Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Weak institutions

  • Chapter
Explaining Euro-Paralysis

Part of the book series: St Antony’s Series ((STANTS))

  • 40 Accesses

Abstract

Common foreign and security policy is a victim of ill-suited institutional arrangements within the European Union. No doubt, this is the most common explanation of the evolving Euro-paralysis. Both friends and foes of European integration willingly admit that the diffusion of authority within the Union and the disaggregated policy process of permanent intergovernmental bargaining prevent the Union from meeting its foreign and security objectives. The Union has powerful economic and political leverage, a huge bureaucracy and an ever-spreading network of diplomatic missions all over the world. Yet, when it comes to making decisions and acting, the Union is often unable to cope, even with trivial things.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

  1. See Christopher Hill, “EPC’s Performance in Crises”, in Towards Political Union. Planning a Common Foreign and Security Policy in the European Community, Reinhardt Rummel, ed. (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1992), p. 149.

    Google Scholar 

  2. See, e.g., John Pinder, European Community. The Building of a Union (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 7–31 and 234–7.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Edward Mortimer, “End This Maastricht Agony”, Financial Times, June 17, 1992, p. 19.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Philip Zelikow, “The Masque of Institutions”, Survival, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Spring 1996), p. 7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. U. Kitzinger, The European Common Market and Community: A Selection of Contemporary Documents (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967), pp. 37–9.

    Google Scholar 

  6. See Alfred van Staden, “After Maastricht: Explaining the Movement Towards a Common European Defence Policy”, in European Foreign Policy. The EC and Changing Perspectives in Europe, Walter Carlsnaes and Steven Smith, eds. (London: Sage, 1994), p. 140.

    Google Scholar 

  7. See in particular Ernst B. Haas, The Uniting of Europe (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958);

    Google Scholar 

  8. David Mitrany, A Working Peace System (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1966);

    Google Scholar 

  9. Leon Lindberg, The Political Dynamics of European Integration (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1963).

    Google Scholar 

  10. Ernst B. Haas, “International Integration: The European and the Universal Process”, International Organization, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Autumn 1961), p. 366.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. See Paul Hoffman, Peace Can Be Won (New York: Doubleday, 1951), p. 62.

    Google Scholar 

  12. See especially Edward Fursdon, The European Defence Community: A History (London: Macmillan, 1980), pp. 192–9.

    Google Scholar 

  13. The importance of including the EPC into the treaty is highlighted in Renaud Dehousse and Joseph H.H. Weiler, “EPC and the Single Act: from Soft Law to Hard Law?”, in The Future of European Political Cooperation. Essays on Theory and Practice, Martin Holland, ed. (London: Macmillan, 1991), pp. 121–42.

    Google Scholar 

  14. See Stephen George, Politics and Policy in the European Community (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 22–32.

    Google Scholar 

  15. See Anne-Marie Burley and Walter Mattli, “Europe Before the Court: A Political Theory of Legal Integration”, International Organization, Vol. 47 No. 1, (Winter 1993), pp. 41ff.

    Google Scholar 

  16. See Karen Elisabeth Smith, The Making of Foreign Policy in the European Community/Union: The Case of Eastern Europe, 1988–1995, PhD thesis at the London School of Economics and Political Science, London 1996, p. 355 (soon to be published by Macmillan).

    Google Scholar 

  17. This was well illustrated in Roger Morgan, “The Prospects for Europe’s Common Foreign and Security Policy”, in International System After the Collapse of the East-West Order, Armand Clesse, Richard Cooper and Yoshikazu Sakamoro, eds. (Dordrecht and London: Martinus Nijhoff, 1994), p. 418.

    Google Scholar 

  18. See, e.g., Ernst B. Haas, “Technocracy, Pluralism, and the New Europe”, in International Regionalism, Joseph Nye, ed. (Boston: Little Brown, 1968), pp. 7ff.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Stanley Hoffmann, “The European Process at Atlantic Crosspurposes”, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1965), pp. 88–90.

    Google Scholar 

  20. See Jan Tinbergen, International Economic Integration (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1965), second edition, pp. 85–101.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Andrew Moravcsik, “Preferences and Power in the European Community: A Liberal Intergovernmentalist Approach”, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 31, No. 4 (December 1993), p. 494.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. See Roger P. Morgan, High Politics, Low Politics: Toward a Foreign Policy for Western Europe, (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1973), p. 61.

    Google Scholar 

  23. See Fritz W. Scharpf, “Negative and Positive Integration in the Political Economy of European Welfare States”, Jean Monnet Chair Papers No. 28 (Florence: The Robert Schuman Centre at the European University Institute, 1995), pp. 8–12 and 36.

    Google Scholar 

  24. See Ole R. Holsti, “Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: Challenges to the Almond-Lippmann Consensus”, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 4 (1992), pp. 439–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. See Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Exploring the Nature of the Beast: International Relations Theory and Comparative Policy Analysis Meet the European Union”, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 34, No. 1 (March 1996), pp. 53–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. See Albert O. Hirschman, “Three Uses of Political Economy in Analysing European Integration”, in Essays in Trespassing. Economics to Politics and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1981), pp. 266–85.

