Regional institutions: State withering or consolidation. the case of the Arab summits

The European Commission has spelled out its policy ambition for EU energy cooperation with the southern neighbourhood with plans for the establishment of an ‘Energy Community’. Its communications make clear that an Energy Community should be based on regulatory convergence with the EU acquis communautaire, much in the same vein as the existing institution carrying the same name; the Energy Community with Southeast Europe. It is puzzling that the Commission insists on repackaging this enlargement concept in a region with very different types of relationships vis-à-vis the EU, especially when considering the lukewarm position of key stakeholders in the field. According to them, any attempt to introduce a political integration model in this highly sensitive issue area in the politically fragmented MENA region might run the risk of hurting the incremental technical integration process that has slowly emerged over the past few years.     

The G8 1/2: the EU's contested and ambiguous actorness in the G8

This article analyses the degree of European Union (EU) actorness within the Group of Eight (G8). Drawing on the work of Jupille and Caporaso, actorness is probed along the criteria of recognition, authority, cohesion and autonomy. We argue that the vague, flexible and informal nature of the G8 has contributed to rather nuanced and ambiguous degrees of actorness. When assessing the above criteria, overall the EU's actorness remains questionable. As for recognition, while the EU is treated as an equal by other G8 delegations, actual membership remains disputed, and third parties such as the media remain reluctant to accept EU representation as equal. Authority in terms of legal competence tends to be of lesser importance in the G8, given the informal nature of this institution. Informally, the Commission has managed to enhance its authority when it can provide substantial expertise. Cohesion has proven perhaps the most limited aspect of EU actorness. Although value cohesion is substantial, there are no formal mechanisms that tie the European participants together. Commission autonomy in the G8 is considerable in terms of its own separate institutional apparatus, as well as formal performance and compliance scores that differ from those of the European G8 members. However, ultimately the Commission's freedom of action usually remains subject to the control of its principals. Yet, EU actorness tends to differ per context as our tentative analysis of the factors conducive to autonomy indicates.     

Can the EU be a serious security actor in Asia?

Following the US “pivot” to Asia, the European Union (EU) announced its own pivot to Asia in 2012 with stepped-up engagement. A flurry of high-level visits to Asia, and in particular, Southeast Asia, by the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy followed. The EU is looking for a much more comprehensive engagement of Asia, but at the same time, within Asia; there is always this nagging doubt as to whether the EU can be a serious security actor in Asia. This short brief surveys the constructive role that the EU can play in Asia and argues that the EU should stop fretting about whether it is seen as a serious security actor in Asia and instead focus on what it can do best and do its best in Asia.     

What Can We Learn from a University that Rewards Faculty Practice?

What conditions, including standards for promotion and tenure, should we be cultivating at universities if we want scholar practitioners (or pracademics) in conflict‐related fields to thrive in academic settings? This article examines the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University as an example of “positive deviance” — a university and an academic program that wholeheartedly support faculty members who engage in extensive practice, including long‐term involvement with peacebuilding processes. Three conditions — location, culture, and the application of peacebuilding strategies within the university — have given rise to and continue to support this system even as the university embraces a commitment to increasing scholarly productivity by faculty members.     

China’s direct investment in the European Union: a new regulatory challenge?

While China is fast becoming an important outward direct investor, its companies are showing an increasing interest to locate in Europe and the European Union (EU). It has been suggested that this can partly be explained by the more lenient attitude of the European countries compared to the US, where some acquisitions were abandoned when they ran into political opposition based on security concerns. Yet, also in Europe, the media follow rather closely each new Chinese entry, and certain politicians have started to criticise the take-over of technology-oriented companies, especially by Chinese state-owned firms. Against the background of a very open foreign direct investment (FDI) policy as measured by OECD FDI Restrictiveness Index for the EU and the individual countries, an overview is given of the pre- and post-establishment obstacles to direct foreign investment. Also, the EU policy measures that directly or indirectly deal with incoming direct investment are discussed. Within the context of the EU competition policy and the merger regulation, the EU Commission has cleared five cases of take-over by Chinese state-owned enterprises. Although the Lisbon Treaty authorises the EU Commission to take charge of investment policy as part of the EU commercial policy, it will take time to realise this. If the announced negotiations about an investment treaty between China and the EU could work out the necessary balance, it would be an important step in achieving more reciprocity between their respective investment regimes.     

The EU in the Eastern Mediterranean—a “Geopolitical” Actor?

