Transatlantic Institutions: Can Partnership be Engineered?

The transatlantic alliance is widely viewed as being in a state of decline. Conflict over the war in Iraq highlighted a growing divergence between the Bush administration and European Union governments in their attitudes towards multilateralism. The rift severely tested institutions created to manage bilateral EU–US relations in the aftermath of the cold war. This article examines how well this institutional architecture has held up. It scrutinises the limitations of networked governance in transatlantic relations and acknowledges the quandary of trying to manufacture partnership using imperfect institutions. The Brussels–Washington channel is only one among many through which transatlantic relations flow, but we argue that it continues to gain in importance. Despite the limits of institutional engineering, we conclude that the US and the EU remain each other's most important ally.     

TTIP and legislative‒executive relations in EU trade policy

Abstract

This paper analyses Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations in order to assess how the move towards tighter economic integration within the EU?US strategic partnership impacts on legislative?executive relations in EU trade policy. The analysis examines the institutional, substantive and party political dimensions of national parliaments’ scrutiny of the Common Commercial Policy. Based on insights into both domestic and EU channels of parliamentary monitoring of TTIP negotiations, the paper argues that, although the government remains the central object of democratic control, the involvement of national parliaments in transatlantic trade extends to encompass the EU’s own transatlantic and trade policies. This is rooted in the legislatures’ legal capacity to constrain the executive in the negotiation, conclusion and, where applicable, ratification phases of EU trade agreements. It is argued that national parliamentary influence takes the shape of politicisation of the legitimacy of the expected policy outcomes of these agreements.     

Transatlantic Economic Relations in a Changing Global Political Economy: Achieving Togetherness but Missing the Bus?

This article focuses on the changing context for transatlantic relations within the global political economy. The first part of the article identifies key areas of structural change in the GPE and in particular the potentially revolutionary shifts caused by global instability and the emergence of new economic powers. The argument then explores changing patterns of economic relations between the EU and the US, within a general framework of continuity created by the coexistence of competition and convergence. These contextual factors are then related to patterns of Atlanticism and transatlanticism, to questions of values and identities in the GPE and to the possibility of an EU–US 'grand strategy' for the changing GPE. The conclusion argues that although there is perhaps more secure ground for a sustainable EU–US 'compact' than previously, the EU and the US may have 'missed the bus' in terms of jointly shaping the future of the global economy.     

历史演进视角下的欧盟与北约关系走向——兼析拜登当选的影响

自欧盟确立共同安全与防务政策以来,欧盟独立防务与北约之间存在着“相互替代”和“相互增强”两种论调。争论焦点在于价值观念、威胁评估和战略文化、军事和民事能力、国防工业和支出。在过去几年,欧盟与北约的关系也围绕上述四个方面发生变化。具体而言,欧盟与北约之间总体上呈现以合作为主、竞争为辅、两者同步增强的发展态势。美国新任总统拜登承诺修复美国与盟友的关系,包括进一步加强北约。同时,美、欧将在价值观念上回归“旧常态”,在威胁评估和战略文化上进一步靠拢,在民事和军事手段的运用以及增加国防工业投入上也会有更多共识和共同行动。因此,欧盟与北约的关系将进一步呈现相互增强的态势,但前提是欧盟的战略自主建设不只是出于做强自身,而是更多地为了使欧、美双方公平承担相应的责任。     

Margaret Fuller's Rome and the problem of provincial American democracy

ABSTRACT

Margaret Fuller's visit to Italy as a correspondent for the New York Tribune at the time of the 1848 revolutions gave her a unique perspective on them, not only as a feminist intellectual but also as a commentator on the American relationship with revolutionary Europe. In her Tribune writings she addressed issues at once more partisan and more global than those she had covered inside the United States, including the political condition of Italy as a subject state under Austrian imperial control, and as an object of ridicule by many American observers, and the condition of American slavery. Italian peoples and slaves, in her mind, were, like women, oppressed by a transatlantic patriarchy whose prejudices allowed only for white males to enjoy political independence. Fuller called for American support for the Roman republic, but her sympathies did not reflect the thrust of American opinion. Many Americans did not believe Italians were capable of maintaining republican self-government, which was different, they alleged, from their own version, part of the inheritance of the American Revolution. That heritage conferred a unique American revolutionary ‘exceptionalism’. For these Americans, the 1848 revolutions provided evidence that Europe was impulsive, reactionary and flawed; they saw in them confirmation of the superiority of American race relations and democratic society. After her death in 1850, the American Civil War would confirm Fuller's implicit sense that the United States and Europe were more alike than many Americans of her generation believed or realized. Her critique of American attitudes to the prospect for democracy in Italy provides perspective on the ambiguity of American global leadership today.     