    Google Scholar 

  27. See John Petersen, “Decision-Making in the European Union: Towards a Framework for Analysis”, Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 2, No. 1 (March 1995), pp. 69–93,

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. and Daniel Wincott, “Institutional Interaction and European Integration: Towards an Everyday Critique of Liberal Intergovernmentalism”, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 33, No. 4 (December 1995), pp. 597–609.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. See Philippe C. Schmitter, “Imagining the Future of the Euro-Polity with the Help of New Concepts”, in Governance in the European Union, Gary Marks, Philippe C. Schmitter and Fritz W. Scharpf, eds. (London: Sage, 1996), p. 132.

    Google Scholar 

  30. See, e.g., Chris Endean and Victor Smart, “Rudderless Italy Drives Turin Summit Off Course”, The European, February 22–28, 1996, p. 1.

    Google Scholar 

  31. See Martin Holland, European Union Common Foreign Policy. From EPC to CFSP Joint Action and South Africa (London: St Martin’s Press, 1995), p. 89.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  32. Helen Wallace, “The Institutions of the EU: Experience and Experiments”, in Policy-Making in the EU, Helen Wallace and William Wallace, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1996), p. 59.

    Google Scholar 

  33. See Fritz Scharpf, “The Joint-Decision Trap: Lessons from German Federalism and European Integration”, Public Administration, Vol. 66, No. 3 (Autumn 1988), pp. 239–78.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. See Fraser Cameron, “Europe Towards 1996: The CFSP in Operation”, in A New Transatlantic Partnership, The Third Castelgandolfo Colloquium on Atlantic Affairs (Rome: Centro Studi di Politica Internationale, 1995), p. 33.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Juliet Lodge, “Introduction”, in The European Community and the Challenge of the Future, Juliet Lodge, ed. (London: Pinter, 1995), second edition, pp. 3–4.

    Google Scholar 

  36. See Shashi Tharoor, “United Nations Peacekeeping in Europe”, Survival, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Summer 1995), pp. 121–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. For an overview of relations between the UN and the EU see Peter Schmidt, “A Complex Puzzle — the EU’s Security Policy and UN Reform”, Internationale Spectator, Vol. 29, No. 3 (July–September 1994), pp. 53–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. See, e.g., Joachim Krause and Peter Schmidt, “The Evolving New European Architecture — Concepts, Problems and Pitfalls”, The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Autumn 1990), pp. 79–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. See Christoph Bertram, “Multilateral Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution”, Survival, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Winter 1995–96), p. 75.

    Google Scholar 

  40. See Vojtech Mastny, Helsinki, Human Rights, and European Security (Durham: Duke University Press, 1986), especially pp. 6–8.

    Google Scholar 

  41. Christoph Bertram, “The Past as Future: Towards a European Defense Community”, in “Power and Plenty? From the Internal Market to Political and Security Cooperation in Europe”, Jean Monnet Chair Papers (Florence: European University Institute, The European Policy Unit, April 1991), p. 61.

    Google Scholar 

  42. For a detailed analysis of the institutional involvement in the Yugoslav conflict see James Gow, “Nervous Bunnies — The International Community and the Yugoslav War of Dissolution”, in Military Intervention in European Conflicts, Lawrence Freedman, ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), pp. 15–21,

    Google Scholar 

  43. or Reneo Lukic and Allen Lynch, Europe from the Balkans to the Urals. The Disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 252–85.

    Google Scholar 

  44. Guido Lenzi and Laurence Martin eds., The European Security Space, Working papers by the European Strategy Group and the Institute for Security Studies of Western European Union, (Paris: Institute for Security Studies of Western European Union, 1996), pp.1–34.

    Google Scholar 

  45. See Nicole Gnesotto, “Common European Defence and Transatlantic Relations”, Survival, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Spring 1996), p. 26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Manfred Wörner, “NATO’s Role in a Changing Europe”, Adelphi Paper No. 284 (1994), p. 101.

    Google Scholar 

  47. Madeleine Albright, “Enlarging NATO: Why Bigger is Better,” The Economist, February 15, 1997, p. 20.

    Google Scholar 

  48. See Carl Bildt, “The Baltic Litmus Test”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 73, No. 4 (September–October 1994), pp. 72–85.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. See Niklaas Hoekstra and Auke Wenema, “Prospect of European Security Policy” (interview with Willem van Eekelen and Edmond Wellenstein), Atlantisch Perspectief, Vol. 19–20, No. 8/1 (1995–96), p. 19.

    Google Scholar 

  50. See European Commission, Report on the Operation of the Treaty on European Union, Brussels, May 1995, p. 69.

    Google Scholar 

  51. See e.g. Giovanni Jannuzzi, “Scope and Structure of the Community’s Future Foreign Policy”, in Toward Political Union. Planning a Common Foreign and Security Policy in the European Community, Reinhardt Rummel, ed. (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1992), p. 289.

    Google Scholar 

  52. Josef Joffe, “Collective Security and the Future of Europe: Failed Dreams and Dead Ends”, Survival, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Spring 1992), pp. 48–9.

