heads of government in Rome but was quickly rebuffed.
• The establishment of EPC quickly changed the situation and provided a stable forum for interested EU states, particularly France, to argue their views on this topic.
• Namely pro-Arab ones (such as France) and pro-Israeli ones (such as Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK), EPC approved a joint paper on these issues on 13 May 1971 (Nuttall, 1992: 68).
• Moreover, the first Irish EU presidency, which occurred in 1975 during the first (and very difficult) sessions of the Euro–Arab Dialogue, was surprisingly active and effective in the Middle East.

South Africa and the Anti-Apartheid Campaign

• The EU’s anti-apartheid campaign in South Africa also dates back to the 1970s and also involved fundamental disagreements among EU member states over the more general question of human rights.
• They also managed to back up these positions with concrete EPC/CFSP policy actions.
• The EU’s actions against apartheid provide a prominent example of this behavior.
• Here the Dutch were joined by the other ‘moralists’ mentioned earlier, plus Spain after it joined the EU in 1986.44.
• The Dutch were partly responsible for EPC’s first concrete act against apartheid, the 1977 ‘Code of Conduct for Community Companies with Interests in South Africa’, which established numerous protections for the black workers of those firms.

Nuclear Non-Proliferation

• The EU’s participation in the NPT talks over the years was seriously complicated by the possession of nuclear weapons by the UK and France, Germany’s general sensitivity to such weapons and the attitudes of neutral states in the EU.
• Sweden expected to remain non-aligned on the issue of renewing the NPT; however, upon joining the EU the Swedes not only stopped criticizing the NPT (as it had several times before), they fully participated in the highly successful CFSP joint action involving the NPT renewal conference.
• They cannot explain why the positions of Western European states converge — (1) in the EU setting (as opposed to other possible forums); and (2) in terms of specific behavioral obligations involving goals, financing, implementation, etc.
• For all EU members, foreign policy cooperation requires a redefinition of previously isolated issues (functional or geographic) in regional, European-centered terms, combining both economic (EC) and political (EPC/CFSP) questions.

Conclusion

• Explanations of international cooperation based on instrumental rationality, although highly insightful, cannot explain all sources and consequences of cooperation.
• I argued that interests (and the foreign policies representative of those interests) are also contingent on social interaction and discursive practices, so that states may find cooperative solutions even without hegemonic leadership or quid pro quo negotiations.
• The EU may already have reached the limits of a consensus-driven approach to the CFSP, particularly in light of its pursuit of defense or military cooperation.
• 49 National foreign policy rests in part on shared values and norms among individuals, preserved and developed by collective historical experiences and state institutions, but transferring some of these responsibilities to the EU has taken time due to the lack of a central authority powerful enough to assert its interests over those of national states.
• Instead, and for the moment, this identity will have to come from within the EU itself, whereby elite officials attempt to ‘create a collective memory based on shared myths’ (Smith, 1992) in the manner of European state-building.

Figures

Table 1 Establishment of major EPC/CFSP policy instruments

Full text

Institutionalization, Policy Adaptation and
European Foreign Policy Cooperation
MICHAEL E. SMITH
Georgia State University
The expansion of European Union (EU) foreign policy cooperation
since 1970 presents a number of puzzles for theorists of regional
integration and International Relations. It is not directed by suprana-
tional organizations, does not involve bargaining over policy alter-
natives, and is not dominated by the largest EU states. Nor do the EU’s
common foreign policy decisions reflect ‘lowest common denominator’
preferences. Instead, cooperation has been achieved through decen-
tralized institutional mechanisms, involving processes associated with
both intergovernmental and social constructivist theories. This article
first explains how changes in institutional context — in terms of
intergovernmental, transgovernmental and supranational procedures —
affect the propensity for cooperation. It then links processes of
institutionalization to an expansion of foreign policy cooperation
among EU member states. Finally, it explores three policy areas (the
Middle East, South Africa and nuclear non-proliferation) where EU
states have adjusted their national foreign policies in line with EU
foreign policy norms.
K
EY
W
ORDS
♦ Common Foreign and Security Policy ♦ European
Union foreign policy ♦ European Political Cooperation ♦ institu-
tionalization ♦ international cooperation
The Maastricht Treaty on European Union clearly marks a new era in the
theory and practice of European integration. Much of the scholarly
attention in this area focuses on the European Union’s (EU) socioeconomic
policy domains, primarily in terms of developing the single European market
(Stone Sweet and Sandholtz, 1998).
1
This achievement, however, tends to
overshadow an increasingly prominent area of European integration — the
pursuit of a common foreign policy. Foreign policy cooperation has been
European Journal of International Relations Copyright © 2004
SAGE Publications and ECPR-European Consortium for Political Research, Vol. 10(1): 95–136
DOI: 10.1177/1354066104040570]

