... This report has been compiled on the basis of the consortium's work ... more ... This report has been compiled on the basis of the consortium's work over the last three years. We are especially grateful to Alexander Salhi and S??nke Ehret of the JMC Berlin team, without whose support and ideas this report could not have been written. While this report ...
This article uses a principal-agent framework of analysis to discuss the European External Action... more This article uses a principal-agent framework of analysis to discuss the European External Action Service’s (EEAS) institutional design and policy mandates. Can the EEAS act autonomously with regard to the Commission and Member States? Are there policy areas in which the EEAS has greater decision-making autonomy than others? These discussions are central to understanding the post-Lisbon Treaty EU’s external policymaking system and its potential strengths as an international actor.
The 2009 Lisbon Treaty sought to enhance the coherence of EU foreign policies by improving the co... more The 2009 Lisbon Treaty sought to enhance the coherence of EU foreign policies by improving the conditions for collective action in the EU-level foreign relations system, including its interaction with member states. Several innovations aimed to facilitate collective action: the establishment of the European External Action Service, bringing EU institutions and member state officials together, is the most important. Policy-level innovations, in turn, have included a string of ‘comprehensive’, ‘joined-up’, and ‘whole-of-government’ approaches that have explicitly focussed on linking the various instruments in the EU’s tool box. Have these reforms led to improved policy coherence? We focus on a key domain that illustrates Europe’s engagement with the changing global context: the nexus of security and development policy. Drawing on post-Lisbon Treaty policy documents and interviews with officials from the EU foreign relations bureaucracy, we argue that collective action at the EU-level has improved somewhat since 2010. This has been accompanied by some improvements in the coherence of security and development policy. Nevertheless, decisionmaking is still affected by bureaucratic actors catering to specific constituencies and, accordingly, the coherence of security and development policies remains challenged. The EU institutions lack the strategic direction that would be provided by clear prioritisation of global policy objectives, but this is not possible in a system that lacks clear hierarchy. Without combining strategic direction with effective changes in the foreign relations apparatus, reforms aimed at improving collective action can only make a marginal impact on policy coherence.
The European Union's ambitious Mediterranean policy has the declared goal of bringing about e... more The European Union's ambitious Mediterranean policy has the declared goal of bringing about economic and political transformation by explicitly linking reform with rewards. Drawing on mechanism design theory, we argue that the EU's Mediterranean policy has the potential to reveal infor- mation about the respective partner countries' reform 'types'. However, the current incentive structure of the EU's Mediterranean policy does
This article asks to what extent the European Union (EU) and its
member states actually pursued a... more This article asks to what extent the European Union (EU) and its member states actually pursued and implemented comprehensive approaches in relation to crisis management in Africa. It also asks what can explain the lack of full implementation of the comprehensive approach in the cases of South Sudan, Mali and the Central African Republic. It is shown that EU member states saw the added value of the common EU approach while at the same time they pursued national interests at odds with the common goals of the EU. The flaws in implementation of the comprehensive approach are mainly explained by member states’ preoccupation with taking care of national interests rather than joining ranks with other member states and the EU institutions. There appears to be an exception to the rule: when Europe’s security is perceived as being high on the agenda, the implementation of the comprehensive approach may follow policy declarations more closely. The comprehensive approach nevertheless indicates an emerging Europeanisation norm influencing policy approaches to the sensitive nexuses that link security, development and crisis response. Evidence from country level interventions reveals that this norm is yet to impact on the member state political will required to Europeanise country-level implementation where important national interests are perceived to be at stake.
The European Union is one of the world’s most important actors in assisting fragile and conflict-... more The European Union is one of the world’s most important actors in assisting fragile and conflict-affected countries, and has made engagement with ‘fragile states’ a top priority for its development policy. At the policy level, the EU’s approach is in line with international best practices defined by the OECD’s 2007 Principles and the 2011 Busan ‘New Deal’ for fragile states. At the operational level, the EU is developing a ‘comprehensive approach’ to the implementation of its policies. As is the case with most international actors that engage with fragile and conflict-affected countries, a multidimensional gap exists between the
intentions expressed at the policy level and the reality of operations at the country level. This paper argues that three sets of factors intervene between the policy and the operations
level: cognitive factors related to turning knowledge of partner-country political processes into appropriate actions; issue-related conflicts of interest and trade-offs; and actor-related factors concerning coordination and capacity. This paper discusses how these factors affect the implementation of the EU’s policy frameworks with reference to three fragile and conflict-affected countries: South Sudan, Nepal and Liberia.
