Loughborough University
Department of Politics, History and International
Relations
Dissertation in International Relations
The European Union Superpower?
An Analysis of Power in the 21st Century
By Sini H. Haara
A912152
Abstract
‘Power’ has always been a central concept in the study of international
relations, and in the changed world of the post-Cold War order, the
conceptualization of power has become a predominant source of debate in
contemporary literature and the media alike. The European Union – a sui
generis actor – has gradually evolved into an international player, marked
most plainly by the incorporation of a Common Foreign and Security Policy
(CFSP) into its acquis communautaire. The evolution of the EU as an
international actor is paramount to re-conceptualizing ‘power’ in the 21st
century, as the European Union’s understanding of power and the means with
which it projects it are argued to be different to traditional power definitions
and methods of projection. Conceptualizations of the EU as an international
actor as civilian and normative have fed into the softening of the concept of
power. Thus, an examination of the type of power the European Union is and
the type of power it projects is conducted to determine whether the EU can be
dubbed a superpower – an analysis that runs alongside and ties into an
overall analysis of power in the 21st century. It is concluded that the European
Union is not a superpower, but rather a small power in international relations,
and that though power has been re-conceptualized, traditional, realist
definitions of power are still relevant to understanding the international
context. As a consequence of the importance of all the different
conceptualizations of power in international relations, the age of the
superpower is currently over, as not a single actor commands predominance
over all the forms of power that are needed to deal with the complexities of
the 21st century.
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Table of Contents:______________________________
Introduction.....................................................................................................4
Chapter 1: The European Union – ‘Hard’ or ‘Soft’ Power?.......................17
A Spectrum For Power.........................................................................18
‘Coercive Power: Military Instruments..................................................19
‘Inducement’: Economic Instruments...................................................21
‘Agenda-setter’: Diplomatic Instruments..............................................23
‘Attractive Power’: Soft Power Instruments..........................................25
‘Hard’ or ‘Soft’ Power?.........................................................................27
Chapter 2: Defining the European Union....................................................29
Military Power.......................................................................................29
Civilian Power......................................................................................33
Normative Power..................................................................................36
So What is It?.......................................................................................40
Chapter 3: The European Union Superpower? .........................................42
Rationale for the EU’s ‘Superpowerness’............................................43
Really a Superpower?..........................................................................48
Concluding Remarks....................................................................................56
Conclusion...........................................................................................58
Bibliography..................................................................................................61
Appendices....................................................................................................69
Appendix A: Interview Information Sheet.............................................69
Appendix B: Michael H. Smith Semi-Structured Interview...................71
Appendix D: Lee Miles and David J. Allen Semi-Structured Interview.73
Appendix E: Consent Form..................................................................74
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Introduction
About thirty years ago Hedley Bull argued that “‘Europe’ is not an actor in
international affairs and does not seem likely to become one.” 1 Thirty years
on, and there has been an unprecedented amount of change in the
international arena, from the end of the Cold War to the rise of new threats
like terrorism and global warming. In this arena the European Union has
become a player in world politics, tackling global affairs not only via its
Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), but also through other means
ranging from economic to its power to attract. In today’s world, Bull’s
statement simply does not stand. The European Union is widely involved in
the world arena and has consistently been increasing its capabilities to act as
a global actor to the extent that the European Union can today be deemed an
international power. This emergence has resulted in a debate over whether
the EU can be dubbed a ‘superpower’ of the 21 st century, which falls into the
wider context of the debate over the re-conceptualization of power in the field
of international relations.
‘Power’ is one of the most central concepts in the study of international
politics. Kenneth Waltz defines power as the ability of a state to influence the
behavior of other states whilst remaining uninfluenced by those states,2 whilst
Joseph Nye defines it as, “the ability to influence the behavior of others to get
1
Hedley Bull, "Civilian Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?," Journal of Common Market
Studies 21, no. 2 (December 1982): pg. 151, accessed November 30, 2011,
doi:10.1111/j.1468-5965.1982.tb00866.x.
2
Waltz in; John McCormick, The European Superpower (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2007), pg. 12.
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the outcomes one wants.”3 Traditionally, power is understood in a realist
framework; the international arena perceived as anarchic, and power relying
predominantly
on
force.
This
conceptualization
identifies
power
as
synonymous with military capability, and rests on three assumptions: power
arises from the ability to wage war, that it is coercive, and that power is
monopolized by states. 4 These assumptions lie at the heart of neoconservative and triumphalist thinking, 5 two schools of thought that assert that
the United States is a hegemonic power due to its superior military arsenal
and ability to project military power in the world. 6 Richard Haass, for example,
observes that it is obvious that “the United States has the greatest
concentration of military power by an order of magnitude,” 7 and David Allen
argues that the US has emerged as an unmatched ‘hyperpower’. 8 Due to the
US’s military capability – capability the EU does not parallel – this school of
thought suggests that the previous bi-polar order has been replaced by a
unipolar arena, where America is the world’s ‘lone superpower’. 9 Essentially it
argues that military power is what makes a superpower, and as such the EU
3
Joseph S. Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public
Affairs, 2004), pg. 2.
4
McCormick, pg. 12-15, 59.
5
Neo-conservatism in today’s world can be defined as ‘idealistic hawkishness,’ a foreign
policy based on American exceptionalism and the use of superior US military arsenal to
achieve US foreign policy aims. Recently, it tends to be associated with George W. Bush’s
policy, during his time as president, for example his ‘war on terror’. (Rupert Cornwell, "The Big
Question: What Is Neo-conservatism, and How Influential Is It Today?," The Independent,
September 12, 2006, accessed February 23, 2012,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-big-question-what-isneoconservatism-and-how-influential-is-it-today-415637.html.) Triumphalists hail that the US
has emerged as the world’s sole superpower with its triumph over the USSR in the Cold War.
6
David P. Calleo, "Power, Wealth and Wisdom: The United States and Europe after Iraq,"
AllBusiness.com: The National Interest, July 1, 2003, accessed November 15, 2011,
http://www.allbusiness.com/government/3584089-1.html.
7
Richard N. Haass, "The Politics of Power: New Forces and New Challenges," Harvard
International Review 27, no. 2 (Summer 2005): accessed November 13, 2011,
http://hir.harvard.edu/defining-power/the-politics-of-power.
8
"Dissertation Interview with David J. Allen," interview by author, March 02, 2012.
9
McCormick, pg. 1; Samuel P. Huntington, "The Lonely Superpower," Foreign Affairs 78, no.
2 (March/April 1999): pg. 35, accessed February 19, 2012, Business Source Complete.
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is a marginal actor in world politics due to what Robert Kagan calls the ‘power
gap’ between American and EU military capability.
10
This conventional view
results in the perception of a world where “the United States does the cooking
and the European Union does the dishes” 11 and, where power is equated with
Washington. 12
However, Nye argues that power cannot be studied without understanding its
context; without understanding “what game you are playing”. 13 During the
Cold War the world was divided into a coherent bipolar order where power
was measured in military terms.14 However, with the collapse of the Soviet
Union, and the events of the early 2000s, perceptions of the world order and
the actors within them have changed. Jeremy Rifkin, for example, argues that
we now live in a “borderless world of relationships and flows where everyone
is increasingly connected… and dependent on one another.” 15 Similarly, John
McCormick and Haass both note the decline of the importance of the nationstate.16 Globalization – “those developments that are increasing the pace and
extent of interaction among nations, societies, and peoples and of the speed
with which information can be transmitted and processed” 17 – and
10
T. R. Reid, The United States of Europe: The Superpower Nobody Talks About - From the
Euro to Eurovision (New York: Penguin, 2005), pg. 186; Robert Kagan, Of Paradise and
Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (New York: Vintage Books, 2004), pg.
12-27.
11
Andrew Moravcsik and Fraser Cameron, "Debate: Should the European Union Be Able to
Do Everything That NATO Can?," NATO Review, Autumn 2003, accessed November 15,
2011, http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2003/issue3/english/debate.html.
12
Niall Ferguson, "What Is Power?," Hoover Digest 2003, no. 2 (April 30, 2003), accessed
November 27, 2011, http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/7682.
13
Nye, pg. 2-4.
14
McCormick, pg. 10.
15
Jeremy Rifkin, The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly
Eclipsing the American Dream (Cambridge: Polity, 2004), pg. 23.
16
McCormick, pg. 11; Haass, “The Politics of Power.”
17
Robert E. Hunter, "Europe's Leverage," The Washington Quarterly 27, no. 1 (Winter 200304): pg. 93, accessed November 27, 2011, doi:10.1162/016366003322596945.
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interdependence, now characterize the world arena. Thus, in the 1990s,
Hanns Maull, argued that the focus of international relations had shifted from
the military-political realm to the economic and social.
18
Though many current
authors do emphasize the importance of particularly the economic sphere –
Leslie Gelb for example argues that, “GDP now matters more than force” 19 –
security has arisen back onto the agenda since 9/11. Both Mario Telò and
Michael H. Smith, note that 2001 saw the importance of security and war
restored to the international agenda.20 Albeit, the nature of security has
changed, and, as Karen Smith argues, security can no longer be equated
solely with military security.
21
Many of today’s security threats are nonmilitary
– poverty, natural disasters, spread of disease, international crime, terrorism,
arms proliferation, global warming – and thus require nonmilitary solutions.
22
Nuclear weapons also serve as an equalizer amongst nation-states, due to
the prospect of mutually assured destruction, rendering industrial war useless
as a deciding event. 23 Consequently, some authors argue that the utility of
force in international relations is diminishing, an implication explored further in
18
Hanns W. Maull, "Germany and Japan: The New Civilian Powers," Foreign Affairs 69, no. 5
(Winter 1990/1991): pg. 92, accessed February 19, 2012, Business Source Complete.
19
Leslie H. Gelb, "GDP Now Matters More Than Force," Foreign Affairs 89, no. 6
(November/December 2009): pg. undisclosed, accessed January 3, 2012, Business Source
Complete. (NB! Page numbers are unknown due to the HTLM format of the journal article
online)
20
Mario Telò, Europe, A Civilian Power?: European Union, Global Governance, World Order
(Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pg. 6, 58; "Dissertation
Interview with Michael H. Smith," interview by author, November 28, 2011.
21
Karen E. Smith, "The End of Civilian Power EU: A Welcome Demise or Cause for
Concern?," International Spectator 35, no. 2 (2000): pg. 21, accessed November 15, 2011,
doi:10.1080/03932720008458123.
22
McCormick, pg. 14; Hunter, pg. 96
23
Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (London: Penguin,
2006), pg. 2.
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chapter 2.24 Thus far, the 21st century has been marked by significant
changes to the features of the world arena.
Alongside these changes in the international arena, the EU itself has evolved.
The EU is a difficult entity to define. It is not a state, nor an international
organization, and this analysis will operate on the premise that the EU is, as
defined by many, a sui generis actor in international relations.
25
Since its
conception, the EU has evolved from a coal-and-steel trade agreement to a
‘community’; an arrangement where member states have surrendered much
of their sovereignty to what T.R. Reid calls a ‘transcontinental government’
characterized by member state collaboration and supranationality. 26 Rifkin
notes that the 1992 Maastricht Treaty signaled to the world that in the postCold War order the EU was to be more than just a common economic
market.27 Similarly, Fabian Krohn notes that the CFSP asserted the EU’s
intent to characterize itself as a global actor and “due to its significant
presence in nearly all international matters…it can clearly be considered as a
power on the international stage.”28 Though failures in the Balkans depicted
EU foreign policy in its early years, member states have consistently sought to
develop an external identity for the EU, by enhancing this identity with each
24
For example McCormick argues that, “ the post-modern international system emphasizes
markets, trade and technology, all about together in a new system of interdependence in
which force has lost much of its utility, and may even be counterproductive.” (McCormick, pg.