discussed in the EU since the 1950s, and led to European Political
Cooperation (EPC) in 1970 and its transition to the Common Foreign and
Security Policy (CFSP) 20 years later. Although skeptics can cite a variety of
cases where the EU was unable to speak with a single voice in world affairs
(Gordon, 1997–8; Zielonka, 1998; Hoffman, 2000), the development of
EPC/CFSP has in fact resulted in a significant level of foreign policy
coordination among EU states since 1970 (for a recent extensive survey, see
Ginsberg, 2001). The EU’s achievement in this domain is even more unique
when compared to the feeble attempts at instituting political dialogue in
other regional organizations.
2
European foreign policy cooperation also involves unique processes in
terms of institutional development and decision-making that can shed light
on fundamental debates concerning European integration and International
Relations (IR) theory. For theorists of European integration, the debate
involves the effects of intergovernmental and supranational procedures on
cooperation; for IR theorists, the debate involves the explanatory power of
rationalist versus constructivist assumptions about how states define and
pursue their national interests or preferences (Wendt, 1987; Dessler, 1989).
3
Indeed, many scholars look to the EU as the prime example of how
supposedly egoistic states can learn to create a sense of common purpose,
whether as a ‘multi-perspectival polity’ or as a system of ‘epistemic
communities’ covering numerous issues (Ruggie, 1993; Wendt, 1994;
Mercer, 1995).
Arguments about the limits of rational choice approaches to European
integration have thus prompted a number of investigations into decision-
making in many EU policy domains.
4
However, the constructivist literature
also neglects to explain how collective goals are made to persist over time
and thus influence future behavior — the processes and consequences of
institutionalization (Florini, 1996; Katzenstein, 1996; Checkel, 1998). In
this article, I use the example of EU foreign policy cooperation to show how
rationalist and constructivist approaches to institutionalized cooperation
actually complement each other. First, EU foreign policy represents a ‘least
likely’ case not only in EU affairs but in international relations more
generally. States are usually expected to defend their sovereignty and
autonomy in foreign affairs with great vigor; evidence of both institutional
development and policy adaptation concerning this sensitive domain might
support the notion of socially driven cooperation. Second, foreign policy
adaptation cannot be explained in terms of domestic demands, as some
versions of rationalism (such as liberal intergovernmentalism; see Moravcsik,
1993, 1998) assume. Although there clearly has been a growth in public
support for the general idea of EU foreign policy,
5
issue-specific lobbying in
this area (at the national or EU levels) is virtually non-existent compared to
European Journal of International Relations 10(1)
96

