Abstract
These statements made by the then EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Federica Mogherini and then European Commissioner for Trade, Cecilia Malmström, reveal an understanding of EU trade policy, the Common Commercial Policy, as a policy which is not merely to pursue narrowly-defined economic objectives but also to serve the EU’s larger foreign and security policy interests.
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Notes
- 1.
Federica Mogherini, quoted in: European Parliament (2014), Committee on Foreign Affairs, Hearing of Federica Mogherini, Vice-President-Designate of the Commission, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Brussels, 6 October, p. 7; European External Action Service (2018), Remarks by HR/VP Mogherini on the Statement by US President Trump regarding the Iran Nuclear Deal (JCPOA), Rome, 8 May.
- 2.
Cecilia Malmström, quoted in: European Parliament (2014), Committee on International Trade, Hearing of Cecilia Malmström, Commissioner-Designate (Trade), Brussels, 29 September, p. 7.
- 3.
See European Commission (2006), Europe in the World: Some Practical Proposals for Greater Coherence, Effectiveness and Visibility, COM(2006) 278 final, Brussels, 8 June, p. 2: “Europe faces strong economic competition […]. The economic balance of power has shifted. […] and there is increasing competition for access to raw materials, energy resources and markets.”
- 4.
Charlotte Bretherton and John Vogler (2006), The European Union as a Global Actor, 2nd edition, Abingdon: Routledge, p. 23.
- 5.
Ian MacLeod, Ian D. Hendry and Stephen Hyett (1996), The External Relations of the European Communities: A Manual of Law and Practice, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 266.
- 6.
See, for example, Alasdair R. Young and John Peterson (2014), Parochial Global Europe: 21st Century Trade Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 10–15; Bretherton and Vogler (2006), Global Actor, pp. 62–66; Andreas Dür and Hubert Zimmermann (2007), Introduction: The EU in International Trade Negotiations, Journal of Common Market Studies, 45(4), p. 771; Jan Orbie (2008), The European Union’s Role in World Trade: Harnessing Globalisation?, in: Jan Orbie (ed.), Europe’s Global Role: External Policies of the European Union, Farnham: Ashgate, p. 35.
- 7.
Michael Smith (2007), The European Union and International Political Economy: Trade, Aid and Monetary Policy, in: Knud Erik Jørgensen, Mark Pollack and Ben Rosamond (eds.), Handbook of European Union Politics, London: Sage Publications, p. 528.
- 8.
See, for example, European External Action Service [EEAS] (2015), The European Union in a Changing Global Environment: A More Connected, Contested and Complex World, Brussels, p. 1: “The very nature of our Union—a construct of intertwined polities—gives us a unique advantage to steer the way in a more complex, more connected, but also more contested world.”
- 9.
See François Duchêne (1972), Europe’s Role in World Peace, in: Richard Mayne (ed.), Europe Tomorrow: Sixteen Europeans Look Ahead, London: Fontana, pp. 32–47; Ian Manners (2002), Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?, Journal of Common Markets Studies, 40(2), pp. 235–258; Chad Damro (2012), Market Power Europe, Journal of European Public Policy, 19(5), pp. 682–699; Anu Bradford (2020), The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Lisbeth Aggestam (2008), Introduction: Ethical Power Europe?, International Affairs, 84(1), pp. 1–11.
- 10.
Bretherton and Vogler (2006), Global Actor, p. 44.
- 11.
Daniel Chandler defines an empty signifier as “a signifier with a vague, highly variable, unspecifiable or non-existent signified” which “means different things to different people: they may stand for many or even any signifieds”, quoted in: Gunther Hellmann (2016), Normative Powers and European Foreign Policy in a Minilateralist World, EU Studies in Japan, 36, p. 33.
- 12.
See Young and Peterson (2014), Parochial Global Europe, pp. 12–13, 206.
- 13.
John G. Ruggie (1993), Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations, International Organization, 47(1), p. 172.
- 14.
Patrick A. Messerlin (2001), Measuring the Costs of Protection in Europe: European Commercial Policy in the 2000s, Washington DC: Institute for International Economics, p. 1.