10)
25
For example both Richard Whitman and Neill Nugent define the EU as sui generis. (Richard
G. Whitman, From Civilian Power to Superpower?: The International Identity of the European
Union (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan Press, 1998), pg. 234; Neill Nugent,
The Government and Politics of the European Union, 7th ed. (Basingstoke, Hampshire:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pg. 420.)
26
Reid, pg. 2; Telò, pg. 1.
27
Rifkin, pg. 206.
28
Fabian Krohn, "What Kind of Power? The EU as an International Actor," AtlanticCommunity.org, October 9, 2009, pg. 3, 5, accessed November 27, 2011, http://www.atlanticcommunity.org/app/webroot/files/articlepdf/Fabian%20Krohn.pdf.
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new treaty; the latest being the Lisbon Treaty, which Anthony Gardner and
Stuart Eizenstat argue enhances the EU’s ability to tackle global affairs. 29
Hunter concurs arguing that the internal developments of the EU have
“preserved its inherent importance on the world stage”. 30 Reid and Stephen
Haseler argue that US actions in response to 9/11 and its war on Iraq, only
spurred the political will of Brussels to assert its external role.
31
In the post-
Cold War world the EU has evidently sought to develop itself as an
international power.
So what is the implication of these changes? Nye argues that, “the real issue
[is] how power is changing in world politics.” 32 Similarly McCormick contends
that traditional assumptions of power must be revisited and evaluated in the
context of the changed international arena. He argues that rising
interdependence and globalization undermine the traditional notion of power
by reducing the importance of borders and the power of states, bringing with it
more intricate global challenges. He further maintains that ‘latent’ and
‘unconscious’ forms of power are just as important as ‘visible’ and ‘deliberate’
power to understanding the contemporary world arena.
33
Similarly, Mark
Leonard contends that, “to understand the shape of the twenty-first century,
we need a revolution in the way we think about power.” 34 These drastic
29
Anthony L. Gardner and Stuart E. Eizenstat, "New Treaty, New Influence?," Foreign Affairs
89, no. 2 (March/April 2010): pg. undisclosed, accessed January 3, 2012, Business Source
Complete. (NB! Page numbers are unknown due to the HTLM format of the journal article
online).
30
Hunter, pg. 92.
31
Reid, pg. 10, 24; Stephen Haseler, Super-State: The New Europe and Its Challenge to
America (London: I. B. Tauris, 2004), pg. 170.
32
Joseph Nye, quote from: Smith K., "The End of Civilian Power EU”, pg. 11.
33
McCormick, pg. 4-6, 10-11.
34
Mark Leonard, Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century (London: Fourth Estate, 2005), pg. 3.
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changes in the world arena clearly denote the need there has been to reconceptualize power.
Thus, against the conventional analysis of the world arena, another school of
literature has emerged, assessing the EU’s role in the international sphere.
Debate on whether the EU is a ‘superpower’ is polarized. On the one hand,
there are the conventional thinkers, for example Kagan, who think of the EU
as a marginal actor, as has been pointed out. They are paired with a highly
skeptical media, who repeatedly point out the weaknesses of the EU, 35 and
with scholars who note that though the EU plays part in some aspects of
global affairs, it can by no means be considered a ‘superpower’. For example,
Michael Smith points out that though the EU challenges US leadership in
areas of global governance, notably in environmental issues and development
aid, the EU cannot be called a ‘superpower’. 36 Alternately, Jan Zielonka
argues that “disguise, ambiguity, and a general unwillingness to make bold
choices have been permanent features of European foreign policy,” 37 noting
the strain between the parts and the whole of the union. In the middle of the
debate, there are scholars who characterize the EU as a distinct type of
power, adept in providing a certain kind of influence. Karen Smith, for
example, holds that the EU is a ‘civilian power’ – a concept further explored in
Chapter 2 – arguing that the EU’s military capacity undermines its power to
act in the international arena, as the EU has more capacity to act in a ‘civilian’
35
Leonard, pg. 4.
"Dissertation Interview with Michael H. Smith."
37
Jan Zielonka, "Introduction: Constraints, Opportunities and Choices in European Foreign
Policy," ed. Jan Zielonka, in Paradoxes of European Foreign Policy (The Hague: Kluwer Law
International, 1998), pg. 1.
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36
manner.
38
Similarly, Andrew Moravcsik asserts that “European defense
schemes distract Europe from its true comparative advantage in world politics:
the cultivation of civilian and quasi-military power.”39 Alternatively, Ian
Manners conceptualizes the EU as a ‘normative power’, able to define
international norms, thus projecting power via the promotion of its values and
principles.40 Finally there is the school of thought that sparked this analysis;
that asserts that the EU is a bona fide ‘superpower’. This school of thought
rests largely on the re-conceptualization of power; notably, Nye’s concept of
‘soft power’ i.e. “getting others to want the outcomes you want,” 41 without the
use of coercive means. McCormick, in his book The European Superpower,
argues that, “in this new post-modern environment, the qualities cultivated
and projected by the European Union have made it a new breed of
superpower.”42 Similarly, Reid, in The United States of Europe: The
Superpower Nobody Talks About, asserts that the EU is a second superpower
equal to the US.43 Rifkin discusses how the European dream is eclipsing the
American one, as Europe’s approach to the world is better suited to the postCold War order.44 In Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century, Leonard argues
that the 21st century will be a European century because “the European way
of doing things will have become the world’s.” 45 It is not only scholars who
argue for a European superpower. Romano Prodi, former head of the
38
Smith K., “The End of Civilian Power EU”, pg. 27.
Andrew Moravcsik, "How Europe Can Win Without an Army," Financial Times, April 2,
2003, accessed November 27, 2011, http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/node/3029.
40
Ian Manners, "Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?," Journal of Common
Market Studies 40, no. 2 (December 16, 2002): pg. 238, accessed November 27, 2011,
doi:10.1111/1468-5965.00353.
41
Nye, pg. 5.
42
McCormick, pg. 2.
43
Reid, pg. 228.
44
Rifkin, pg. 92.
45
Leonard, pg. 143.
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39
European Commission, stated that the EU’s goal is to develop “a superpower
on the European continent that stands equal to the United States.” 46 Tony
Blair similarly maintains that, in regards to the EU, “we are building a new
world superpower.”47 Clearly, literature on the EU’s role in the world is
extremely divided.
As such, this analysis sets out to explore whether the EU can be deemed a
superpower of the 21st century. Thus far, this introduction, in setting the
context of the debate both in the world arena and the relevant literature, has
shown how answering this question links to the wider understanding of power.
This paper uses a qualitative case-study approach to analyze the question at
hand. Essentially, the main question posed – is the EU a superpower – serves
as an appropriate case study for re-conceptualizing power. This is because
the EU’s understanding of power and many of the means with which it
projects it are argued to be different to traditional power definitions and
methods of projection. The qualitative approach is often criticized for being
subjective, but it should be made clear that “qualitative methods…should not
be seen as mere description. Though numerical procedures are not
essentially involved, logical testing and argument are just as important…as in
more quantitative disciplines.” 48 Case studies are criticized similarly for their
subjectivity. However, in this case, a case-study method allows for detailed,
in-depth analysis.
46
Prodi, quote from: "Divide and Rule? The United States Has Unfamiliar Doubts About the
Merit of European Integration," The Economist, April 24, 2003, accessed February 12, 2012,
http://www.economist.com/node/1731000.
47
Blair in; Reid, pg. 4.
48
Peter Burnham et al., Research Methods in Politics, 2nd ed. (Basingstoke, Hampshire:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pg. 24.
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Furthermore, this study is based upon the assumption that in the study of
social sciences “all understanding takes place in a conceptual framework”49,
recognizing the importance of the relationship between empirical evidence
and theory. As such, ‘power’ serves as the conceptual framework within this
study and its different conceptualizations are used to examine the case study
of the EU and to answer the research question. The different theories about
power – namely Nye’s ‘soft power’ conceptualization and the various ways the
EU has been defined as a power – are taken as both ‘ordering-frameworks’,
supplying background assumptions, and as ‘conceptualizations’ i.e. distinct
ways
of
perceiving
the
world. 50
The
different
theories
provide
a
“methodological position”51 for the research. On this note, it is vital that a
significant background assumption is distinguished before embarking into
further analysis: the construction of Europe as a collective. This analysis does
not have the scope to analyze the ‘parts’ of the EU, for example differing
positions of member states or institutions, and as such the EU is analyzed as
a unified power, though the limitations of this construction are distinguished in
chapter 3.
This approach has sought to answer the research question at hand via the
use of both primary and secondary sources. Secondary sources provide both
the theory, and the evidence for scrutinizing concepts. A wide-range of
secondary sources has been used, from news articles to theoretical books, to
49
Burnham et al., pg. 3.
Andrew Sayer, Method in Social Science: A Realist Approach (London: Routledge, 1992),
pg. 50.
51
Burnham et al., pg. 4.
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50
address a key limitation of this study: subjectivity. The conceptualization that
one person regards as true, affects the way in which they would answer the
research question: a neo-conservative, by way of example, would never argue
that the EU is a superpower. Thus, to develop a convincing stance, it is crucial
to examine multiple viewpoints, both in popular and academic literature.
Primary sources, such as European Union publications and treaties are used
to support arguments. Furthermore, interviews, with the required ethical
considerations,52 have been conducted to address the issue of the lack of
sources addressing current events like the so-called Arab Spring and the
financial crisis. Three semi-structured interviews with academics were
conducted, with a change between the first and last two interviews in the
interview structure and questions to enhance the effectiveness of the
interview.53 As the world is constantly changing academics cannot respond
with publications quickly enough to provide perfectly contemporary analysis.
Therefore, interviews with academics attempt to address this limitation.
However, it should be noted that as only a select few interviews have been
conducted, they will not be the focal point of this study, but are used simply to
add color to the analysis. By considering an extensive amount of sources, the
issues of accuracy, reliability and bias are thus addressed as best possible.
It follows from the above that, to answer the research question this
dissertation has been structured into three chapters. Chapter 1 analyzes the
instruments with which the EU projects power. Franck Petiteville notes, that
“European foreign policy analysis must clearly go beyond the study of
52
See Appendix D: Consent Form.
See difference between Appendix B and Appendix C.
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53
traditional diplomatic and military tools.”54 As such, to analyze the EU’s
instruments a conceptual framework developed by Nye is utilized: a spectrum,
ranging from ‘hard’ to ‘soft’ power. It is used to examine the types of power
the EU projects holistically, incorporating the ‘power of attraction’ as an
instrument, distinguishing the various ways in which an actor can influence
international relations. Furthermore, this chapter establishes the concept of
‘soft power’, a key re-conceptualization of power in the 21 st century, and it
demonstrates that the EU does in fact project power into the international
arena. Chapter 2 examines the various ways the EU has been defined to
determine what type of power the EU is. This chapter uses ‘ideal types’, for
example ‘military power’, as a point of comparison to establish a definition for
the EU. Two of these conceptualizations - ‘civilian’ and ‘normative power’ –
relate to Nye’s ‘soft power’ concept, and as such chapter 1 is crucial for
setting the scene for chapter 2. The final chapter returns to the main question,
building on the foundations developed in the preceding chapters. In light of
the definitions and instruments that have been explored, it attempts to
determine if the type of power the EU is and the type of power it projects, are
sufficient to dubbing the EU a ‘superpower’. External events, like the decline
of the US and the financial crisis, are also incorporated into this chapter to
analyze the EU’s power status. The concluding chapter will not only
summarize the arguments, but will also attempt to examine the implications of
the analysis for the wider world. The aim being to understand where power
lies in the 21st century. Arguments from both sides of the literature on the
54
Franck Petiteville, "Exporting 'values'? EU External Co-operation as a 'Soft Diplomacy'" in
Understanding the European Union's External Relations, ed. Michele Knodt and Sebastiaan
Princen (London: Routledge, 2003), pg. 127.