that which takes place in Community affairs, where transnational actors
regularly participate in the rule-making process. Instead, those in charge of
EU foreign policy have a fairly high degree of ‘agency slack’ compared to
other EU policy domains, which should help facilitate the creation of shared
understandings and policy goals.
Third, changes in the foreign policies of EU member states cannot be
adequately explained in terms of ‘functional spillover’ as occurs in other EU
socioeconomic policy areas, typically as a result of the growth in cross-
border economic transactions.
6
Although the EU has increasingly used
economic tools for foreign policy ends, there are few if any direct economic
benefits to EU foreign policy; in fact, growing ambitions in this area have
the potential to seriously disrupt the economic activities of the EC. In
addition, no other regional economic organization has such overt preten-
sions of creating a common foreign (and security) policy, thus economic
interdependence alone, a prerequisite for functional spillover, cannot explain
the EU’s unique pursuit of this goal. Fourth, nor can changes in this area be
explained primarily in terms of ‘political spillover’ processes, which involve
the activities of supranational EC organizations. Although these organiza-
tions (chiefly the Commission) have been increasingly involved in foreign
policy, they clearly do not exert the same decisive influence over policy
outcomes and institutional development as in the EC’s socioeconomic policy
domains.
Moreover, although unanimity governs EU foreign policy decisions,
7
policy outcomes have not always reflected ‘lowest common denominator’
positions, as studies of EU intergovernmental decision-making under
unanimity often assume.
8
Without some form of qualified majority voting
(QMV), goes the argument, the EU’s common position must conform to
the preference of the member state(s) favoring the status quo, or the lowest
degree of policy change. On any given foreign policy issue discussed in the
EU, often at least one EU state is tempted to use its veto to prevent a
discussion from moving to a concrete foreign policy action. Yet this has not
always been the case; in EU foreign policy, the preference-outliers often
adapt their positions in favor of the common one rather than veto such
decisions.
9
Although vetoes have occurred, there has been far more
cooperation under this system than we might otherwise expect given its
intergovernmental, unanimous procedures. In addition, given the self-
contained nature of EPC/CFSP, which prohibits issue-linkages with EC
affairs, and the taboo against voting in EPC/CFSP, EU states are able to
avoid permanent cleavages and power blocs. Even the celebrated Franco-
German relationship has not dominated EU foreign policy.
10
Outside
influences, particularly US policies, have also been cited as a general
motivation for EU foreign policy cooperation (Nuttall, 1992) and it is clear
Smith: European Foreign Policy Cooperation
97

that EPC/CFSP provides an outlet for the EU to express differences with
America. However, the argument about US influence must be substantially
qualified: although America has consistently called for greater defense
burden-sharing in Europe, its attitude toward EPC/CFSP initiatives has
varied from outright opposition to indifference to support (sometimes
within the same presidential administration), and many US policies have the
potential to divide as well as unite Europe (Pardalis, 1987; Peterson, 1996).
Thus we cannot explain the pursuit of EPC/CFSP only or even primarily in
terms of American pressures. Finally, the level of cooperation under these
rules is even more remarkable when one considers that other cooperation-
inducing incentives, such as side-payments or issue-linkages, are actually
discouraged in the making of EU foreign policy. Consensus-building is the
general rule, and EU member states are not allowed to purchase agreement
through bargaining. Thus, the puzzle here can be restated in this way —
how does the EU, alone among regional organizations, manage to
cooperate in this sensitive policy area in the absence of political activism by
domestic actors or NGOs, sustained leadership by the most powerful EU
member states, consistent pressure from non-EU member states (chiefly the
US), functional spillover from other EU policies, political spillover from EC
organizations, supranational voting procedures like QMV and quid pro quo
bargains between EU member states?
The rest of the article is organized as follows. In the first section, I explain
how the expansion of European foreign policy cooperation involves aspects
of both rationalist and constructivist theories. EU foreign policy cooperation
was created by an intergovernmental bargain among EU states concerned
about their own foreign policy interests, yet over time national policy experts
and, to a much lesser extent, supranational EC actors began to play a far
greater role in the process. As institutions provide the crucial link between
these logics of interest-formation (rationalist and constructivist) and styles of
decision-making (intergovernmental, transgovernmental and supranational),
in the second section I examine institutional development more closely,
focusing on how the EU foreign policy system, largely through socialization
processes, produced its own rules to fill in the gaps left by the original
intergovernmental bargain. The third and fourth sections present the
empirical data of EU member state policy changes, using a combination of
elite interviews
11
and evidence from the growing literature on EU foreign
policy. The third section focuses on the cumulative output of EU foreign
policy (i.e. the expansion of collective actions); the fourth section provides
three illustrations of specific areas where certain EU states reluctantly
adapted their individual foreign policies in light of common goals despite the
presence of rules allowing them to veto those policies.
European Journal of International Relations 10(1)
98