- 15.
Stephan Keukeleire (2003), The European Union as a Diplomatic Actor: Internal, Traditional and Structural Diplomacy, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 14(3), p. 47. See also Stephan Keukeleire (2001), Au-Delà de la PESC: La Politique Étrangère Structurelle de l’Union Européenne, Annuaire français de relations internationales, 2, pp. 536–551. The best definition of the concept can be found in Stephan Keukeleire and Jennifer MacNaughtan (2008), The Foreign Policy of the European Union, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 25–26, who define structural foreign policy as “a foreign policy which, conducted over the long term, seeks to influence or shape sustainable political, legal, socio-economic, security and mental structures. These structures characterize not only states and interstate relations, but also societies, the position of individuals, relations between states and societies and the international system as a whole.”
- 16.
Keukeleire (2003), European Union as a Diplomatic Actor, pp. 31–32.
- 17.
John Peterson (2007), EU Trade Policy as Foreign Policy: Does Strategy plus Activity = Strategic Action?, Prepared for presentation at the 10th biennial conference of the European Union Studies Association (EUSA) Montreal, 17–19 May, p. 4.
- 18.
See Young and Peterson (2014), Parochial Global Europe, pp. 183–214.
- 19.
Ibid., p. 206.
- 20.
Sophie Meunier and Kalypso Nicolaïdis (2006), The European Union as a Conflicted Trade Power, Journal of European Public Policy, 13(6), pp. 906–925. Meunier und Nicolaïdis identify six such conflicting tendencies: regionalism versus multilateralism, non-discrimination vs. bilateral preferential relations, western hegemony vs. mediating power, internal vs. external objectives, equal partnership vs. conditional opening as well as trade liberalization vs. domestic preferences.
- 21.
See Jan Orbie, Lotte Drieghe and Fabienne Bossuyt (2012), EU Trade Policy and the European Security Strategy: Speaking the Same Language in Different Worlds, Studia Diplomatica, 65(3), pp. 3–23; Fabienne Bossuyt, Lotte Drieghe and Jan Orbie (2013), Living Apart Together: EU Comprehensive Security from a Trade Perspective, European Foreign Affairs Review, 18, pp. 63–82; Fabienne Bossuyt, Jan Orbie and Lotte Drieghe (2020), EU External Policy Coherence in the Trade-Foreign Policy Nexus: Foreign Policy Through Trade or Strictly Business?, Journal of International Relations and Development, 23(1), pp. 45–66.
- 22.
Guillaume Xavier-Bender (2016), Leveraging Europe’s International Economic Power, German Marshall Fund, Policy Brief, March, pp. 4, 7.
- 23.
See Theodore R. Schatzki (1996), Social Practices: A Wittgensteinian Approach to Human Activity and the Social, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Theodore R. Schatzki, Karin Knorr Cetina and Eike von Savigny (2001), eds., The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, London: Routledge.
- 24.
See Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot (2011), eds., International Practices, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Vincent Pouliot (2008), The Logic of Practicality: A Theory of Practice of Security Communities, International Organization, 62(2), pp. 257–288; Vincent Pouliot (2010), International Security in Practice: The Politics of NATO-Russia Diplomacy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Rebecca Adler-Nissen (2013), ed., Bourdieu in International Relations: Rethinking Key Concepts in IR, Abingdon: Routledge; Christian Bueger (2014), Pathways to Practice: Praxiography and International Politics, European Political Science Review, 6(3), pp. 383–406; Christian Bueger and Frank Gadinger (2014), International Practice Theory: New Perspectives, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; Iver B. Neumann (2002), Returning Practice to the Linguistic Turn: The Case of Diplomacy, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 31(3), pp. 627–651.
- 25.
See Gunther Hellmann (2009), Beliefs as Rules for Action, Pragmatism as a Theory of Thought and Action, International Studies Review, 11(3), p. 638.
- 26.
Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot (2011), International Practices: Introduction and Framework, in: Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot (eds.), International Practices, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 12.