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topic are considered to conclude and answer the question: is the European
Union a superpower?
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Chapter 1: The European Union – ‘Hard’ or ‘Soft’
Power?
How do actors project power? Already, it has been observed that traditionally
power is seen to stem from military prowess: the ability to use force. In fact,
power is often equated with the resources an actor possesses. 55 However,
having concrete power resources – raw materials, population, territory,
economic strength or military force – does not necessarily translate into
‘power’ i.e. the ability to attain the outcome one wants. Joseph Nye’s ‘soft
power’ concept is one of the most prominent re-conceptualizations of power,
arguing that power is not always tangible, concrete or quantifiable, but can
also stem from attraction. 56
The intent of this chapter is to examine the
European Union’s instruments in light of this conceptualization. Instruments
being the “means used by policy-makers in their attempts to get other
international actors to do what they would not otherwise do” 57; the means by
which an actor projects power. The first part of the chapter outlines Nye’s reconceptualization, introducing a spectrum for power, denoting the various
ways in which actors can project influence. This spectrum then serves as the
structuring framework for the rest of the chapter that examines the EU’s
power resources and attempts to determine where the EU lies on the
spectrum.
55
Ferguson.
Nye, pg. 3.
57
Karen E. Smith, "The Instruments of European Union Foreign Policy," in Paradoxes of
European Foreign Policy, ed. Jan Zielonka (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1998), pg.
68.
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56
A Spectrum for Power
Karen Smith outlines six means with which an actor can influence other
actors: use of persuasion, offering rewards, granting rewards, threatening
punishment, administering non-violent punishment or using force.58 Her
definition of foreign policy instruments is based on traditional tools, thus
limited to a conventional understanding of power. As such, incorporating
Nye’s ‘soft power’ concept is intended to provide a more holistic analysis of
Brussels’ instruments, as many of the EU’s foreign policy instruments go
unacknowledged.59 Nye has re-conceptualized power on a spectrum ranging
from ‘command’ behavior to ‘co-optive’ behavior (figure 1), dividing power into
‘hard’ and ‘soft’.
Figure 1: Nye’s Power Spectrum
Source: Joseph S. Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2004),
pg. 7.
58
Smith, K. “The Instruments of European Foreign Policy,” pg. 68.
Stephan Leibfried, "Neither Superpower nor Superdwarf," The Atlantic Times (Berlin), May
2009, accessed November 27, 2011, http://www.atlantictimes.com/archive_detail.php?recordID=1753.
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59
‘Hard power’ is derived from military and economic strength, and is typified by
the use of ‘carrots’ (inducements) and/or ‘sticks’ (threats).60 Traditional state
tools, from using force to bribes, as outlined by Smith above, characterize
‘hard power’. ‘Soft power’, on the other hand, is ‘attractive’ and ‘co-optive’
power, “getting others to want the outcomes you want.” 61 An actor’s power
can depend on its ability to lead by example. If other actors adhere to its
aspirations the need to use inducements or threats is eliminated. Soft power
can derive from a country’s culture and political values: “when a country’s
culture includes universal values and its policies promote values and interests
that others share, it increases the probability of obtaining its desired outcomes
because of the relationships of attraction and duty that it creates.” 62 Foreign
policy is another prominent source of soft power, but perceived hypocrisy,
aggressiveness or arrogance of a country’s foreign policy can diminish its soft
power. ‘Hard’ and ‘soft power’ lie on opposite ends of the spectrum, denoting
that the two do not depend on one another. In fact, hard power, like the use of
military force, can undermine an actor’s soft power, and concrete resources
may produce more influence if used for attractive purposes like foreign aid.
63
The following sections utilize the spectrum outlined above to demonstrate the
instruments at the EU’s disposal.
‘Coercive Power’: Military Instruments
When the EU member states’ military capabilities are added up, it appears a
significant military power. France and Britain have nuclear capability, and the
60
Nye, pg. 5, 7.
Ibid., pg. 5.
62
Ibid., pg. 11.
63
Ibid., pg. 9-14.
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61
collective defense expenditure of the member states ranks second in the
world.
64
However, the EU’s military capabilities are not equivalent to the
pooled sources of its member states. It was not until the 1990s proved not to
be the ‘hour of Europe’, with the EU clearly powerless to resolve conflicts in
the Balkans, that the need for EU military capacity became apparent. 65 The
1997 Amsterdam Treaty saw the incorporation of the Petersberg tasks into
the EU’s treaty basis, and was followed by a Franco-British declaration in St.
Malo, announcing that, “the Union must have the capacity for autonomous
action, backed up by credible military forces.”66 The Helsinki Headline Goal
(1999) put ‘meat on the EU’s bones’ by introducing the objective of a 60,000
strong European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF) to be created by 2003. This
goal was replaced in 2004 by the 2010 Headline Goal, which saw the
development of smaller ‘battle groups’ to complement the ERRF concept.
67
Thus, technically, the EU has become a military actor, with coercive power
instruments. However, “military instruments range from the actual use of force
to compel or deter an enemy to… ensuring defense of the national territory
against military invasion.” 68 The EU’s military instruments are not used for
these ends. EU forces are authorized to perform Petersberg Tasks;
humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping, and crisis management
64
Nugent, pg. 377; "EU and US Government Defense Spending," European Defense Agency,
January 25, 2012, accessed February 27, 2012, http://www.eda.europa.eu/News/12-0125/EU_and_US_government_Defence_spending.
65
Luxembourg’s foreign minister Jacques Poos announced, “This is the hour of Europe, not
of the United States”, when conflict in Eastern Europe broke out in the aftermath of the Cold
War. However, both in Yugoslavia and Kosovo, the EU was forced to rely on the United
States to resolve the crises (McCormick, pg. 47; Trevor C. Salmon and Alistair J. K.
Shepherd, Toward a European Army: A Military Power in the Making? (Boulder: Lynne
Rienner Publishers, 2003), pg. 2.)
66
"Joint Declaration on European Defence" (Joint Declaration Issued at the British-French
Summit, Saint-Malo, 3-4 December 1998), accessed February 20, 2012,
http://www.cvce.eu/viewer/-/content/f3cd16fb-fc37-4d52-936f-c8e9bc80f24f/en.
67
Haseler, pg. 174; Nugent, pg. 382.
68
Smith, K. “The Instruments of European Foreign Policy,” pg. 68.
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including peacemaking.
69
The EU’s first military operation was launched to
Macedonia (2003), symbolically taking over NATO troops, to prevent the
implosion of ethnic tensions, and thus far Brussels has operated six military
missions.70 Crisis conflict resolution is the focal point of the Common Security
and Defense Policy (CSDP) and EU member states have thus far provided 80
percent of peacekeeping forces for conflict prevention worldwide. 71 Asle Toje
notes that, “when the list of EU missions is examined in detail, however, it is
apparent that the EU favors small-scale, low-intensity pre- and post-crisis
management operations.”72 Therefore, the operations Brussels performs can
only be characterized as ‘quasi-military’73, since military forces are not used
(or have the capacity to be used) for full-scale operations like those of
America.
‘Inducement’: Economic Instruments
In the international economic sphere the EU is a force to be reckoned with. An
essentially economic entity from the start, the EU now stands as a united
body in the global trading system, capable of wielding its uniform trade policy
instruments to exert influence in the world. Its economic clout springs from; its
internal policy that compels member states to act in unison, being the world’s
69
Western European Union, Council of Ministers, Petersberg Declaration (Bonn, 19 June
1992), pg. 6, accessed February 28, 2012, http://www.weu.int/documents/920619peten.pdf.
70
McCormick, pg. 75; The EU has operated the following missions: “replacing NATO
peacekeepers in Macedonia in 2003 and in Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2004; assisting the
UN in stabilizing the Democratic Republic of Congo and in supervising elections there in 2003
and 2006; assisting the African Union in addressing the crisis in Darfur in 2005 and 2006;
protecting Darfure refugees and UN personnel in Chad in 2008 and 2009; and most recently,
providing significant naval support to the UN in protecting food aid and vulnerable vessels
from piracy off the Somali coast.” (Gardner and Eizenstat, pg. undisclosed)
71
Rifkin, pg. 303.
72
Asle Toje, "The European Union as a Small Power," Journal of Common Market Studies
49, no. 1 (2011): pg. 51, accessed February 20, 2012, doi:10.1111/j.14685965.2010.02128.x.
73
Reid, pg. 183.
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largest capitalist marketplace, accounting for 24 percent of the world’s GDP
and approximately one-fifth of world exports and imports, and the reliance of
particularly its neighbors’ on its market.
74
As such, trade agreements (which
the EU has with nearly every nation-state) and embargoes serve as powerful
instruments.75 Agreements range in magnitude from basic trade agreements,
to association agreements, which “include highly preferential access to EU
markets, the prospect of a free trade area…economic and technical
cooperation…financial aid…political dialogue, and – in some cases – the
prospect of [membership].”76 Development aid is another vital source of
Brussels’ power, and member states provide 45 percent of international aid,
with the EU providing another 10 percent.
77
Brussels uses its economic
instruments to spread democratic reform and human rights; conditionality
being an integral aspect of aid and trade agreements. 78 Unlike Washington,
Brussels does not strictly tie aid to strategic targets, but uses it largely to
promote values.79 Sanctions and restrictive measures have been used as
instruments “which seek to bring about a change in activities or policies such
as violations of international law or human rights, or policies that do not
respect the rule of law or democratic principles.”80 However, the EU often
finds it difficult to employ negative conditionality, not only because member
74
McCormick, pg. 84; Nugent, pg. 371-372; The Common External Tariff (CET) and
Common Commercial Policy (CCP) internally unite the EU.
75
Smith, K., “The Instruments of European Foreign Policy,” pg. 72-73; Nugent, pg. 373.
76
Nugent, pg. 373-374.
77
Ibid., pg. 393.
78
Smith, K., “The Instruments of European Foreign Policy,” pg. 73.
79
Sergio Fabbrini and Daniela Sicurelli, EU and US Development and Security Policies - How
Compound Polities React to External and Internal Challenges, NORFACE - New
Opportunities for Research Funding Agency Co-operation in Europe, Paper Prepared for the
Conference on The New Transatlantic Agenda: Identity, Discourse and Partnership Dublin
European Institute at University College Dublin, Ireland 30-31 August 2007, pg. 10-11,
accessed December 6, 2011, http://www.norface.org/files/s1-sicurelli.
80
European Union Commission, "Sanctions or Restrictive Measures," European Union
External Action, Spring 2008, accessed February 17, 2012,
http://eeas.europa.eu/cfsp/sanctions/index_en.htm.