US mainland,EU archipelago? Convergence and divergence on transnational organized crime

The fight against organized crime has become a top security priority for the European Union (EU). While a new policy area is emerging, it is difficult to understand who is in lead and how the process develops. This article delves into the post-Lisbon EU security model, exploring how Washington and Brussels collaborate in combating organized crime in a context of changing definitions, actors and policies. It argues that US definitions, operational models and policies influence EU institutional thinking and policies, shifting the emphasis from prevention and rule of law to execution and intelligence. The dynamics of policy convergence and divergence on criminal matters in the transatlantic community reflect tectonic shifts in the deepest levels of thinking security in the West, affecting the moulding of a European security identity.     

The evolution of the European Union’s failed approach to Afghanistan

ABSTRACT

This article provides a genealogical account of European actorness in Afghanistan. It argues that European agreement towards facilitating modernisation and development in Afghanistan was initiated with aid and trade, evolving into humanitarianism in the 1990s, and reconstruction and democratisation in the 2000s. The European Union has had a positive impact on Afghanistan, focusing on humanitarianism, but its multilateral and programme level approach to reconstruction and democratisation has failed to meet the EU’s stated objectives. By promoting the flawed “Bonn Model”, the EU is proportionally culpable for failed international attempts to reconstruct Afghanistan; even though the United States has been the primary international actor. Drawing a series of broader lessons, such as tensions between Atlantic solidarity and European integration, and the limitations of the European crisis management, the article demonstrates how European policy has been shaped by crises inside Afghanistan and the larger geopolitical crises these have generated. These have contemporary importance as history suggests that as the US withdraws its commitment to Afghanistan, the EU will have a very significant role in attempting to fill a humanitarian vacuum.     

NATO's Response Force: finally getting it right?

Abstract

At the Riga Summit in November 2006, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) declared the NATO Response Force (NRF) a fully operational capability. Yet only 8 months later – and behind closed doors – the Alliance's military authorities rescinded the declaration as it became increasingly clear that member states were unwilling to make the necessary commitments to the force. To this day, the force has been a qualified failure: while many allies have benefited from participating in the NRF, lack of concrete troop commitments and disagreement as to the force's operational role have largely eroded its credibility. This could change with the allies' recent adoption of a revised NRF-construct. However, as NATO is still in a state of strategic confusion, the NRF is likely to continue to be different things to different nations.     

Transatlantic Relations Four Years Later: The Elusive Quest for a Strategic Vision

The transatlantic tensions of the Bush years are behind us but the future of transatlantic relations remains uncertain at the closing of the Obama term. Policy alignment has been found on a host of issues but ‘existential’ questions have resurfaced, casting shadows on Western unity and relevance in the coming years. So far the crisis has failed to focus attention on the need for a common vision for the 21st century. Key strategic issues, from the future of the European order to transatlantic engagement in the Middle East, should figure prominently on the next transatlantic agenda, shifting the debate from the notion of a ‘Pacific century’ to how the West can address ongoing power transitions.     

An Obituary for the Third Way: The Financial Crisis and Social Democracy in Europe

Why has the financial crisis not served as an occasion for social democratic revival? It is because, with the ‘Third Way’, European social democracy became imbricated with the financial system in crisis to such an extent that it is in no position to offer an alternative to it. The financial crisis is the crisis of the Third Way. Furthermore, the Third Way was based on the faulty premise that it was possible to replicate USA's apparent success in the 1990s, which, however, was based on very particular conditions. The argument is pursued with reference to inter alia Third Way ideology, transatlantic relations, the political economy of capitalist variety, and the political sociology of mass parties.