Rationalism, Constructivism and Institutionalization
If EU foreign policy cooperation is indeed ‘less than supranational but more
than intergovernmental’ (Wessels, 1982: 15; Øhrgaard, 1997) then how
does it function and, more importantly, to what extent does it actually
influence the foreign policies of EU member states? I argue that although
EU foreign policy was established along strict intergovernmental lines on the
basis of a grand bargain, it has become far more institutionalized (i.e. rule-
governed) than its architects had intended or even expected. Although
institutional causes and effects can vary in many ways, the rules of EU
foreign policy in particular are more complex and varied than the simple
QMV–unanimity dichotomy often stressed by those engaged in the
supranational–intergovernmental debate. Moreover, this ongoing process of
institutionalization, in turn, has had an almost insidious impact on the way
EU states define and pursue their foreign policies.
This is not to say that EU states behave irrationally; on the contrary, they
are quite rational in their pursuit of institutionalized cooperation to achieve
joint gains. Indeed, the general path of institutionalization in this domain
can be explained as a rational way for EU states to intensify their cooperation
without delegating more authority to EC organizations (the supranational
solution) or to the most powerful EU member states (the intergovernmental
solution). What has changed is the way the goals of the EU as a collective
have become part of the interest calculations of EU member states thanks to
the unique institutional trajectory of EPC/CFSP. Rather than behave in
terms of the narrowly defined instrumental rationality favored by realists
(where policy positions stem from concerns about power and survival under
anarchy) and liberal intergovernmentalists (where policy positions stem from
the domestic concerns of EU heads of government), EU states have
increasingly learned to define many, though certainly not all, of their foreign
policy positions in terms of collectively determined values and goals. They
then act on these collective positions in the form of common foreign policy
statements and joint actions, and increasingly delegate these policies to EC
organizations.
These changes can be conceived along a continuum, with egoistic
instrumental rationality on one end and social rationality on the other.
12
As
March and Olsen (1989) put it, at one end a logic of consequences
dominates; at the other a logic of appropriateness takes precedence. The key
point here is that certain types of institutional mechanisms can help states
move from one end of the continuum to the other, which then influences
their propensity for cooperation (Allen and Wallace, 1982). In the case of
EU foreign policy, the chief reason for this crucial change is that its
institutional mechanisms have both pre-empted the formation of fixed
Smith: European Foreign Policy Cooperation
99

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What are the contributions in "Institutionalization, policy adaptation and european foreign policy cooperation" ?

This article first explains how changes in institutional context — in terms of intergovernmental, transgovernmental and supranational procedures — affect the propensity for cooperation. 

Q2. What have the authors stated for future works in "Institutionalization, policy adaptation and european foreign policy cooperation" ?

Here there is the possibility of a true constructivist interpretation, by which EU states reconstitute themselves in line with common values and create a new collective identity in the process. There is also no prominent external threat to act as a catalyst, and to the extent that EU member state governments cling to archaic notions of national sovereignty, this identity will be difficult to develop. Instead, and for the moment, this identity will have to come from within the EU itself, whereby elite officials attempt to ‘ create a collective memory based on shared myths ’ ( Smith, 1992 ) in the manner of European state-building. 

Q3. What is the key to the transition from instrumental rationality?

When states hold conflicting policy views, instrumental rationality expects that cooperative agreements are most easily reached through specific bargains, often in the form of side-payments or issue-linkages. 

Q4. What are the main reasons for the grand bargains?

Of course, grand bargains have often taken place during major ‘constitutional moments’ of the EU (such as during intergovernmental conferences) where institutional reform is often a major item on the agenda. 

Q5. What is the striking fact of EPC?

As one analyst put it, the most ‘striking fact’ of EPC is that,despite differences of nuance in the attitudes of the member states, the principle and procedures of EPC are now widely accepted. 

Q6. What can be the reason why the EU’s preference-outliers converge?

Although exogenous events (such as crises or policy failures) can stimulate a reconsideration of positions, they cannot explain why the positions of Western European states converge — (1) in the EU setting (as opposed to other possible forums); and (2) in terms of specific behavioralobligations involving goals, financing, implementation, etc. 

Q7. What does the author mean by ‘the burden of having to have an opinion on matters in which?

Lobbying by non-members also imposes on EU states ‘the burden of having to have an opinion on matters in which (they) previously had not the slightest interest’ (Lorenz, 1983: 160). 

Q8. What is the view of densely institutionalized social settings?

In this view, densely institutionalized social settings condition actors to rely on shared values, ideas or knowledge in making their decisions.