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states find it difficult to agree to impose a hard position, but also due to the EU
questioning the merits of negative measures. 81 Additionally, the EU exercises
less explicit power via the spread of its industrial standards, and thousands of
companies adhere to European standardization to gain access to the
European marketplace. 82 Thus, the EU has both hard ‘sticks’ and ‘carrots’
(summarized in Table 1),83 but the ‘hardness’ of their implementation is
questionable, as the EU tends to use economic power to project soft elements
like
values,
and
cautiously
approaches
the
use
of
sanctions.
‘Agenda-setter’: Diplomatic Instruments
Brussels has various diplomatic tools at its disposal (see Table 2 on the next
page).
81
The prime instruments of the CFSP are common strategies, joint
Karen E. Smith, "Still 'Civilian Power EU'?," University of Oslo, pg. 11, accessed November
15, 2011,
http://www.sv.uio.no/arena/english/research/projects/cidel/old/WorkshopOsloSecurity/Smith.p
df.
82
Leonard, pg. 54.
83
Due to word limit restrictions this section has only touched upon the most important
instruments, and included a more detailed breakdown of instruments within this table.
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actions and common positions. 84 Brussels has a multitude of partnership
agreements, from the Cotonou Agreement with the African, Caribbean and
Pacific states; to common strategies on Russia, Ukraine, and the Western
Balkans;
to
a
Mediterranean
Additionally,
Partnership.
the
Neighborhood
enhances
European
2004
European
Policy
further
existing
bi-lateral
agreements with 16 of the EU’s
nearest neighbors. 85 These unified
strategies
are
ultimately
of
an
economic nature, but once countries are in the EU’s web the EU tends to
deepen its relationship, and many of these agreements now include aspects
from environmental protection to human rights matters.
86
In international
institutions joint action is often attempted, and political policy coordination
does occur at the UN level.87 Unity in international organizations is an
effective instrument, as member states still each have one vote, as America
learned when the European states voted America off the UN Refugee Agency
(UNHCR) in 2001.88 Within international economic institutions the EU wields a
considerable amount of political clout due to its economic prowess, and, in for
example the World Trade Organization (WTO), Brussels speaks with one
84
Nugent, pg. 385.
European Commission, "The Policy: What Is the European Neighborhood Policy?,"
European Commission, October 30, 2010, accessed March 01, 2012,
http://ec.europa.eu/world/enp/policy_en.htm.
86
Krohn, pg. 7.
87
McCormick, pg. 117.
88
Rockwell A. Schnabel and Francis X. Rocca, The Next Superpower?: The Rise of Europe
and Its Challenge to the United States (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005), pg.
60.
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85
voice; that of the European Commission.
89
Demarches – usually private
messages to other governments 90 – and common positions are frequently
used and the EU issues declarations on the majority of significant world
events.91 EU membership is its most powerful instrument, influencing
significant changes in countries aspiring to be members.92 For example
Serbia – now being considered for candidacy – has made democratic reforms
and detained war criminals to meet EU demands.
93
Public diplomacy,
involving conveying information, promoting a positive image and developing
long-term relationships, are key to agenda-setting, ‘soft’ power.94 The EU
clearly has long-standing multilateral and bilateral agreements through which
it attempts to set its agenda via for example conditionality or environmental
standards. It conveys information via common positions and enhances its
image via acting multilaterally via international organizations, thus enhancing
its soft power.
‘Attractive Power’: Soft Power Instruments
Much of the EU’s soft power derives from “the view that it is a positive force
for solving global problems.”95 Firstly, the EU itself, being a symbol for peace
and prosperity, having pacified war-torn Europe, develops a positive image in
89
European Commission, "EU & WTO," European Commission, January 24, 2011, accessed
March 01, 2012, http://ec.europa.eu/trade/creating-opportunities/eu-and-wto/.
90
Smith, K., “The Instruments of European Foreign Policy,” pg. 70.
91
Nugent, pg. 385.
92
Andrew Moravcsik, "The Quiet Superpower," Newsweek, June 17, 2002, accessed October
13, 2012, http://www.princeton.edu/~amoravcs/library/quiet.pdf.
93
BBC News. "EU Leaders Set to Make Serbia Candidate." March 01, 2012. Accessed March
01, 2012. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17225415.
94
Nye, pg. 107.
95
Ibid., pg. 78.
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the world.
96
Secondly, it has adopted a unique approach to world affairs
being “the first governing institution in history to emphasize human
responsibilities to the global environment as a center-piece of its political
vision.”97 Liberal values are explicit in the acquis communautaire and
throughout Brussels’ discourse. 98 In fact, the EU and its foreign policy
objectives are founded on consolidating democracy and rule of law, respect
for human rights and fundamental freedoms. 99 Moreover, it “accede[s] to the
European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental
Freedoms”100; a charter of 50 rights underlined by six main liberties – dignity,
freedom, equality, solidarity, citizens’ rights and justice. 101 The EU promotes
these values via its enlargement policy, trade agreements and in the manner
with which it conducts itself in world affairs. For example, Brussels appears to
be a ‘force for good’, especially in comparison to Washington, 102 gaining
credibility with for example its positions on climate change, adherence to
international law and extensive development aid. The case of climate change
is exemplary: Brussels unanimously supported the Kyoto Protocol, turning the
agreement into a test of environmental responsibility – a test America failed –
increasing the relative soft power of Brussels. 103 Furthermore, largely since
Iraq, unilateralism has been increasingly criticized, and thus the EU gains
legitimacy from its propensity to act multilaterally. Also, the internal policies of
96
Nye, pg. 77.
Rifkin, pg. 325.
98
Michael E. Smith, "A Liberal Grand Strategy in a Realist World? Power, Purpose and the
EU's Changing Global Role," Journal of European Public Policy 18, no. 2 (2011): pg. 149,
accessed January 20, 2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2011.544487.
99
Reid, pg. 164.
100
European Union, "Consolidated Version of Treaty on European Union," Official Journal of
the European Union C83 (March 30, 2010): Article 6, accessed February 8, 2012, http://eurlex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2010:083:0013:0046:EN:PDF.
101
Smith, M. E., pg. 153.
102
Krohn, pg. 12.
103
Schnabel and Rocca, pg. 59.
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97
the EU member states – from homosexuals’ rights to the abolishment of the
death penalty – largely attract young people in modern democracies, more so
than US domestic policies on parallel issues.
104
Finally, Europe’s culture is an
important source of its appeal, particularly its political culture and values
outlined above. They help account for the receptivity of other actors to EU
policies, and thus the EU’s global influence.
105
‘Hard’ or ‘Soft’ Power?
When asked which type of power the EU is, David Allen quickly responded:
“soft”.106 The narrative about the EU largely is that it has always been a ‘soft
power’
107
–characterized by soft concepts like ‘civilian’ or ‘normative power’,
explored in the next chapter. The above analysis does denote that the EU
tends towards the soft power end of Nye’s spectrum. Brussels has hard power
instruments, particularly economic ones, but has a propensity not to use them
coercively, preferring to emphasize diplomacy, negotiation and multilateral
responses.108 For example, Rockwell Schnabel and Francis Rocca observe
that though the EU can impose sanctions it prefers to induce behavior rather
than coerce it.109 Furthermore, the EU’s military instruments are largely used
for softer ends. As such, even Brussels’ harder instruments tend towards to
the soft end of Nye’s spectrum. The EU is clearly an attractive power denoted
by the fact that entire states want to enter it, Turkey being probably the most
104
Nye, pg. 79-81.
Schnabel and Rocca, pg. 77.
106
"Dissertation Interview with David J. Allen."
107
"Dissertation Interview with Lee Miles," interview by author, February 29, 2012.
108
Smith, K., “The Instruments of European Foreign Policy,” pg. 67; McCormick, pg. 115.
109
Schnabel and Rocca, pg. 57.
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105
compelling example.
110
Economic incentives alone do not explain Brussels’
attractiveness, as Turkey for example has a trade agreement encompassing
most of the economic advantages of membership.
111
Nye contends that,
“political values like democracy and human rights can be powerful sources of
attraction.”112
Perhaps then Brussels’ values and a strategic culture –
emphasizing “negotiation, diplomacy, commercial ties, international law over
use of force, seduction over coercion,”113 – are the source of its soft power. So
is the EU as an actor a ‘soft power’? Lee Miles sheds light on this issue
reasoning that, “the EU is a soft stream with harder dimensions around it.”
114
The policy that the EU formulates is predominantly soft, aspiring to ends like
human rights, but the instruments and their implementation can be hard.
Similarly the treaties and discourse indicate a move towards harder
dimensions. Miles concludes that, “the EU started as a soft power, is still a
soft power at its core but wants to play hard in certain games.”
115
Thus, the
EU is a ‘soft power’ with hard edges.
110
Nye, pg. 77-78.
Schnabel and Rocca, pg. 61.
112
Nye, pg. 55.
113
Kagan, pg. 55.
114
"Dissertation Interview with Lee Miles."
115
Ibid.
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111
Chapter 2: Defining the European Union
The European Union has already been defined as a sui generis entity.
However, this chapter attempts to define the external identity of Brussels via
conceptualizing the EU as three, what in essence can be called, ‘ideal types’.
The first ideal type the EU will be compared to is ‘military power’. The crux of
this section is not to re-demonstrate that the EU is not a military power, but to
examine the utility of force in international politics. The next two ideal types
are the two ‘softer’ conceptualizations that have already been mentioned in
previous chapters: ‘normative power’ and ‘civilian power’. The purpose of this
chapter is not only to determine the type of power the EU is in world politics,
but also to express the change in the ways in which power can be
understood.
Military Power
An ‘ideal’ military power is “an actor which uses military means…relies on
coercion to influence other actors, [and] unilaterally pursues ‘military or
militarized ends.’”116 Similarly, Richard Rosecrance argues that a ‘warrior
state’ is militarized, Westphalian, coercive, interventionist and unilateralist.
117
Already it has been established that the EU tends towards soft power and
multilateralism, and is thus not a military power. Furthermore, the EU
continues still to some extent suffer from Christopher Hill’s renowned
‘capabilities-expectations gap’. Hill argued that Brussels’ foreign policy and
116
Smith, K., "Still 'Civilian Power EU'?," pg. 5.
Rosecrance (1986) in; Michael H. Smith, "Between Two Worlds? The European Union, the
United States and World Order," International Politics 41, no. 1 (March 2004): pg. 111,
accessed November 10, 2011, doi:10.1057/palgrave.ip.8800068.
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117
defense expectations were not matched by what it was capable of doing; a
‘gap’ made increasingly evident by the EU’s failures in the 1990s.
118
This gap
persists in particularly the military sphere where policy integration remains far
from the depth of monetary integration. As such, Brussels is capable of
performing only the most basic military tasks because member states’
defense resource pooling is limited, as is funding of military missions, and on
occasion mission forces have lacked capabilities to the extent that the mission
itself has been undermined.
119
Furthermore, the introduction of the smaller
and cheaper Battle Groups in the 2010 Headline Goal, hint at downgraded
military ambitions, 120 and increased military expenditure is improbable due to
public opinion (only 22 percent of whom favor a rise in military expenditure)
and the cost of maintaining the welfare state. 121 Though the EU has rapidly
militarized since the early 1990s, it is hardly a military power, and seemingly
unlikely to become one.
“However,” Krohn argues, “the role of military has changed, and in regards to
this area, the EU has developed quite remarkable capabilities.” 122 The
definition of security has expanded to include everything from human rights to
terrorism; its scope no longer limited to purely military aspects. Force still has
a role in 21st century politics, but due to the altered understanding of security,
its utility has changed. Rupert Smith argues that as war in its conventional
form no longer exists, the utility of force has become its ability to establish the
118
Hill (1993) in; Manners, “Normative Power Europe,” pg. 237.