Claiming a more realistic and interest-driven approach to foreign policy, European Union (EU) Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has presented her team as a “geopolitical” commission. While the EU exerts a strong influence on its neighborhood when it is able to set incentives, its impact on states or regions is restricted if these incentives are missing. Here, only the combined political and economic clout of the member states can make a difference. The Eastern Mediterranean is a region where both shortcomings coincide: The EU cannot offer membership, and the member states do not speak with one voice. The result is the failure to perform “geopolitical actorness.” This weakness becomes apparent on different levels of conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean: the bilateral, the regional, and the international.     

About Form and Function: An Overview and Typology of UN Reforms Since the 1990s

The article examines UN reform efforts over the last quarter-century, during the tenures of Secretaries-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon. The harvest of innovations introduced into the UN during this period proves to be quite rich, including the creation of new institutions like UNAIDS, UN Women and the International Criminal Court, new intergovernmental bodies like the Human Rights Council and the Peacebuilding Commission, new concepts like the responsibility to protect, new goals like the MDGs and the SDGs, and much more. All this is presented in the form of a typology, in response to the questions what, how & when, who and why. This approach helps analyse, in addition to the many forms that reform may take, the modalities, timing, actors and root causes that lead to it. The article ends with a brief assessment of reform trends in the first months of Antonio Guterres’ tenure as UN Secretary-General and some overall remarks on the past, present and future of UN reform.     

The Paradox of Weakness in European Trade Policy: Contestation and Resilience in CETA and TTIP Negotiations

Over the last decade, trade negotiations with Canada and the United States met with considerable resistance from non-governmental organisations (NGO). Moreover, the negotiation mandates given to the European Commission were so broad as to include topics falling under so-called mixed competence of the EU and the member states, necessitating not only ratification by the EU Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, but also member states’ parliaments. At some point, these two factors almost seemed to paralyze the EU as a trade negotiator. In the end, however, the EU concluded an agreement with Canada, renegotiated its agreement with Mexico (while also concluding agreements with Singapore and Japan amongst others), while negotiations with the US were suspended. Three factors can account for this puzzling combination of apparent incapacity and blockage and surprising resilience of EU trade policymaking. First, the NGO contestation campaigns did not muster pan‐European but rather only varying degrees of support. Second, in addition to scrutiny by the European Parliament, consensus decision-making in the Council fosters accommodation of the demands of all member states. This leads to a low degree of negotiating autonomy on the part of the European Commission, yet large bargaining power for the European Union, as long as the other side wants agreement. Finally, a recent ruling by the Court of the EU facilitated the decoupling of agreements on portfolio investment and investment arbitration (one of the most difficult hurdles), from all other matters of trade and regulatory cooperation, making it easier to reach agreement.     

European integration and lessons for China

This paper compares the European Union and the People’s Republic of China by viewing them primarily as conglomerates of smaller constituents, each with their own political and economic significance in relations with their respective political centres. While this is a perspective that is more easily applied to the EU given that each of its members enjoys sovereignty and also the Union’s rather short history, Chinese area studies have only recently begun viewing China as a sum of its parts. The present study while conscious of the huge differences in the historical development and present realities of both the EU and China, posits that the similarities in the centre-constituent as well inter-constituent relationships developing in both the EU and China allow for important lessons to be drawn. A key focus is the differentiated set of relationships developing between Brussels and the latest entrants to the EU and between the older and newer members of the EU. In China, too, the nature of relationships between the central government and the better-developed coastal provinces is different from those that Beijing has with the central or western provinces, with implications also for the relationships among these different sets of provinces themselves. The tensions and charges of unfair treatment seen in the accessions of the Central and Eastern European nations to the EU, have an echo in the similar complaints that have been coming from the interior provinces of China since the beginning of economic reforms in that country, and perhaps, provide pointers to the future direction of the development of centre-province and inter-provincial relationships in China.     

Peace building and spoilers

As the UN Peacebuilding Commission begins to plan it work, it is important to consider how to deal with ‘spoilers’ as a threat to security: groups that actively seek to hinder or undermine conflict settlement. This paper takes a broad approach to the concept of spoiling and considers a wide range of actors as potential spoilers: not only rebel groups and insurgents, but also diasporas, governments and other entities. The authors demonstrate that imposed or ill-conceived peace processes can sow the seeds of spoiling, but that spoiler violence does not necessarily indicate that a peace process is doomed to failure.     