‘Security’ has become prominent in official EU development discourse in recent years, and referen... more ‘Security’ has become prominent in official EU development discourse in recent years, and references to security concerns are routinely included in policy statements and documents. Our objective in this paper is to determine whether security concerns have had a growing influence over EU development policy and aid allocation. If so, we are interested in whether this trend can properly be understood as ‘securitisation’ in the critical sense that resources are being diverted away from socio-economic development, or whether we should see it as a positive trend towards greater coherence in EU development policy.
The European Union’s ambitious Mediterranean policy has the declared goal of bringing about econo... more The European Union’s ambitious Mediterranean policy has the declared goal of bringing about economic and political transformation by explicitly linking reform with rewards. Drawing on mechanism design theory, we argue that the EU’s Mediterranean policy has the potential to reveal information about the respective partner countries’ reform ‘types’. However, the current incentive structure of the EU’s Mediterranean policy does not
... This report has been compiled on the basis of the consortium's work ... more ... This report has been compiled on the basis of the consortium's work over the last three years. We are especially grateful to Alexander Salhi and S??nke Ehret of the JMC Berlin team, without whose support and ideas this report could not have been written. While this report ...
This article uses a principal-agent framework of analysis to discuss the European External Action... more This article uses a principal-agent framework of analysis to discuss the European External Action Service’s (EEAS) institutional design and policy mandates. Can the EEAS act autonomously with regard to the Commission and Member States? Are there policy areas in which the EEAS has greater decision-making autonomy than others? These discussions are central to understanding the post-Lisbon Treaty EU’s external policymaking system and its potential strengths as an international actor.
The 2009 Lisbon Treaty sought to enhance the coherence of EU foreign policies by improving the co... more The 2009 Lisbon Treaty sought to enhance the coherence of EU foreign policies by improving the conditions for collective action in the EU-level foreign relations system, including its interaction with member states. Several innovations aimed to facilitate collective action: the establishment of the European External Action Service, bringing EU institutions and member state officials together, is the most important. Policy-level innovations, in turn, have included a string of ‘comprehensive’, ‘joined-up’, and ‘whole-of-government’ approaches that have explicitly focussed on linking the various instruments in the EU’s tool box. Have these reforms led to improved policy coherence? We focus on a key domain that illustrates Europe’s engagement with the changing global context: the nexus of security and development policy. Drawing on post-Lisbon Treaty policy documents and interviews with officials from the EU foreign relations bureaucracy, we argue that collective action at the EU-level has improved somewhat since 2010. This has been accompanied by some improvements in the coherence of security and development policy. Nevertheless, decisionmaking is still affected by bureaucratic actors catering to specific constituencies and, accordingly, the coherence of security and development policies remains challenged. The EU institutions lack the strategic direction that would be provided by clear prioritisation of global policy objectives, but this is not possible in a system that lacks clear hierarchy. Without combining strategic direction with effective changes in the foreign relations apparatus, reforms aimed at improving collective action can only make a marginal impact on policy coherence.
The European Union's ambitious Mediterranean policy has the declared goal of bringing about e... more The European Union's ambitious Mediterranean policy has the declared goal of bringing about economic and political transformation by explicitly linking reform with rewards. Drawing on mechanism design theory, we argue that the EU's Mediterranean policy has the potential to reveal infor- mation about the respective partner countries' reform 'types'. However, the current incentive structure of the EU's Mediterranean policy does
This article asks to what extent the European Union (EU) and its
member states actually pursued a... more This article asks to what extent the European Union (EU) and its member states actually pursued and implemented comprehensive approaches in relation to crisis management in Africa. It also asks what can explain the lack of full implementation of the comprehensive approach in the cases of South Sudan, Mali and the Central African Republic. It is shown that EU member states saw the added value of the common EU approach while at the same time they pursued national interests at odds with the common goals of the EU. The flaws in implementation of the comprehensive approach are mainly explained by member states’ preoccupation with taking care of national interests rather than joining ranks with other member states and the EU institutions. There appears to be an exception to the rule: when Europe’s security is perceived as being high on the agenda, the implementation of the comprehensive approach may follow policy declarations more closely. The comprehensive approach nevertheless indicates an emerging Europeanisation norm influencing policy approaches to the sensitive nexuses that link security, development and crisis response. Evidence from country level interventions reveals that this norm is yet to impact on the member state political will required to Europeanise country-level implementation where important national interests are perceived to be at stake.