- 27.
Reckwitz (2002), Theory of Social Practices, p. 257.
- 28.
Ibid., p. 6.
- 29.
Reckwitz (2002), Theory of Social Practices, p. 250.
- 30.
Schatzki (1996), Social Practices, p. 89.
- 31.
Barry Barnes (2001), Practice as Collective Action, in: Theodore R. Schatzki, Karin Knorr Cetina and Eike von Savigny (eds.), The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, London: Routledge, p. 19.
- 32.
Christian Büger and Frank Gadinger (2008), Praktisch gedacht! Praxistheoretischer Konstruktivismus in den Internationalen Beziehungen, Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen, 15(2), p. 279 (my translation), the original quote reads: “routinisierte Handlungsmuster eines entsprechenden Kollektivs”.
- 33.
Christian Bueger and Frank Gadinger (2015), The Play of International Practice, International Studies Quarterly, 59(3), p. 456.
- 34.
Erik Ringmar (2014), The Search for Dialogue as a Hindrance to Understanding: Practices as Inter-Paradigmatic Research Program, International Theory, 6(1), p. 5.
- 35.
Ibid.
- 36.
Schatzki (1996), Social Practices, pp. xi, 1–18.
- 37.
See Bueger and Gadinger (2015), The Play of International Practice, pp. 454–455.
- 38.
Ibid., p. 455.
- 39.
See ibid., p. 456.
- 40.
Friedrich Kratochwil (2011), Making Sense of “International Practices”, in: Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot (2011), eds., International Practices, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 42.
- 41.
Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, p. 6.
- 42.
Reckwitz (2002), Theory of Social Practices, p. 250.
- 43.
Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, p. 6. On actions as components of practices, see also Schatzki (1996), Social Practices, p. 113.
- 44.
Theodore Schatzki (2017), Sayings, Texts and Discursive Formations, in: Allison Hui, Theodore Schatzki and Elizabeth Shove (eds.), The Nexus of Practices: Connections, Constellations, Practitioners, Abingdon: Routledge, p. 128.
- 45.
See Charles Tilly (2006), Why? What Happens When People Give Reasons…and Why, Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 48: “Reason giving has consequences both because it proposes a definition for the relationship and because it justifies the practices of one party toward the other. Reasons, relationships and practices align.”
- 46.
See Etienne Wenger (1998), Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- 47.
Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, p. 8.
- 48.
See Reckwitz (2002), Theory of Social Practices, p. 250.
- 49.
Ibid.
- 50.
Thomas Alkemeyer and Nikolaus Buschmann (2017), Learning in and across Practices: Enablement as Subjectivation, transl. by Robert Mitchell and Kristina Brümmer, in: Allison Hui, Theodore Schatzki and Elizabeth Shove (eds.), The Nexus of Practices: Connections, Constellations, Practitioners, Abingdon: Routledge, p. 14.
- 51.
Reckwitz (2002), Theory of Social Practices, pp. 245–246.
- 52.
See, for example, Reckwitz (2002), Theory of Social Practices, pp. 253–254; Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, p. 8; Anthony Giddens (1979), Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis, Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 57.
- 53.
Erving Goffman (1974), Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience, Boston: Northeastern University Press, p. 21.
- 54.
Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, p. 16.
- 55.
Emanuel Adler and Steven Bernstein (2005), Knowledge in Power: The Epistemic Construction of Global Governance, in: Michael Barnett and Raymond D. Duvall (eds.), Power in Global Governance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 296.
- 56.
See Hellmann (2009), Beliefs as Rules for Action, p. 640; Gunther Hellmann (2017), Linking Foreign Policy and Systemic Transformation in Global Politics: Methodized Inquiry in a Deweyan Tradition, Foreign Policy Analysis, 13(3), p. 583. See also Friedrich Kratochwil (2003), The Monologue of “Sciences”, International Studies Review, 5(1), p. 124.
- 57.
See Friedrich Kratochwil (2007), Of False Promises and Good Bets: A Plea for a Pragmatic Approach to Theory Building (the Tartu Lecture), Journal of International Relations and Development, 10(1), pp. 11–13.