Change and Continuity in the European Union's Political Conditionality: Aims,Approach, and Priorities

The EU's political conditionality has acquired increasing importance with successive enlargements; this also goes for the period since 2004 compared with that before. The focus here is on change and continuity in conditionality policy with respect to its aims, approach, and priorities. The article presents and applies a three-dimensional analysis concerning the challenge to, the process of, and the management of that policy. Given the need for assessing it in a broad and dynamic context, the discussion revolves around three relationships: between conditionality and post-communist democratization; between conditionality and the enlargement process; and between conditionality and the EU itself in terms of institutional responsibility for enlargement and conditionality matters. This explains how the policy since 2004 has been driven by four factors: more difficult democratization cases from the West Balkans; lessons from the earlier 2004 enlargement involving East–Central Europe; the policy outlook of Commissioner Olli Rehn; and ‘enlargement fatigue’ and stronger pressures from EU actors other than the Commission. As a result, political conditionality has become broader in its scope, much tighter in its procedures, and less easy to control within a less enlargement-friendly environment in the EU and against less certainty about enlargement prospects.     

变化中的欧盟

世界金融危机及其引发的经济衰退、欧洲主权债务危机使欧洲各种固有的矛盾尖锐化、公开化,欧洲一体化进程再次遭受严重冲击。然而,欧洲一体化进程是不可逆转的时代的产物,欧盟依旧是危机前的欧盟,但其内部关系还在发生严重的变化：德国将进一步主导欧盟,法德欧盟＂轴心＂的内涵正在发生变化,英国对欧盟事务的影响力大为下降,欧盟委员会等联盟机构被边缘化,中东欧国家对欧盟的期盼也在减弱。     

The EU and the Gulf monarchies: normative power Europe in search of a strategy for engagement

The Persian Gulf region is of strategic importance to the European Union (EU). Yet, different political realities of authoritarian government in the Gulf challenge crucial parts of EU foreign policy that are based on normative power Europe concepts. Cooperation with the ruling dynasties appears beneficial for EU decision-makers if one looks at the comprehensive agenda of common interests in the Gulf region. In 2004, the EU aimed to build a strategic partnership with the Mediterranean and the Middle East; in this the EU emphasized its commitment to advancing its partnership with the Gulf countries. Yet, from the perspective of 2012 the results are bleak. Despite some signs of improvement in deepening the political, economic and security interactions with the region, there is still no concerted EU policy in the Gulf beyond the thriving bilateral activities of some EU member states. The events of the Arab Spring have increased the challenges even further. The EU, on the one hand, is trying to support forces of liberal and democratic reform in some neighbouring countries. On the other hand, it seeks close partnerships with authoritarian family dynasties in those Gulf countries in which a democratic opening is not around the corner. This article suggests an alternative explanation for this dichotomy. While there is an inherent tension between the EU's reformist agenda and its own interests, whether security or trade interests, this article argues that much of the EU's relationship with the Gulf countries can be explained through a misperception of the specific settings of government in the region. Despite a substantial agenda of interests on both sides in areas such as trade, energy, regional security, terrorism and irregular migration, the EU's foreign policy outputs remain rather limited.     

EU–China relations in financial governance: cooperation,convergence or competition?

The global financial crisis (GFC) and subsequent Eurozone sovereign debt crisis (ESDC) have made reform of the global financial governance regime a priority for governments around the world. Prior to the crisis, neoliberal policies agreed between the European Union and the USA created a financial governance regime based on the principle of free operation of the market through the norms of market self-regulation, equal access to the market, and stability via institutional supervision. How will global financial governance look like after these crises? And what role can the EU and China play in shaping this regime? This article argues that as a result of the GFC and the ESDC, stability is becoming a second principle of global financial governance, along with the free operation of the market. Meanwhile, European and Chinese views regarding the norms, rules, and decision-making procedures designed to implement those principles do not differ as much as they used to. Thanks to interactions at the bilateral and multilateral levels, the EU and China now have knowledge regarding how the other understands the role and characteristics that financial governance should have. This is leading to convergence in some areas and cooperation in others. Concurrently, there are also areas of competition. Analysing all of these is essential to understand how global financial governance might evolve, given the central role that the EU and China now play in this regime.     

A Critical Analysis of the EU Legal Provisions on Terrorism

Terrorism activities within the EU are essentially transnational. Given that counter-terrorism operations and prosecutions have been allocated to different actors in different EU member states, operating within quite differing legal provisions and systems, co-ordination by the EU in this area is to be welcomed. In addition to critically examining the new EU laws in this area, this paper focuses on legal framework for the interaction of police, security services, and judiciary across Europe in this task, to include Europol and Schengen provisions. It also pays particular attention to the divergent positions of the UK and Ireland within this framework.     

