Rethinking European Union foreign policy

Abstract

This book reviews a variety of approaches to the study of the European Union's foreign policy. Much analysis of EU foreign policy contains implicit theoretical assumptions about the nature of the EU and its member states, their inter-relationships, the international system in which they operate and the nature and direction of European integration. In many instances such assumptions - not being discussed openly - limit, rather than facilitate debate. The purpose of this book is to open up this field of enquiry so that students, observers and analysts of EU foreign policy can review a broad range of tools and theoretical templates from which the development and the trajectory of the EU's foreign policy can be studied. Situated as it is at the interface between European Studies and International Relations, the book also seeks to engage the attention of readers who are anxious to understand how the European Union relates to the rest of the world and to explain the efforts of the EU and its member states towards the creation of a credible, effective and principled foreign, security and defence policy. Table of contents: 1 The study of EU foreign policy: between international relations and European studies / Ben Tonra and Thomas Christiansen 2 Theorising the European Union’s foreign policy / Knud Erik Jørgensen 3 International relations or European integration: is the CFSP sui generis? / Jakob C. Øhrgaard 4 Foreign policy analysis and European foreign policy / Brian White 5 Discourse analysis in the study of European foreign policy / Henrik Larsen 6 Role identity and the Europeanisation of foreign policy: a political–cultural approach / Lisbeth Aggestam 7 Interests, institutions and identities in the study of European foreign policy / Adrian Hyde-Price 8 Theory and practice of multi-level foreign policy: the European union’s policy in the field of arms export controls / Sibylle Bauer and Eric Remacle 9 Justifying EU foreign policy: the logics underpining EU enlargement / Helene Sjursen and Karen E. Smith