Salmon and Shepherd, pg. 130, 204; Krohn, pg. 11; Toje, pg. 51.
120
Toje, pg. 50.
121
Schnabel and Rocca, pg. 72.
122
Krohn, pg. 11.
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119
rule of law.123 In fact, military force is no longer applied with the mentality that
the aim is to inflict maximum casualties on the enemy. Rather, forces are
deployed with the intent of protecting and promoting universal rights, and
safeguarding particular political orders instead of defending borders.
124
The
foundation for this change lies in the alteration of the social and political
acceptability of the use of force. In modern democracies, where the
leadership is accountable for its actions, fatalities must be morally justified,
and thus the acceptability of war has significantly decreased. 125 As such,
many authors argue that, “America’s conventional military primacy is
becoming its own worst enemy.”126 There is no question of America’s
dominance in military resources, but the utility of its force is limited in the face
of modern security threats and may even be a source of instability when the
US is perceived as a threat. The 2003 Iraq war has demonstrated how
conventional military successes do not necessarily translate into political
victories, and how important legitimacy is in the deployment of military force.
127
Brussels and Washington propose two contrasting roles for military power.
Their approaches to international terrorism are exemplary of these
differences: Washington has adopted a military strategy, whilst Brussels
123
Smith, R., pg. 1, 381.
Rifkin, pg. 304; Rachel A. Epstein and Alexandra Gheciu, "Beyond Territoriality: European
Security After the Cold War," in Developments in European Politics, ed. Paul M. Heywood,
Erik Jones, Martin Rhodes, and Ulrich Sedelmeier (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2006), pg. 322.
125
Nye, pg. 19.
126
Jeffrey Record, "The Limits and Temptations of America's Conventional Military Primacy,"
Survival 47, no. 1 (2005): pg. 33, accessed November 11, 2011,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00396330500061711.
127
McCormick, pg. 60; Record, pg. 46; Bruce B. De Mesquita and George W. Downs, "Why
Gun-Barrel Democracy Doesn't Work," Hoover Digest 2004, no. 2 (April 30, 2004), accessed
November 27, 2011, http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/6891.
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124
focuses on the root of terrorism by attempting to deter it by for example
attempting to enhance the stability of less economically developed states via
development aid.
128
Whilst the US tends towards Rosecrance’s ‘warrior
state’, supposedly ‘cooking the dinner’ in international politics, the EU is seen
to ‘wash the dishes’ due to its focus on crisis management, peacekeeping and
nation building.
129
However, the negative implication of this metaphor is
questionable. Washington may emphasize military solutions, but as has been
argued, this approach to world politics is increasingly controversial. As the
wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated, military power
alone has limited utility in the face of intricate socio-political problems. 130 The
EU understands the limits of offensive military action in handling the
complexities of the 21st century.131 Brussels’ version of pre-emption attempts
to develop stability via political, economic and military intervention – from
foreign aid to peacekeepers – attempting to alleviate the cause and not simply
remove the immediate threat. Though force does not comprise the heart of
the EU’s foreign policy, it is utilized alongside a multitude of tools to attempt to
enhance stability in the world. 132 Thus, Europe may be limited in its ability to
project military power and may clean America’s mess, but at least it seems to
have better understood the limitations of conventional military force in dealing
with the threats of the contemporary world arena.
128
McCormick, pg. 61, 80.
Smith, M. H., pg. 109; Reid, pg. 184.
130
Jolyon Howorth, "The EU as a Global Actor: Grand Strategy for a Global Grand Bargain?,"
Journal of Common Market Studies 48, no. 3 (2010): pg. 459, accessed February 20, 2012,
doi:10.1111/j.1468-5965.2010.02060.x.
131
Smith, M. E., pg. 148.
132
Leonard, pg. 59, 63.
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129
Civilian Power
In the 1970s François Duchêne argued that Europe’s influence should not be
exercised traditionally, but rather the European Community had more
potential to act and influence world politics as a civilian entity, due to its
economic clout paired with its limited armed forces. 133 Since then, the EU has
been frequently described as a ‘civilian power’. Maull defines civilian power as
involving: “the acceptance of the necessity of cooperation with others in the
pursuit of international objectives; the concentration on non-military, primarily
economic, means to secure national goals, with military power left as a
residual instrument serving essentially to safeguard other means of
international interaction; and a willingness to develop supranational structures
to address critical issues of international management.” 134 Similarly Karen
Smith argues that an ideal civilian power “uses civilian means for persuasion,
to pursue civilian ends.”135 She defines civilian ends as international
cooperation, strengthening the rule of law, solidarity, the spread of equality,
justice and tolerance, and protecting the global environment.
136
Thus
essentially, ‘civilian’ suggests that the actor pursues its interests in a nonmilitary manner. 137
The EU’s identity as a ‘civilian power’ is linked to its sparse military resources
and its use of soft power in the form of economic, political and diplomatic
133
Francois Duchene, "Europe's Role in World Peace," in Europe Tomorrow: Sixteen
Europeans Look Ahead, ed. Richard Mayne (London: Chatham House: PEP, 1972), pg. 47;
Francois Duchene, "The European Community and the Uncertainties of Interdependence," in
A Nation Writ Large? Foreign-policy Problems Before the European Community, ed. Max
Kohnstamm and Wolfgang Hager (London: Macmillan, 1973), pg. 20.
134
Maull, pg. 92-93.
135
Smith, K., "Still 'Civilian Power EU'?," pg. 5.
136
Ibid., pg. 3.
137
Krohn, pg. 4.
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influence.138 Telò argues that Brussels can at the least be defined as a
fledging civilian power because the EU uses largely non-military means in
conducting its foreign policy, ranging from promoting democratization and
stability via its accession policy to using its economic clout to disperse
humanitarian and development aid. Furthermore he maintains that the
European social model, the EU’s tendency to act multilaterally both regionally
and in the world, and its active role in peacekeeping, participating in far more
missions than America, enhance the notion of Europe as a civilian power.
139
The means by which the EU attempts to achieve its goals – promotion of
human rights, the spread of the rule of law, conflict prevention etc. – are
ultimately civilian; focused on non-military solutions. Krohn observes that
Brussels’ civilian identity is increasingly apparent when examining its foreign
policy: it is the largest provider of development aid, a strong proponent of
multilateral institutions and initiatives like the World Trade Organization
(WTO), the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Kyoto Protocol, and its
perseverance in campaigning against the death penalty and for a land mine
ban.140 Similarly, Michael H. Smith has defined the EU as tending towards
being a ‘trading state’, one which is essentially civilian, operating
multilaterally, and influencing the world via economics.
141
Finally – if not most
importantly – the EU sees itself as, and aims to be, a ‘civilian power’; Prodi
arguing in 2000 that, “we must aim to become a global civil power.”142
138
McCormick, pg. 33, 59.
Telò, pg. 51-57.
140
Krohn, pg. 5.
141
Smith, M. H., pg. 109.
142
Romano Prodi, "2000 - 2005 : Shaping the New Europe" (speech, European Parliament,
Strasbourg, February 15, 2000), accessed February 20, 2012,
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/00/41&format=HTML&ag
ed=1&language=EN&guiLanguage=en.
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139
The EU’s development of its military capabilities has prompted some scholars
to question whether the EU is still a civilian power. Karen Smith asserts that
the EU’s acquisition of defense capabilities means it repudiates its role as a
civilian power. To her ‘civilian power Europe’ is dead, and the EU no longer
offers an alternative approach to world politics, signaling that force is indeed
still useful and necessary.
143
However, as has already been argued, force is
still necessary in international relations and the EU has understood its
changed utility, using force to promote softer ends like crisis management.
Krohn argues that as the EU does have a hard edge, it is no longer a pure
civilian power. Nonetheless, he contends that the EU still maintains a civilian
power status as it pursues civilian ends.144 Alternately, Stelios Stavridis
argues that defense capability has allowed the EU to become a real civilian
power. He also maintains that, it is the ends not the means that define a
civilian power.
145
Thus, the EU’s defense policy, with its focus around the
Petersberg Tasks, can be interpreted as being compatible with ‘civilian power’
norms. 146
143
Smith, K., "Still 'Civilian Power EU'?," pg. 11, 12, 28; Smith K., "The End of Civilian Power
EU,” pg. 16.
144
Krohn, pg. 7-8.
145
Stelios Stavridis, ""Militarising" the EU: The Concept of Civilian Power Europe Revisited,"
The International Spectator 36, no. 4 (April 29, 2008): pg. 43, 50, accessed November 12,
2011, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03932720108456945.
146
Richard G. Whitman, "The Fall, and Rise, of Civilian Power Europe?," Paper Presented to
Conference on The European Union in International Affairs, National Europe Center,
Australian National University, 3-4 July 2002, 2004, pg. 20, 24, accessed November 15,
2011, https://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/41589.
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Normative Power
A classical Realist writer, E.H. Carr proposed that power is divided into three
fields: military, economic and power over opinion. 147 Ian Manners expands
upon the importance of this third type of power – power over opinion – and
has developed the concept of ‘normative power Europe’, examining the
‘”ideational impact of the EU’s international identity/role as representing
normative power”.148 Manners argues that, as the EU is a new type of political
form, it should be conceptualized in a manner that moves beyond the statist
analysis of military or civilian power Europe. He contends that the EU’s
‘normative power’ – its ability to shape what is normal in international politics –
needs to be highlighted, since the EU bases its dealings with its member
states and the world around universal norms and principles. 149
The EU’s normative basis is constructed into the aquis communautaire.
According to the Treaty on European Union;
“The Union is founded on the values of respect for human
dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect
for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to
minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a
society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice,
solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.”150
147
Edward Hallett Carr and Michael Cox, The Twenty Years' Crisis 1919-1939; An
Introduction to the Study of International Relations (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2001), pg. 102-120.
148
Manners, “Normative Power Europe?,” pg. 238.
149
Ibid., pg. 239-241.
150
“Consolidated Version of Treaty on European Union,” Article 2.
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Brussels promotes and upholds these values in its external relations, and in
accordance to the United Nations Charter (TEU Article 3) and the European
Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
(TEU Article 6).
151
This normative basis extends from the acquis, and is
visible throughout EU documentation, from the European Security Strategy to
the Copenhagen criteria.
152
Manners summarizes the EU’s foundations into
five core norms: peace, liberty, democracy, rule of law, and human rights,
supplemented by four minor norms: social solidarity, anti-discrimination,
sustainable development and good governance.153 Furthermore, he argues
that Europe’s history predisposes it to act in a normative manner, in that the
EU was initially constructed to strengthen peace and stability.
154
There are various ways the EU projects its normative power, related closely to
the EU’s soft power instruments. Leonard contends that the EU is a
‘transformative power’, exerting power via an ‘invisible hand’ by for example
151
“Consolidated Version of Treaty on European Union,”, Article 3, 6; Article 3 states that, “in
its relations with the wider world, the Union shall uphold and promote its values and interests
and contribute to the protection of its citizens. It shall contribute to peace, security, the
sustainable development of the Earth, solidarity and mutual respect among peoples, free and
fair trade, eradication of poverty and the protection of human rights, in particular the rights of
the child, as well as to the strict observance and the development of international law,
including respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter.”
152
European Union, Brussels, A Secure Europe in a Better World: European Security
Strategy, September 12, 2003, pg. 10, accessed February 7, 2012,
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/78367.pdf; European Commission
"Accession Criteria," Accession Criteria, October 27, 2011, accessed March 07, 2012,
http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/enlargement_process/accession_process/criteria/index_en.h
tm.
153
Manners, “Normative Power Europe?,” pg. 242-243; Ian Manners, University of Oslo,
Paper Presented at the CIDEL Workshop. Oslo 22-23 October 2004, 'From Civilian to Military
Power: the European Union at a Crossroads?' October 2004, pg. 5, accessed November 27,
2011,
http://www.sv.uio.no/arena/english/research/projects/cidel/old/WorkshopOsloSecurity/Manner
s.pdf.
154
Manners, “Normative Power Europe?,” pg. 240, 252.
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leading by example. He notes how regional integration in Latin America in the
form of Mercosur, followed the successful integration of the European
market.155 Membership is another means by which the EU promotes its
norms.156 The attractiveness of EU membership has led a multitude of
countries to conform to the Union’s values, for example prompting the
democratization and economic liberalization of Eastern Europe.
157
The EU’s
projection of normative power feeds into the notion of it being a ‘force for
good’ in world politics. In pursuing its normative values the EU has played a
crucial role in the abolition of the death penalty around the world, both raising
the issue to the international agenda, and leading to its termination in some
countries, for example Cyprus and Poland.
158
Similarly, Brussels’ role in the
establishment of the ICC furthers the notion that the EU is in fact a normative
power, as the EU pushed for the formation of an international entity that could
potentially prosecute its own citizens, acting regardless of its own interests. In
contrast, America is not a signatory of the ICC, for fear that American
personnel be prosecuted. Nevertheless, the EU’s norms have been diffused,
with over 90 signatories of the ICC being non-EU members.
159
Conditionality
in its development aid, the dialogue of the EU with third parties, and the
requirement of adhering to for example the EU’s environmental or health and
safety standards to gain access to the Single European Market, denote the
myriad of channels the EU uses to transmit its values. Finally, it is crucial to
indicate that, “paramount amongst these norm diffusion factors is the absence
155
Leonard, pg. 5. 136.
Epstein and Gheciu, pg. 328.
157
McCormick, pg. 128.
158
Manners, “Normative Power Europe?,” pg. 248-249.
159
Krohn, pg. 14.
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156
of physical force in the imposition of norms.” 160
The EU clearly has a normative basis and aims to act as a normative power in
world politics. However, as Tuomas Forsberg denotes, ‘Normative Power
Europe’ is an ‘ideal type’. He reasons that the EU has many normative
features, but merely approximates towards being a pure normative power.
161
Similarly, Krohn argues that the EU is only partially able to determine what is
normal in international relations. 162 All states are in essence ‘normative’, in
that they promote their own values. Forsberg argues that the EU’s values are
not necessarily superior and normative power can even be interpreted as a
term that is used to rationalize European cultural imperialism.
163
However,
this view is rather harsh, as the EU tends to promote values that appear in the
foundations of the UN; a multilateral institution supported by a multitude of
nation-states. Furthermore, the normative uniqueness of the EU is
demonstrated via its institutionalized emphasis on liberal values in its foreign
policy.
164
Nevertheless, discernible examples of the EU converting its
normative power into actual influence are limited largely to the death penalty,
ICC and climate change.
165
Additionally protectionist policy – notably the
Common Agricultural Policy – and the arguably undemocratic process of
foreign policy making in the EU undermine the credibility of it as a normative
power.
160
166
Therefore, “the EU can be conceptualized as a changer of norms in
Manners, “From Civilian to Military Power,” pg. 5.
Tuomas Forsberg, "Normative Power Europe, Once Again: A Conceptual Analysis of an
Ideal Type," Journal of Common Market Studies 49, no. 6 (2011): pg. 1199, accessed
January 20, 2012, doi:10.1111/j.1468-5965.2011.02194.x.
162
Krohn, pg. 14-15.
163
Forsberg, pg. 1187.
164
Manners, “Normative Power Europe?,” pg. 241.
165
Forsberg, pg. 1194.
166
Krohn, pg. 15.
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161
the international system…[and] acts to change norms in the international
system,”167 but the EU simply tends towards being a ‘normative power’.
So, What is It?
Thus far it has been concluded that the EU is a soft power with hard edges,
and the EU has been compared with three different ideal types. The above
analysis, particularly the examination of normative power, denotes the shift in
the understanding of power. Clearly power can arise from sources other than
military resources. Furthermore, it is apparent that the EU is clearly a power in
the international arena, capable of using a multitude of instruments to promote
its interests and values in world politics. However, no one conceptualization
seems to fully describe the EU as an international actor. The EU is not a
military power, but retains some military capability. It is a civilian power, but
this statist definition fails to recognize the normative power of the EU, and
normative power is an ideal type towards which the EU tends. The different
powers the EU wields are not mutually exclusive; the EU capable of acting
both strategically and normatively. 168 Krohn, concludes that Brussels is in fact
a combination of all the above concepts.
169
The EU’s foreign policy tactic
does seem to entail the use of its ‘full toolbox’ of policy instruments. 170 In
Brussels this is deemed a ‘comprehensive’ or ‘European’ approach to world
politics.171 Thus, the importance of these different conceptualizations has
been the demonstration that the EU has a unique approach to world affairs,
breaking the mould of how power is traditionally projected. Whether or not this
167
Manners, “Normative Power Europe?,” pg. 241, 252.
Smith, M. E., pg. 144-145.
169
Krohn, pg. 16.
170
Forsberg, pg. 1194.
171
Smith, M. E., pg. 148.
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168
approach to world affairs makes the EU a superpower is analyzed next.
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Chapter 3: The European Union Superpower?
Much like the concept of power, ‘superpower’ is also classically rooted in
military prowess. During WWII William T. R. Fox – to whom the concept is
attributed to – argued that, a superpower is a state that possesses military,
economic and political power, and is both capable of and willing to project this
power globally in the pursuance of global interests.
172
Similarly, the Oxford
English Dictionary defines a superpower as a state “which has the power to
act decisively in pursuit of interests which embrace the whole world.” 173 Jack
Levy adds to this arguing that military capability, self-reliance in security
issues including a readiness to protect interests aggressively are also the
main features of a superpower.
174
Part of being a superpower is also how an
actor perceives itself and how others perceive the actor. A superpower
believes it is a superpower, and is recognized by other actors as a
superpower.
175
By this definition, America alone is a superpower, with
explicit, observable and measurable power. 176 For neo-conservatives the EU
is not a power to be reckoned with due to its preference for soft, civilian and
normative power.
177
How then has this realist concept come to be associated
by some authors with the European Union?
172
William T. R. Fox in; McCormick, pg. 17-18.
Oxford English Dictionary, quote from: Schnabel and Rocca, pg. 26.
174
Jack Levy in; McCormick, pg. 17.
175
“Dissertation Interview with Lee Miles.”
176
McCormick, pg. 10.
177
Calleo.
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173
Rationale for the EU’s ‘Superpowerness’
Brussels’ economic prowess serves as the foundation of its power in the
international arena. Moravcsik maintains that, “in economic matters, there are
two superpowers,”178 and similarly Schnabel and Rocca argue that the EU is
the only economy on par with America.179 Europe’s power in the economic
realm is impossible to ignore. Leonard denotes that Brussels’ sphere of
influence – the ‘Eurosphere’ – encompasses 80 countries, equating to
approximately one third of the world’s population. These countries are tied to
the EU by for example, trade, aid or foreign investment, and are thus
‘umbilically’ linked to Europe.
180
The EU is the world’s largest trading power
with the world’s largest market, allowing it to be what Reid calls the globe’s
‘regulatory superpower’. 181 Furthermore, the euro – a political act designed to
challenge dollar hegemony – has been established as a second global
currency.182 As a consequence of its economic clout Brussels is able to
command substantial influence in international organizations, from the WTO
to the UN, and thus has leverage even over Washington. 183 The EU’s
economic prowess thus serves as a strong basis for those claiming that
Europe is a superpower.
The EU’s ‘superpowerness’ is not based upon its economic might alone. The
perceived decline of the US is a crucial node in conceptualizing the EU as a
superpower. Declinism is a school of thought arguing that American power is
178
Moravcsik, “The Quiet Superpower.”
Schnabel and Rocca, pg. 28.
180
Leonard, pg. 5, 54.
181
Reid, pg. 235.
182
Ibid., pg. 64; Krohn, pg. 6.
183
Krohn, pg. 7; Schnabel and Rocca, pg. 56.
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179
on the decline, a notion widely discussed in contemporary media. 184 During
the 1990s the decline of US power was predicted to be a result of economic
decline, due to excessive military expenditure, 185 and the current financial
crisis seems to be suggesting that the US is living beyond its means. 186
However, US declinism has much more to do with the decline of its soft
power. At a 1997 Harvard conference elites from two-thirds of the world’s
nation-states identified America as their country’s largest external threat,
viewing the US as “intrusive, interventionist, exploitative, unilateralist,
hegemonic, hypocritical, and applying double standards, engaging in what
they label ‘financial imperialism’ and ‘intellectual colonialism’ with a foreign
policy driven overwhelmingly by domestic politics.”187 Similarly in 1999 Gary
Wills warned that America had become a ‘bully of the free world’, conducing
others to follow its leadership via clandestine action, threats or sabotage
rather than coaxing them to follow. 188 These perceptions have not been
alleviated by the events of the early 2000s, namely the US ‘war on terror’ and
the invasion of Iraq, which have only furthered this decline of US soft
power.189 American militarism in the aftermath of 9/11 has undermined its
credibility as a global leader, conveying America to be an arrogant
unilateralist,190 “enlarg[ing] the ranks of those standing behind non-military
184
See for example: Michael Hirsh, "We're No. 11!," Newsweek, August 23 & 30, 2010, pg.
46-48; Kishore Mahbubani, "Fixing Uncle Sam's Image Problem," Newsweek,
December/January, 2008-2009, pg. 18-19.
185
Samuel P. Huntington, "The U.S. - Decline or Renewal?," Foreign Affairs 67, no. 2 (Winter
1988/1989): pg. 76, accessed February 19, 2012, Business Source Complete.
186
Gideon Rachman, "Is America's New Declinism for Real?," Financial Times, November 24,
2008, accessed February 10, 2012, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ddbc80d0-ba43-11dd-92c90000779fd18c.html#axzz1okMzwzwi.
187
Huntington, “The Lonely Superpower,” pg. 43.
188
Garry Wills, "Bully of the Free World," Foreign Affairs 78, no. 2 (March/April 1999): pg. 52,
accessed February 19, 2012, Business Source Complete.
189
Calleo.
190
Schnabel and Rocca, pg. 72.
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responses to international problems.” 191 Cold War and realist thinking seems
to have persisted in US policy, particularly during the Bush administration, and
Gelb argues that America is squandering its power by failing to recognize the
devaluation of the military and the rising importance of economic power. 192 As
was argued in Chapter 2, military force has lost much of its utility as a means
in world politics. Furthermore, Washington has largely undermined its liberal
reputation with aggressive policy, like human rights abuses in Gauntanamo, 193
and by breaking away from international norms via for example the rejection
of the ICC.
194
Anti-Americanism is not only an abhorrence of US foreign
policy, but also a deeper rejection of its society, culture and values.
195
McCormick argues that America is increasingly a rogue state; a result of both
its unilateralist approach, which alienates allies and enrages its enemies, and
the growing breach between America and the rest of the world in regards to
social values and norms.
196
Consequently, some scholars argue that
Europe’s relative power position is enhanced by America’s decline.
In the eyes of the ‘pro-superpower’ school of thought, the European approach
to world affairs is better suited to the current context, thus making Europe a
superpower. As has already been argued in the Introduction, the international
setting has experienced significant changes since the Cold War. The current
system can be described as ‘complex interdependence’, where all features of
191
McCormick, pg. 4-5.
Gelb, pg. undisclosed.
193
Smith, M. E., pg. 159.
194
Schnabel and Rocca, pg. 59.
195
Nye, pg. 38.
196
McCormick, pg. 27, 123.
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192
the international arena are interwoven, intermeshed and inter-related.197 In
this system, the EU-superpower scholars assert, power is no longer likened
with the military or even the state, but with the control of trade, information
and technology.198 Military power has been devalued by nuclear power, and
its lack of legitimacy in conducting foreign affairs, giving more scope to civilian
forms of influence and action,199 with non-military tools increasingly important
for tackling today’s security threats.200 Furthermore, the end of the Cold War
brought about the end of Europe’s total reliance on the US security umbrella
that had characterized the pre-1990s transatlantic relationship, meaning that
Europe could breakaway from the US and develop a more assertive
international role.201 In a world where geopolitical power is no longer simplified
to military resources, the changing context has generated a situation where
Brussels’ instruments have become increasingly valued.
202
The EU offers the polar opposite of the criticized US militarist approach to
world affairs. Kagan argues that Europeans are from Venus, whereas
Americans are from Mars, maintaining that Europe approaches the world from
a Kantian point of view, advocating diplomacy over force.
203
These diverging
perspectives of the world lead to diverging approaches to international
relations; where Washington has adopted a unilateralist and coercive
approach to world affairs, Brussels favors multilateral action and the politics of
197
Howorth, pg. 459.
McCormick, pg. 16, 113.
199
Ibid., pg. 11.
200
Hunter, pg. 106.
201
Telò, pg. 3.
202
Schnabel and Rocca, pg. 55; Whitman, “From Civilian Power,” pg. 236-237.
203
Kagan, pg. 3-4.
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198
influence.
204
The US attempts to use force to generate security, whereas
Europe contributes to security via inspiring stability via foreign aid. 205 Carr
attests that the use of economic power has always been less morally dubious
than military power.206 Consequently, the EU “has a moral advantage by
virtue of the fact that it invests less in the capacity to destroy than in the
capacity to produce.”207 Reid reasons that this creates a problem for America,
as the world seems to prefer Europe’s method, and, as it happens, rising antiAmericanism has not been paralleled by anti-Europeanism.
208
On the
contrary, Rifkin contends that Europe’s soft power is appreciating in value, as
the world is more drawn towards the ‘European Dream’. 209 Furthermore, Nye
argues, that politics is more about ‘whose story wins’, than about economic
and military power, in that credibility and reputation have become ever more
important in global politics. 210 With US credibility being undermined, a
credibility and leadership gap has developed: a gap, which the EU has started
to fill.211 Unlike America, Brussels’ power is much less visible, and as such is
not perceived to be threatening, allowing the EU to wield considerable
influence in the world.212 The two actors’ approaches to their neighboring
states is exemplary of the effectiveness of the different strategies: the US has
deployed troops over fifteen times over the past five decades with limited
results, where as the EU’s normative and soft approach has initiated regime
204
McCormick, pg. 12.
William Wallace and Jan Zielonka, "Misunderstanding Europe," Foreign Affairs 77, no. 6
(November/December 1998): pg. 72, accessed January 3, 2012, Business Source Complete.
206
Carr and Cox, pg. 119.
207
McCormick, pg. 68.
208
Reid, pg. 192-193; McCormick, pg. 9.
209
Rifkin, pg. 303.
210
Nye, pg. 106.
211
Smith, M. E., pg. 160.
212
Leonard, pg. 6.
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205
change from the Balkans to Turkey.213 Thus, Europe’s ‘superpowerness’ is
arguably derived from an approach to world affairs that plainly opposes the
US approach; an approach, McCormick argues, that is more attuned to the
‘post-modern’ world. 214
As has been demonstrated, the EU tends to act in a soft, civilian, normative,
and above all, unique manner in international relations. For those asserting
that the EU is a superpower, it is the uniqueness and the ‘correctness’ of this
approach that makes the EU a new breed of superpower. The foundation for
their argument lies in the re-conceptualization of power as arising from soft
power resources, rejecting the realist idea that power rests on hard capability.
A ‘post-modern superpower’ is one that relies not on military force, but
economic, political and diplomatic influence.
215
For them, the “age of the
military superpower is over.”216 By placing a prefix before superpower, be it
‘quiet’, ‘civilian’, ‘normative’, ‘economic’ or ‘post-modern’, this school has reconceptualized the very notion of what it means to be a superpower. Leonard
argues that we are entering a “‘New European Century’. Not because Europe
will run the world as an empire, but because the European way of doing
things will have become the world’s.” 217
Really a Superpower?
The pro-superpower school of thought is painting a rather idealistic picture of
a world where liberal values and soft power are prevailing over Cold War-style
213
Leonard, pg. 51.
McCormick, pg. 120.
215
Ibid., pg. 33, 82.
216
Ibid., pg. 31.
217
Leonard, pg. 143.
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214
power politics. The ‘Western’ or ‘Northern’ world is becoming increasingly
more like Kant’s world of perpetual peace, with war unthinkable between the
globe’s major powers.
218
However, whilst developed nations all act as from
Venus in their relations with one another, there is still a largely Hobbesian
world that exists outside the global ‘North’.
219
Globalization has hardly
affected all states evenly. 220 Consequently, it is hard to believe that all nationstates – all at different stages of development – operate according to the
same principles. Robert Cooper suggests that the world is divided into three
zones: the post-modern, modern and pre-modern. The post-modern world –
where Europe arguably exists as a superpower – is a world where borders are
increasingly irrelevant and security is based upon mutual interference,
interdependence and surveillance. The modern world is characterized by
traditional military threats between sovereign nation-states, whereas the premodern system encapsulates failed states like Somalia where chaos is the
norm.
221
Therefore, force cannot be said to have entirely lost its salience. It is
unlikely that the European or Western world of perpetual peace could survive
without the persisting American security umbrella, 222 and the deterring nuclear
and military resources of the individual European states. The legitimacy of the
use of force may have declined, but it is important at least as a deterrent to
threats from outside the post-modern world. Zielonka argues that one of the
EU’s paradoxes is that it has a unique ability to manage the challenges of the
218
Richard N. Haass, "What to Do With American Primacy," Foreign Affairs 78, no. 5
(September/October 1999): pg. 39-40, accessed January 3, 2012, Business Source
Complete.
219
Nye, pg. 20, 30.
220
Hundreds of millions of people still live under the poverty line. (Fareed Zakaria, The PostAmerican World (London: Penguin Books, 2008), pg. 3.)
221
Robert Cooper, "The New Liberal Imperialism," The Guardian, April 7, 2002, accessed
November 13, 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/apr/07/1.
222
Kagan, pg. 73.
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post-modern world, but its strength is a weakness in dealings with the prepost-modern world.223 Additionally, the Union’s preference for the use of
foreign policy carrots exposes it to allegations of appeasement and
complicity.224 In an international arena where the Kantian and Hobbesian
orders co-exist, Brussels’ approach to world politics may be the moral,
preferred or even correct approach to world politics, but it does not make the
EU a superpower.
Problems internal to the EU also indicate that the Union is not a superpower.
The EU’s capabilities are very much restrained by its institutional
limitations.225 Security issues are still largely associated with the sovereign
nation-state.226 As such, member states have been reluctant to cooperate in
the field of hard security and hence, as chapter 2 demonstrated, the military
capability of the EU remains limited. Europe does not speak with one voice,
and conflicting national interests are a major factor limiting the Union’s ability
to act effectively in the world arena. 227 Consistency is also a problem for the
EU as different actors hold different amounts of power in different policy
areas, for example the Commission is largely in charge of Europe’s external
economic relations.228 In the field of foreign policy and security, power
remains largely in the hands of the member states, which are essentially in
the Union to serve their own interests.229 Therefore, EU foreign policy action is
223
Zielonka, pg. 11.
Smith, K. “The Instruments of European Union Foreign Policy,” pg. 77.
225
Krohn pg. 7.
226
Haseler, pg. 189.
227
Richard Rosecrance, "The European Union: A New Type of International Actor," in
Paradoxes of European Foreign Policy, ed. Jan Zielonka (The Hague: Kluwer Law
International, 1998), pg. 15; Zielonka, pg. 2.
228
Smith, K. “The Instruments of European Union Foreign Policy,” pg. 68; Nugent, pg. 375.
229
Gardner and Eizenstat, pg. undisclosed; Howorth, pg. 456.
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224
often a lowest common denominator response, this self-limitation resulting
from the competing interests of the member states.
230
The larger EU member
states in particular still prefer to act through the nation-state in foreign policy
issues, failing to recognize that one their own their achievements will be
limited.231 Though the Lisbon Treaty did enhance the consistency and
coherence of Brussels as a foreign policy actor, the appointment of Catherine
Ashton to the newly created role of High Representative of the Union for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Herman van Rompuy to the role of
President of the European Council, instead of a more prominent politicians,
signaled that the member states want the high representative to be their
servant not their rival. 232 Hence, another limitation of the EU is its lack of
leadership.233 The meager budget available for EU foreign policy action and
member state reluctance to use coercive measures particularly when
commercial interests are at stake, further hinder the EU’s effectiveness as an
international actor. 234 Therefore, the EU’s power is limited by its own
institutional structure, and in foreign policy and security matters, the
capabilities-expectations gap is still very much alive, and kept so by the
member states.235 If self-perception is part of being a superpower, then the
EU can hardly be described as one, with member states clearly not seeing or
allowing Brussels to have superpower capability.
230
David Allen and Michael Smith, "Western Europe's Presence in the Contemporary
International Arena," Review of International Studies 16, no. 1 (1990): pg. 28, accessed
November 15, 2011, doi:10.1017/S0260210500112628.
231
Howorth, pg. 464.
232
Gardner and Eizenstat, pg. undisclosed
233
“Dissertation Interview with David J. Allen.”
234
Smith, K. “The Instruments of European Foreign Policy,” pg. 72, 76.
235
Smith, M. E., pg. 155.
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When asked, not one of the scholars interviewed characterized the EU as an
‘economic superpower’. ‘Great’ and ‘major’ were the prefixes typifying power,
but not super, Miles arguing that Brussels lacks the degree of hegemony that
is associated with a superpower.236 Europe is economically important and will
remain one of the great economic powers,but it is approaching demographic
decline, the euro has not become the world’s reserve currency, and though
monetary integration is pronounced, fiscal integration is lacking.237 Most
importantly, Brussels’ relative economic power will decline in coming years as
emerging powers continue to rise. Fareed Zakaria believes that “we are now
living through the third great power shift of the modern era,” 238 arguing that
this shift should be called the ‘rise of the rest’ – a group of ‘emerging markets’
not limited to Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC countries). As these
powers rise, it is probable that they will start to assert themselves
internationally more and more, and there is no guarantee that they will adopt
Europe’s norms, as they increase in their own relative power.
239
Therefore, it
cannot be assumed that Europe’s world approach will become that of the
world. This is not to suggest that these powers are or will rise to the status of
superpower, as all have their own limitations. 240 However, their rise does
show that alternate actors are becoming, if they already are not, prominent
actors in the international realm, resulting in the relative decline of the EU.