- 58.
See Donald Davidson (2001), Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 124–125.
- 59.
See Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, pp. 13–14. A self-fulfilling prophecy is a case in point.
- 60.
See Reckwitz (2002), Theory of Social Practices, pp. 250, 251–252.
- 61.
See Giddens (1979), Central Problems in Social Theory, p. 57: “Like ‘intentions’, ‘reasons’ only form discrete accounts in the context of queries, whether initiated by others, or as elements of a process of self-examination by the actor. […] The rationalisation of action, as a chronic feature of daily conduct, is a normal characteristic of the behaviour of competent social agents and is indeed the main basis upon which their ‘competence’ is adjudged by others.”
- 62.
See Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, p. 14: “Through social interaction, people attribute meanings to their activities and build on these to further interact. In order for practices to make sense, then, practitioners must establish (contest, negotiate, communicate) their significance.”
- 63.
Claims that knowledge often remains tacit and inarticulate in the enactment of a practice are therefore half-true at best, because of the need for practitioners to explain themselves, to articulate the rationale for their practices, to make the implicit explicit.
- 64.
Roxanne L. Doty (1997), Aporia: A Critical Exploration of the Agent-Structure Problematique in International Relations Theory, European Journal of International Relations, 3(3), p. 377.
- 65.
Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, p. 21.
- 66.
See Doty (1997), Aporia, p. 378.
- 67.
See Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, pp. 20–21 (emphasis in original): “[T]he reason why a given bundle of practices follows a particular scenario and not others has less to do with how it fits altogether—a functional argument—than with how it is fitted together as a result of political struggles. […] practice is eminently political in that it sustains, or undermines, existing patterns of power relations.”
- 68.
Hellmann (2017), Linking Foreign Policy and Systemic Transformation, p. 581 (emphasis in original).
- 69.
Bretherton and Vogler (2006), Global Actor, p. 66.
- 70.
Giddens (1979), Central Problems in Social Theory, pp. 69–70.
- 71.
See Theodore R. Schatzki (2011), Where the Action Is (On Large Social Phenomena such as Sociotechnical Regimes), Sustainable Practices Research Group Working Paper 1, p. 5; Jorg Kustermans (2015), Parsing the Practice Turn: Practice, Practical Knowledge, Practices, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 44(2), pp. 180–182.
- 72.
Echoing the popular adage, ‘never change a winning team,’ this behaviour might be dubbed ‘never change a winning practice.’.
- 73.
Reckwitz (2002), Theory of Social Practices, p. 255.
- 74.
Barnes (2001), Practice as Collective Action, p. 24. Barnes pointedly argues that as a “collective accomplishment” (p. 23) practices cannot be performed by individuals who are “oriented primarily by their own habits” (p. 24), as these will diverge overtime. A shared practice is not the simple summation of individual habits. The competent accomplishment of shared practices much rather has to be “generated on every occasion, by agents concerned all the time to retain coordination and alignment with each other in order to bring them about” (p. 25). The “constant coordination of actions” (p. 25) required to sustain shared practices presupposes being “sensitive to what other practitioners are doings” (p. 26), it involves the “overriding and modification of routines at the individual level” (p. 23) and it yet even more so depends on the “constant active modification of what comes automatically or habitually” (p. 24, emphasis added). See also Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, p. 15, who make a strikingly similar point when saying that “[n]ot only does practice not trump reflexivity, judgment and expectations, which are core features of social life, but it actually depends on individuals’ reflexive normative and instrumental judgments to remain effectively institutionalized,” and they succinctly note, “[o]f course, people reflexively think about their practices.”
- 75.
Kratochwil (2011), Making Sense of “International Practices”, p. 49. See also George Herbert Mead (1909), Social Psychology as Counterpart to Physiological Psychology, Psychological Bulletin, 6(12), pp. 401–408; George Herbert Mead (1910), Social Consciousness and the Consciousness of Meaning, Psychological Bulletin, 7(12), pp. 397–405.