The European Union is one of the world’s most important actors in assisting fragile and conflict-... more The European Union is one of the world’s most important actors in assisting fragile and conflict-affected countries, and has made engagement with ‘fragile states’ a top priority for its development policy. At the policy level, the EU’s approach is in line with international best practices defined by the OECD’s 2007 Principles and the 2011 Busan ‘New Deal’ for fragile states. At the operational level, the EU is developing a ‘comprehensive approach’ to the implementation of its policies. As is the case with most international actors that engage with fragile and conflict-affected countries, a multidimensional gap exists between the
intentions expressed at the policy level and the reality of operations at the country level. This paper argues that three sets of factors intervene between the policy and the operations
level: cognitive factors related to turning knowledge of partner-country political processes into appropriate actions; issue-related conflicts of interest and trade-offs; and actor-related factors concerning coordination and capacity. This paper discusses how these factors affect the implementation of the EU’s policy frameworks with reference to three fragile and conflict-affected countries: South Sudan, Nepal and Liberia.
‘Security’ has become prominent in official EU development discourse in recent years, and referen... more ‘Security’ has become prominent in official EU development discourse in recent years, and references to security concerns are routinely included in policy statements and documents. Our objective in this paper is to determine whether security concerns have had a growing influence over EU development policy and aid allocation. If so, we are interested in whether this trend can properly be understood as ‘securitisation’ in the critical sense that resources are being diverted away from socio-economic development, or whether we should see it as a positive trend towards greater coherence in EU development policy.
The European Union’s ambitious Mediterranean policy has the declared goal of bringing about econo... more The European Union’s ambitious Mediterranean policy has the declared goal of bringing about economic and political transformation by explicitly linking reform with rewards. Drawing on mechanism design theory, we argue that the EU’s Mediterranean policy has the potential to reveal information about the respective partner countries’ reform ‘types’. However, the current incentive structure of the EU’s Mediterranean policy does not
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member states actually pursued and implemented comprehensive approaches in relation to crisis management in Africa. It also asks what can explain the lack of full implementation of the comprehensive approach in the cases of South Sudan, Mali and the Central African Republic. It is shown that EU member states saw the added value of the common EU approach while at the same time they pursued national interests at odds with the common goals of the EU. The flaws in implementation of the comprehensive approach are mainly explained by member states’ preoccupation with taking care of national interests rather than joining ranks with other member states and the EU institutions. There appears to be an exception to the rule: when Europe’s security is perceived as being high on the agenda, the implementation of the comprehensive approach may follow policy declarations more closely. The comprehensive approach nevertheless indicates an emerging Europeanisation norm influencing policy approaches to the sensitive nexuses that link security, development and crisis response. Evidence from country level
interventions reveals that this norm is yet to impact on the
member state political will required to Europeanise country-level implementation where important national interests are perceived to be at stake.
intentions expressed at the policy level and the reality of operations at the country level. This paper argues that three sets of factors intervene between the policy and the operations
level: cognitive factors related to turning knowledge of partner-country political processes into appropriate actions; issue-related conflicts of interest and trade-offs; and actor-related factors concerning coordination and capacity. This paper discusses how these factors affect the implementation of the EU’s policy frameworks with reference to three fragile and conflict-affected countries: South Sudan, Nepal and Liberia.
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member states actually pursued and implemented comprehensive approaches in relation to crisis management in Africa. It also asks what can explain the lack of full implementation of the comprehensive approach in the cases of South Sudan, Mali and the Central African Republic. It is shown that EU member states saw the added value of the common EU approach while at the same time they pursued national interests at odds with the common goals of the EU. The flaws in implementation of the comprehensive approach are mainly explained by member states’ preoccupation with taking care of national interests rather than joining ranks with other member states and the EU institutions. There appears to be an exception to the rule: when Europe’s security is perceived as being high on the agenda, the implementation of the comprehensive approach may follow policy declarations more closely. The comprehensive approach nevertheless indicates an emerging Europeanisation norm influencing policy approaches to the sensitive nexuses that link security, development and crisis response. Evidence from country level
interventions reveals that this norm is yet to impact on the
member state political will required to Europeanise country-level implementation where important national interests are perceived to be at stake.
intentions expressed at the policy level and the reality of operations at the country level. This paper argues that three sets of factors intervene between the policy and the operations
level: cognitive factors related to turning knowledge of partner-country political processes into appropriate actions; issue-related conflicts of interest and trade-offs; and actor-related factors concerning coordination and capacity. This paper discusses how these factors affect the implementation of the EU’s policy frameworks with reference to three fragile and conflict-affected countries: South Sudan, Nepal and Liberia.