Enforcing consensus? The hidden bias in EU democracy promotion in Central and Eastern Europe

Democracy is a primary export norm of the European Union (EU). It has also played a key role in the conditionalities that have governed the accession processes of new member states in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The EU has often been accused of offering little guidance regarding the specifics of desirable democracy models and the means of their consolidation. But are these accusations justified? In the first part of this article a detailed examination of European Commission opinions and reports reveals that it has consistently promoted a specific model of democracy in future member states. It shows a strong bias in favour of Lijphart's model of consensus democracy, which is indiscriminately advocated for prospective member states. The second part of the article draws attention to the serious obstacles which exist in the region to the realization of this model. We question the wisdom of the Commission's one-size-fits-all democratic model given these obstacles and the real-life diversity of political contexts in the region.     

Securitising proliferation, failing security governance: the European Union’s role in India and Pakistan’s nuclear rivalry

In 2003, the European Union declared the threat of weapons of mass destruction ‘potentially the greatest threat to our security’ and increasingly called for the issue of nuclear proliferation to be managed within its preferred multilateral security governance frameworks. In spite of this, and the increased securitisation of proliferation, the EU has fundamentally continued its historical record of failing to engage with India and Pakistan’s nuclear rivalry, and has not been able to move significantly beyond a relationship with South Asia based on trade and aid. This is deeply problematic given the regional instability posed by the Indo-Pakistani enduring rivalry, and the fact that Pakistan is not only an unstable nuclear weapons state, but has been known to harbour international terrorists and nuclear proliferators. Given these conditions, as the EU acknowledges, the stakes of failing to engage could not be higher. A deeper analysis of EU engagement, however, demonstrates that EU security governance is limited, ineffectual, inconsistent and largely perceived as neo-colonial in what is the world’s most likely nuclear flashpoint. If the EU is to be considered a global actor in security governance, a key objective of the Treaty of Lisbon, then this needs to be redressed.     

From “partnership” to “principled pragmatism”: tracing the discursive practices of the High Representatives in the EU’s relations with the Southern Mediterranean

ABSTRACT

The EU’s relations with countries in the Southern Mediterranean have a long history as the region is of great strategic importance for the Union and its member states. The High Representatives of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy have been highly involved in shaping these relations, and this role has been officially strengthened with institutional changes brought about with the Lisbon Treaty. This article analyses the role of the HR/VPs in shaping the EU's foreign and security policy towards the region with an analytical focus on discursive practice. Drawing on insights from practice theory in IR and EU studies, the analysis traces continuity and change in how the Southern Mediterranean is described in the drafting of key strategic documents. The main finding is that EU foreign and security policy towards the Southern Mediterranean shows a high degree of continuity despite several crises and institutional changes, although the discursive practices have evolved. The article ends by highlighting a conundrum that the EU can be said to implicitly acknowledge: if authoritarian states in the Southern Mediterranean are inherently unstable, yet stable enough to quench the democratic aspirations of their people, then what should be the basis for EU actions?     

Transatlantic investor protection as a threat to democracy: the potency and limits of an emotive frame*

Abstract

A campaign by civil society organizations (CSOs) turned a relatively obscure area of international economic law—investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS)—into the focus of opposition to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and later the European Union (EU)–Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). This article analyses how CSOs impacted on the EU’s position, while highlighting the limitations of their influence. Combining insights from constructivist International Political Economy literature with scholarship emphasizing the importance of emotions in advocacy framing, I contend that CSOs were able to create a polysemic ‘injustice frame’. The characterization of transatlantic ISDS as a threat to democracy and the rule of law aroused anger, while being ambiguous enough to garner widespread support. The ambiguity of CSOs’ advocacy frame and the concreteness of its target, however, were also the frame’s Achilles heel. These aspects provided space for the European Commission to reform a specific element of the agreement and thereby repair the latter’s overall legitimacy. The Commission’s counter-frame emphasized the reform’s democratic credentials by representing TTIP as an opportunity to move ISDS towards a system of ‘public law’. While this reframing failed to satisfy most opposition, it placated pivotal actors and allowed the Commission to move forward.     

Populists in government? Hungary's “system of national cooperation”

This article considers Hungary's political system from 2010 to 2014 with Fidesz in power and domestic and international actors’ responses to the challenge of populists-in-government. The article argues that domestic responses were weakened by Fidesz’ use of its supermajority for a partisan redrafting of the country's constitutional order, but also by its mainstream competitors’ failure to offer a contrasting yet positive vision for the electorate. External actors, and the European Union (EU) in particular, may therefore have emerged as the main bulwark against the effects of populists-in-government. However, the EU was relatively ill-equipped to deal with systemic violations of the common values of the Union with respect to its member states, and arguably even the available measures were not used to their full potential. The main explanation for this lies in Fidesz’ origins: rather than starting its life on the fringes of the electoral space, the party had been the major, mainstream centre-right alternative. This position in Hungary's party system had in turn endowed Fidesz with strong transnational links which outlasted the party's own transformation and continued to act to dampen EU action.