- 76.
Barnes (2001), Practice as Collective Action, p. 24.
- 77.
William James describes beliefs as living “on a credit system… ‘pass[ing],’ so long as nothing challenges them”; see William James (1995 [1907]), Pragmatism, New York: Dover Publications, p. 80. See also See Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann (1966), The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp. 58–59.
- 78.
Barnes (2001), Practice as Collective Action, p. 21.
- 79.
Ted Hopf (2018), Change in International Practices, European Journal of International Relations, 24(3), p. 3. For an example of a practice theoretical approach that relies almost exclusively on the virtuosity of practitioners to explain both continuity and change, see Jérémie Cornut (2018), Diplomacy, Agency and the Logic of Improvisation and Virtuosity in Practice, European Journal of International Relations, 24(3), pp. 712–736.
- 80.
Bueger and Gadinger (2015), The Play of International Practice, p. 455. This assertion should, however, not be misunderstood as making the case for either a relativistic or a deterministic view. Rather, with Hans Joas, I “quite readily accept the subjective constitution of a given worldview, but nevertheless regard the emergence of the problems within reality, as subjective as it is, as removed from arbitrary subjective reach.” From a pragmatist perspective, “actors confront problems whether they want to or not; the solution to these problems, however, is not clearly prescribed beforehand by reality, but calls for creativity and brings something objectively new into the world.” See Hans Joas (1993), Pragmatism and Social Theory, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 4.
- 81.
Kratochwil (2011), Making Sense of “International Practices”, p. 46 (emphasis in original).
- 82.
Wenger (1998), Communities of Practice, p. 81.
- 83.
Hellmann (2009), Beliefs as Rules for Action, p. 639 (emphasis in original).
- 84.
See ibid. On emotions, see Janice Bially Mattern (2011), A Practice Theory of Emotion for International Relations, in: Adler and Pouliot (eds.), International Practices, pp. 63–86.
- 85.
Kratochwil (2011), Making Sense of “International Practices”, p. 47. See also Hans Joas (1996), The Creativity of Action, Cambridge: Polity Press, p. 154: “[T]he goals of actions are usually relatively undefined and only become more specific as a consequence of the decision to use particular means. Reciprocity of goals and means therefore signifies the interaction of the choice of means and the definition of goals. The dimension of means in relation to the dimension of goals is in no way neutral. Only when we recognize that certain means are available to us do we discover goals which had not occurred to us before. Thus, means not only specify goals, but they also expand the scope for possible goal-setting.”
- 86.
For a concise overview of the concept of social totality, its proponents and opponents, see Schatzki (1996), Social Practices, pp. 1–18. For opponents of the concept see Anthony Giddens (1984), The Constitution of Society: Outline of a Theory of Structuration, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 164–165; Michael Mann (1986), The Sources of Social Power, Volume 1: A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 1.
- 87.
Schatzki (1996), Social Practices, p. 96. Schatzki, here, refers to Michael Oakeshott (1975), On Human Conduct, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 56.
- 88.
This is Theodore Schatzki’s summary of Gidden’s practice theory, see Schatzki (1996), Social Practices, p. 4.
- 89.
Schatzki (1996), Social Practices, p. 2.
- 90.
Ibid.
- 91.
Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, p. 10.
- 92.
Kal J. Holsti (1986), Politics in Command: Foreign Trade as National Security Policy, International Organization, 40(3), p. 644.
- 93.
Robert Gilpin (1975), U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation: The Political Economy of Foreign Direct Investment, New York: Basic Books, p. 43.
- 94.
See Robert O. Keohane (1984), After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 21–22.
- 95.
Holsti (1986), Politics in Command, p. 644.
- 96.
Ibid., p. 645. See also Robert Gilpin (1981), War and Change in World Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 19–20.
- 97.
On ministerial subsystems as socializers, see Ted Hopf (2010), The Logic of Habit in International Relations, European Journal of International Relations, 16(4), p. 548: “[D]ifferent institutions within a state are sufficiently powerful socializers of its employees that a state’s identity varies from the capitalist identity in the commerce department to the great power identity in the foreign ministry to the Christian identity in the executive branch.”
- 98.
On the multiplicity of domestic and international structures in which states are embedded, see Alexander Wendt (1987), The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory, International Organization, 41(3), pp. 366–368.
- 99.
See Jess Pilegaard (2009), …And Never the Twain Shall Meet? An Institutionalist Perspective of EU Trade and Development Policies in the Context of the EPA Negotiations, in: Gerrit Faber and Jan Orbie (eds.), Beyond Market Access for Economic Development: EU-Africa Relations in Transition, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 264–267.
- 100.
Wenger (1998), Communities of Practice, p. 209.
- 101.
Adler and Pouliot (2011), Introduction and Framework, p. 17.
- 102.
See C. Norman Alexander and Mary Glenn Wiley (1981), Situated Activity and Identity Formation, in: Morris Rosenberg and Ralph Turner (eds.), Social Psychology: Sociological Perspectives, New York: Basic Books, pp. 269–289. See also Peter Berger (1966), Identity as a Problem in the Sociology of Knowledge, European Journal of Sociology, 7(19), p. 106: “[P]sychological reality is in an ongoing dialectical relationship with social structure. Psychological reality refers here […] to the manner in which the individual apprehends himself, his processes of consciousness and his relations with other.” See also p. 111: “Identity, with its appropriate attachments of psychological reality, is always identity within a specific, socially constructed world.”
- 103.
See George Herbert Mead (1965 [1934]), Mind, Self and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 173–177. It is worth recalling that for Mead these are functional distinctions, not metaphysical ones.
- 104.
According to Ralph H. Turner, individuals and collectives do not engage merely in “role taking” but also “role making,” the latter describing the “tendency to create and modify conceptions of self- and other-roles.” Although Turner hastens to add that bureaucracies “restrict the free operation of the role-making process, limiting its repertoire and making role boundaries rigid,” in practice there is a “compromise between the role-taking process and the simple conformity behavior demanded by organizational prescriptions.” See Ralph H. Turner (1962), Role-Taking: Process Versus Conformity, in: Arnold M. Rose, ed., Human Behavior and Social Processes: An Interactionist Approach, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, pp. 21–22, 27. See also Ralph H. Turner (1956), Role-Taking, Role Standpoint and Reference-Group Behavior, American Journal of Sociology, 61(4), pp. 316–328. For a more recent overview of role theory, see Ralph H. Turner (2006), Role Theory, in: Jonathan H. Turner (ed.), Handbook of Sociological Theory, New York: Springer, pp. 233–254.
- 105.
Turner (1962), Role-Taking, p. 23 (emphasis in original).
- 106.
Ibid.
- 107.
On “boundary drawing” in foreign policy, see Gunther Hellmann andreas Fahrmeir and Milos Vec (2016), eds., The Transformation of Foreign Policy: Drawing and Managing Boundaries from Antiquity to the Present, Oxford: Oxford University Press, esp. Ch. 1 and 2. On “boundary problems”, see also Michael Smith (1997), The Commission and External Relations, in: Geoffrey Edwards and David Spence (eds.), The European Commission, 2nd ed., London: Cartermill International, pp. 264–265: “Many of the problems faced by the Commission in the pursuit of external relations are effectively ‘boundary problems’. […] A related problem is that of the boundary between ‘economic’ issues and ‘political’ or ‘security’ issues. In the post-Cold War era, it is no longer clear (if indeed it ever was) how this line can be drawn and maintained. As a result, external relations issues increasingly cut across sectors and raise unexpected problems of coordination or action.”
- 108.
Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye (1977), Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition, Boston: Little, Brown and Co, pp. 24–29.
- 109.
One interviewed trade official explained that DG Trade had appropriated the competence for the regulation of conflict diamonds, as the treaties were not entirely clear about the distribution of competence. While he said that DG Trade was not without legal foundation since it was about the regulation of trade, the dossier could also have landed in DG Relex (Interview #2).