    Google Scholar 

  53. See Jan Rood, “Living in a Fantasy World. Nederland en het GBVB’”, Atlantisch Perspectief, Vol. 20, No. 2 (1996), p. 4.

    Google Scholar 

  54. See Andrew Moravcsik, “Preferences and Power in the European Community: A Liberal Intergovernmentalist Approach”, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 31, No. 4 (December 1993), pp. 507–9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Also Robert D. Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics”, International Organization, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Summer 1988), pp. 427–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  56. See Charles Pentland, “International Organizations and Their Roles”, in World Politics, J. Roseneau, K. W. Thompson and G. Boyd, eds (New York: Free Press, 1976), pp. 631–56.

    Google Scholar 

  57. See Robert O. Keohane, “International Institutions: Two Approaches”, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 4 (December 1988), p. 382.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  58. John Gerard Ruggie, “Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution”, International Organization, Vol. 46, No. 3 (Summer 1992), p. 562.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. See John J. Mearsheimer, “The False Promise of International Institutions”, International Security, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Winter 1994–95), pp. 5–49,

    Article  Google Scholar 

  60. also John J. Mearsheimer, “A Realist Reply”, International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Summer 1995), pp. 82–93.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  61. The collective security argument targeted by Mearsheimer was presented in Charles A. Kupchan and Clifford A. Kupchan, “Concerts, Collective Security, and the Future of Europe”, International Security, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Summer 1991), pp. 114–62.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  62. Philip Zelikow, “The Masque of Institutions”, Survival, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Spring 1996), p. 17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  63. Charles A. Kupchan and Clifford A. Kupchan, “The Promise of Collective Security”, International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Summer 1995), pp. 53–4.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  64. Mearsheimer refers here to Quincy Wright, A Study of War, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942), vol. 2, p. 781.

    Google Scholar 

  65. See, e.g., Alexander Wendt, “The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory”, International Organization, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 335–70.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  66. Robert O. Keohane and Lisa L. Martin, “The Promise of Institutionalist Theory”, International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Summer 1995), p. 50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  67. For a more detailed analysis of the CFSP reform debate see, e.g., Elfriede Regelsberger, “Reforming CFSP — An Aliby Debate or More?”, in The European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy. The Challenges of the Future, Spyros A. Pappas and Sophie Vanhoonacker, eds. (Maastricht: European Institute of Public Administration, 1995), pp. 93–118.

    Google Scholar 

  68. See Helen Wallace, “Politics and Policy in the EU: the Challenge of Governance,” in Policy Making in the European Union Helen Wallace and William Wallace eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) p. 26.

    Google Scholar 

  69. See Fritz W. Scharpf, “Negative and Positive Integration in the Political Economy of European Welfare States”, Jean Monnet Chair Papers No. 28 (Florence: The Robert Schuman Centre at the European University Institute, 1995), pp. 20ff.

    Google Scholar 

  70. See Reinhardt Rummel, “Integration, Disintegration, and Security in Europe — Preparing the Community for a Multi-Institutional Response”, International Journal, Vol. XLVII, No. 1 (Winter 1991), pp. 64–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  71. See Fraser Cameron, “Developing the Common Foreign and Security Policy of Europe”, Brassey’s Defence Yearbook (London: Brassey’s, 1996), p. 135.

    Google Scholar 

  72. As advocated in Curt Gasteyger, An Ambiguous Power. The European Union in a Changing World (Gutersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers, 1996), pp. 132–4.

    Google Scholar 

  73. For a more detailed argument see Robert A. Dahl, “A Democracy Dilemma: System Efficiency versus Citizen Participation”, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 109, No. 1 (1994), pp. 23–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  74. See Richard Rosecrance, “Trading States in a New Concert of Europe”, in America and Europe in an Era of Change, Helga Haftendorn, ed. (Boulder, CO: Westeview Press, 1993), pp. 128 and 131.

    Google Scholar 

  75. This is well argued in Lawrence Martin and John Roper, eds., Towards a Common Defence Policy. A Study by the European Strategy Group and the Institute for Security Studies of Western European Union (Paris: Institute for Security Studies of WEU, 1995), p. 2.

    Google Scholar 

  76. This was well argued in Martin Holland, “Bridging the Capability-Expectation Gap: A Case Study of the CFSP Joint Action on South Africa”, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 33, No. 4 (December 1995), p. 569.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  77. Elfriede Regelsberger and Wolfgang Wessels, “The CFSP Institutions and Procedures: A Third Way for the Second Pillar”, European Foreign Affairs Review, Vol. I, No. 1 (July 1996), p. 32.

    Google Scholar 

  78. See Gerald Schneider, “The Limits of Self-Reform: Institution-Building in the European Union”, European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1995), pp. 59–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. European University Institute, Florence, Italy

    Jan Zielonka (Professor of Political Science)

Authors
  1. Jan Zielonka
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Copyright information

© 1998 Jan Zielonka

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Zielonka, J. (1998). Weak institutions. In: Explaining Euro-Paralysis. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230372849_6

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation