Abstract
This chapter examines the ways in which the individuals in the United States (US) foreign policy establishment perceive European Union (EU) actorness. In so doing, I examine the social system constructed by the USA and the EU. For this effect, I provide a tour d’horizon of speech acts on EU-USA relations emanating from the Administrations of Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. This makes it possible for me to articulate two core claims. First, the successive US Administrations have perceived the EU as an important actor (recognition) in the international system, and have acted accordingly. More tellingly, perhaps, second, I claim that US officials perceive the EU-USA relations as constituting a gemeinschaft social system. That is, US officials perceive the social system that they create with their EU counterparts as “something organic and traditional, involving bonds of common sentiment, experience, and identity” (legitimacy and purpose).
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Notes
- 1.
Robert Axelrod and Robert O. Keohane give two examples of deadlock-type situations in world politics. Citing Kenneth Oye study of “monetary diplomacy”, Axelrod and Keohane posit that “[s]hifts in beliefs, not only about international regimes, but particularly about desirable economic policy, led leaders… to prefer unilateral, uncoordinated action to international cooperation on the terms that appeared feasible” (Axelrod and Keohane 1985, p. 230). Thus, it was not a question of “a failure of coordination where common interests existed (as in Prisoners’ Dilemma); rather, [it was a question of] decay of these common interests, as perceived by participants” (Axelrod and Keohane 1985, p. 230). And, citing Stephen Van Evera, Axelrod and Keohane note that “[b]eliefs are as important in the military area” (Axelrod and Keohane 1985, p. 230). In 1914 “the European payoff structure actually would have rewarded cooperation; but Europeans perceived a payoff structure that rewarded noncooperation, and responded accordingly. Beliefs, not realities, governed conduct” (Axelrod and Keohane 1985, pp. 230–231).
- 2.
Here, I have in mind—in addition to the President and the Vice President of the United States of America—the top five hierarchical levels in the United States Department of State which, ordered from top to bottom, are: Secretary of State, Deputy Secretary of State, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and the other officials at the level of Under Secretary, Assistant Secretaries of State and Deputy Assistant Secretaries of State. Of additional importance are the National Security Adviser (formally, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs) and his deputies.
- 3.
Recall here my admonition that there is nothing theoretically sacrosanct about this. Reasonable people may well disagree about my placing the EU-USA relationship on the gemeinschaft end of the continuum.
- 4.
The position of Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs is the third highest-ranking position in the Department of State; R. Nicholas Burns held that position from 2005 to 2008.
- 5.
The position of Assistant Secretary of State is located on the fourth tier of the hierarchy in the United States Department of State. Moreover, the Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs heads a geographic bureau, a “barony” in the parlance of the State Department, and reports to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Daniel Fried held this position of Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs from 2005 to 2009.
- 6.
Philip Gordon succeeded Daniel Fried and served as the USA Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs from 2009 to 2013.
- 7.
Victoria Nuland succeeded Philip Gordon and served as the USA Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs from 2013 to 2017.
- 8.
Hilary Rodham Clinton served as the United States Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013.
- 9.
John Kerry served as the United States Secretary of State from 2013 to 2017.
- 10.
Not all leaders object to President Trump’s transactional approach. For an interesting take, see Friedman and Bayoumy (2019). Friedman and Bayoumy quote the Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid thus: “Actually, I’m quite sorry: Thinking back historically, when everybody else said it nicely, we didn’t react. I mean, Barack Obama said so as well, and then we said, ‘It’s all fine and dandy but we don’t see it’s a necessity’. It’s an irony that with this more transactional policy-making style [of Trump’s], we are now in Europe discussing 2 percent [‘and promising to devote $100 billion more to security by the end of 2020, which’] is not peanuts” (Friedman and Bayoumy 2019).
- 11.
Hedley Bull proposes the following five as the primary institutions of international order as such: diplomacy, balance of power, great powers’ management, International Law, and, to be sure, war. That is, if Bull was correct, if cooperation in these institutions is what buttresses international order as such, then all the great powers at the time of this writing perceive these institutions as immensely valuable—albeit it may be that most of the great powers do so on instrumental, gesellschaft, grounds.
- 12.
“President Emmanuel Macron of France said that the European Union had finally woken up to China. ‘China plays on our divisions’, he said. ‘The period of European naïveté is over’” (Erlanger 2019).
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Jankovski, A. (2022). The European Union Actorness: A View from Washington D.C.. In: Freire, M.R., Lopes, P.D., Nascimento, D., Simão, L. (eds) EU Global Actorness in a World of Contested Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92997-8_17
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