- 110.
Wendt (1987), The Agent-Structure Problem, p. 366.
- 111.
Ibid. p. 368. As aforementioned, I avoid the word ‘logic’ for the purposes of this book, but I believe that Wendt’s point, here, is similar to my argument that each policy field is characterised by certain distinctive dynamics and rules for action.
- 112.
Barry Buzan (1983), People, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations, Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books, p. 128.
- 113.
See ibid., p. 129.
- 114.
Ibid., pp. 129–120.
- 115.
Ibid., p. 130.
- 116.
See Ernst B. Haas (1980), Why Collaborate? Issue-Linkage and International Regimes, World Politics, 32(3), pp. 371–375.
- 117.
On causal connections between different practices, see Schatzki (1996), Social Practices, p. 89.
- 118.
See Peter Katzenstein and Rudra Sil (2008), Eclectic Theorizing in the Study and Practice of International Relations, in: Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of International Relations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 109–130.
- 119.
Christian Lequesne (2020), Ethnographie du Quai d’Orsay: Les Pratiques des Diplomates Français, Paris: CNRS Editions, p. 24.
- 120.
Lequesne mentions Iver Neumann’s study of the Norwegian foreign ministry, which he conducted while being himself employed by the ministry. See Iver B. Neumann (2012), At Home with the Diplomats: Inside a European Foreign Ministry, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
- 121.
See Kustermans (2015), Parsing the Practice Turn, p. 191.
- 122.
Matthew N. Beckmann and Richard L. Hall (2013), Elite Interviewing in Washington, DC, in: Layna Mosley (ed.), Interview Research in Political Science, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, p. 196. See also Martin Hollies and Steve Smith (1990), Explaining and Understanding International Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 1: “In international affairs and throughout the social world, there are two stories to tell and a range of theories to go with each. One story is an outsider’s, told in the manner of the natural scientist seeking to explain the working of nature and treating the human realm as part of the nature. The other is an insider’s, told so as to make us understand what the events mean, in a sense distinct from any meaning found in unearthing the laws of nature.”
- 123.
Vincent Pouliot (2013), Methodology: Putting Practice Theory into Practice, in: Rebecca Adler-Nissen (ed.), Bourdieu in International Relations: Rethinking Key Concepts in IR, Abingdon: Routledge, p. 49.
- 124.
See Bueger and Gadinger (2015), The Play of International Practice, p. 457.
- 125.
Ibid.
- 126.
Beth L. Leech, Frank R. Baumgartner, Jeffrey M. Berry, Marie Hojnackie and David C. Kimball (2013), Lessons from the “Lobbying and Policy Change” Project, in: Layna Mosley (ed.), Interview Research in Political Science, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, p. 210.
- 127.
See ibid., pp. 210–211: “If we (as researchers) are bothering to interview using open-ended questions and allowing the subjects to answer as they wish, we must think highly of their ability to tell us something we didn’t already know. We are treating them as experts in their field.”
- 128.
Ibid., p. 223.
- 129.
See ibid., pp. 212–215.
- 130.
Except for the two Members of the European Parliament I interviewed, Bernd Lange (S&D), the current chairman of the international trade committee and Elmar Brok (EPP), the former chairman of the foreign affairs committee, all interviewees spoke under the condition of anonymity. To protect their anonymity, I will not refer to their specific rank and only loosely mention their seniority, where appropriate, when quoting.
- 131.
See Melvyn Read and David Marsh (2002), Combining Quantitative and Qualitative Methods, in: David Marsh and Gerry Stoker (eds.), Theory and Methods in Political Science, 2nd ed., pp. 237–238.
- 132.
See Björn Hettne and Fredrik Söderbaum (2005), Civilian Power or Soft Imperialism? EU as a Global Actor and the Role of Inter-Regionalism, European Foreign Affairs Review, 10(4), pp. 535–552.
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Stueber, J. (2022). Introduction. In: The Trade-Security Nexus in EU External Action. Contributions to International Relations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90796-9_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90796-9_1
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