236
“Dissertation Interview with Lee Miles”; "Dissertation Interview with Michael H. Smith";
“Dissertation Interview with David J. Allen.”
237
“Dissertation Interview with Lee Miles”; "Dissertation Interview with Michael H. Smith."
238
Zakaria, pg. 2.
239
Zakaria, pg. 36.
240
McCormick, pg. 20.
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The current financial crisis cannot be excluded from this analysis. Media
reports on the collapse of the euro and consequent collapse of the entire
European Union are ever more frequent.
241
Martin Feldstein argues that the
euro is a failed experiment that has adverse economic consequences for
Europe, which undermine its monetary power in the world. The EU is suffering
from “sovereign debt crises in several European countries, the fragile
condition of major European banks, high levels of unemployment across the
eurozone, and…large trade deficits.”242 With monetary integration failing,
Feldstein professes that economic failure connotes that the aim of a politically
harmonious Europe is now far from Brussels’ grasp. 243 Though total political
and economic disintegration in the form of the EU’s collapse seems unlikely,
as the cost of even leaving the euro is politically extremely high,
244
the crisis
does potentially have critical implications for Europe’s position in the world.
Roger Altman argues that as a result of the financial crisis globalization is now
in retreat, Gareth Harding similarly arguing that borders are coming back into
practice as nations turn inwards.
245
This does not forebode well for the pro-
superpower argument that is partially based on the assumption of an
increasingly interconnected world.
Furthermore Altman argues that as
China’s relative power will rise as a result of the crisis, US-China relations will
241
See for example; "Is This Really the End?," The Economist, November 26, 2011, pg. 13.
Martin Feldstein, "The Failure of the Euro," Foreign Affairs 91, no. 1 (January/February
2012): pg. undisclosed, accessed February 19, 2012, Business Source Complete. (NB! Page
numbers are unknown due to the HTLM format of the journal article online).
243
Feldstein, pg. undisclosed.
244
Andrew Moravcsik, "In Defense of Europe," Newsweek, June 7, 2010, pg. 26.
245
Roger C. Altman, "Globalization in Retreat," Foreign Affairs 88, no. 4 (July/August 2009):
pg. undisclosed, accessed January 3, 2012, Business Source Complete. (NB! Page numbers
are unknown due to the HTLM format of the journal article online); Gareth Harding, "The Myth
of Europe," Foreign Policy, January/February 2012, accessed January 3, 2012,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/03/the_myth_of_europe.
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242
emerge as the most important bi-lateral relationship in the world, 246 potentially
reducing the importance of Europe in America’s eyes. Both Harding’s and
Altman’s analyses suggest that any chance of Europe being a superpower
has been undermined. Despite this, there are those who predict that the EU
will emerge of the out of this calamity stronger, and it remains to be seen how
both Europe and the world come out of this crisis.
247
At the outbreak of the first Gulf War Belgian foreign minister described the EU
as an economic giant, political dwarf and military worm.
248
This portrayal still
appears relevant. The EU is an economic giant, but not an economic
superpower, in a world of many economic great powers. How the EU emerges
from the current financial turmoil remains yet to be seen, but though Europe’s
monetary power is definitely being questioned, it is unlikely that Europe’s
importance as a trading power will decline.
249
Politically the EU is still largely
fragmented, Miles arguing that Brussels has arrhythmia: the EU’s heart
lacking a clear rhythm. 250 Persisting intergovernmentalism and lack of
leadership means that Brussels’ ability to act cohesively at the global level is
significantly weakened. As such the capabilities-expectations gap persists,
with a paradox between the EU’s normative power to attract and its hollow
empirical ability to do anything more than issue statements on foreign policy
events.251 If decisive action is taken as part of being a superpower, the EU is
still developing in exerting a firm and resolute international role. Finally, when
246
Altman, pg. undisclosed.
Stefan Theil, "The Euro Zone Won't Fail," Newsweek, February 15, 2010, pg. 18.
248
Leibfried.
249
“Dissertation Interview with David. J. Allen.”
250
“Dissertation Interview with Lee Miles.”
251
Zielonka, pg. 11.
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247
superpower is likened to its traditional definition of equating it with military
power, the EU is most definitely a military worm. Brussels has understood the
limitations of military power better than America, but nevertheless it still has
insubstantial military capability, as was demonstrated in chapter 2. Finally the
perception of the EU as a superpower is still largely constrained to a marginal
faction of thinkers. It is unlikely that the average citizen of any nation-state
would respond ‘the EU’ when asked who is a superpower. Though power has
been re-conceptualized in scholarly work, it seems this re-conceptualization
has yet to translate fully into the wider understanding of power in the world.
Even Europe, who McCormick suggests has fully adopted the post-modern,
liberal mindset,252 seems to maintain aspects of realism in that member states
protect their sovereignty within the EU in areas of international relations
unrelated to economics. Therefore, unless the concept of superpower is reconceptualized and ‘softened’, as done by the pro-superpower school of
thought, the EU cannot be dubbed a superpower.
252
McCormick, pg. 111.
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Concluding Remarks
Even though the EU is not a superpower, it is by no means a marginal actor in
world politics. Because Europe’s power is largely soft and invisible, it is often
confused with weakness. However, Brussels has a role in international
politics, and as has been demonstrated, can transcribe its resources into
influence. “When a country like Russia signs the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions in order to smooth relations with the European Union;
when Poland reverses decades of practice to introduce constitutional
protection for ethnic minorities to be allowed to join the EU; when an Islamist
government in Turkey abandons its own party’s proposals for a penal code
that makes adultery a crime punishable by law so as not to attract the ire of
Brussels; or a right-wing Republican administration swallows hard and asks
for the UN for help over Iraq,” 253 we can no longer neglect the EU’s presence
and influence in the world. Thus, one final conceptualization of the EU is
briefly considered in an attempt to define its role and power position: Asle
Toje’s conceptualization of the EU as a ‘small power’. This theory “is
compelling because it takes into account the EU’s need – irrespective of its
possible sui generis characteristics – to operate in a world order dominated by
Westphalian states.”254 Toje argues that the EU behaves like a ‘small power’
in that it has a propensity to internationalize issues rather than act unilaterally;
lacks military and nuclear capability; is not a member of the UN Security
Council; and acts in concert in order to impact international relations. 255
253
Leonard, pg. 5.
Toje, pg. 44.
255
Ibid., pg. 54-56.
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254
Additionally, the Union’s military capability (its Battle Groups) resembles the
military forces of a small power. Furthermore, the fact that Brussels’ power is
most visible when the EU deals with inconsequential powers, suggests that
the EU is a small power.256 Thus, the ‘small power’ conceptualization provides
a more holistic way of understanding Brussels’ rather than, for example,
civilian or normative conceptualizations, which pinpoint certain aspects of the
EU’s capability. As has been argued the EU is not a superpower in
international relations, and therefore, the concept of small power better
describes the EU as a global actor.
As said, the European Union is not a superpower. However, the term
‘superpower’ seems to be becoming irrelevant, as superiority in any one type
of power – military, economic or soft – does not appear to translate into
hegemony over the international realm. All three have been shown to be
important in international relations in their own specific ways and contexts, but
equally, they all also have their shortcomings. 257 There is no one actor that
encapsulates all three types of power, hence suggesting that there is no
current world superpower: America lacking the soft power, and the EU limited
by for example its military deficiency and political unity. The discourse since
the Cold War is that the world order has changed. However, there is still no
accurate description for the current world order, and Telò argues that we are
currently in a transitional phase where none of the proposed models of order
fully explain the current world order.
258
The system is not unipolar, with one
superpower, and neither is it multipolar where several major powers of
256
Toje, pg. 54-56.
Nye, pg. 4.
258
“Dissertation Interview with Lee Miles”; Telò, pg. 40.
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257
comparable strength compete with one another. 259 The 21st century seems to
be characterized by the lack of order, with power diffused amongst various
actors of different strength. Nye proposes that the international realm is a
three-dimensional chessboard. The top board is the military realm where the
world is unipolar, characterized by US dominance. The middle board is the
realm of economic power, where the world is largely multipolar. Finally, the
bottom board belongs to transnational relations, where power is diffused
among a horde of non-state actors facing a multiplicity of different challenges
from climate change to pandemics, to the extent that there is no polarity or
hegemony, and where soft power is crucial.
260
The EU itself is characteristic
of this complex system having a “multi-dimensional presence, [playing] an
active role in some areas of international interaction and a less active one in
others.”261 This complexity that typifies the international arena is too multidimensional to be simplified to fit the realist concept of ‘superpower’. To be a
superpower in this complex arena an actor needs to possess all the different
powers in all the various dimensions, and the current world ‘dis-order’ does
not have an actor like this.
Conclusion
The world has been through drastic changes since the collapse of the Cold
War’s bi-polar order. The rise of new security threats, non-state actors and
globalization has been paralleled with the emergence new ways of
understanding the world and the actors within it. With the re-conceptualization
259
Huntington, “The Lonely Superpower,” pg. 35.
Nye, pg. 4-5, 136-137.
261
Allen and Smith, pg. 20.
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260
of power as soft, deriving from normative or civilian instruments, a school of
thought, asserting that the European Union is a superpower, materialized.
These scholars argue that Brussels’ softer approach to world affairs –
promoting the use of civilian forms of influence and the projection of liberal
norms – has become the new and improved approach to international
relations. They have re-conceptualized the concept of superpower as
equating with soft, not hard, power, emphasizing the decreasing relevance of
hard power as a foreign policy tool. Essentially the debate between whether
or not the EU is a superpower comes down to what type of power is perceived
to be most effective in conducting foreign affairs. Realist and neoconservative thinkers devalue the EU’s role in world politics due to its lacking
military power. Though this is a limitation that undermines the Union’s role as
‘superpower’, other limitations also weaken the pro-superpower school of
thought’s arguments: from Brussels’ internal institutional limitations to the rise
of emerging powers. The Union largely resembles a small power in its
international actions and role, with limited ability to act effectively in the world
arena. Nevertheless, the fact that the EU is a small power does not mean it is
a marginal power, as Brussels does wield significant clout in the field of soft,
civilian and normative power. However, a black and white understanding of
hard and soft power as competing understandings of international relations
does not appreciate the complexities of the contemporary world arena. Both
hard and soft power are important in wielding power and influence in the
international realm. The utility of force may have changed but it remains
important as a deterrent and guarantee for the protection of the post-modern
world, and is still used as a foreign policy tool by the modern and pre-modern
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domains. The effectiveness of economic and soft power also depend on the
context within which they are used. Military, economic and soft power –
instruments ranging from the hard end of the spectrum to the soft end – are all
important in exercising power on the three-dimensional chessboard that can
be used to denote the current international context. A 21st century power
would thus have to be able to wield all three effectively and decisively in order
to be dubbed a superpower, and as such the EU is not a superpower. As
there is no such actor that retains dominance in all three fields, perhaps the
era of the superpower is over.
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Appendix A: Interview Information Sheet
Project Title
Participant Information Sheet
Main investigator: Sini Haara, [email protected], 07935884565
Supervisor: Helen Drake, [email protected], 01509 222989
What is the purpose of the study?
The aim of this study is to examine whether the EU is a superpower and analyze the concept
of power in the 21st century. Interviews are being conducted to gather research on the topic
that is as current as possible.
Who is doing this research and why?
This research is being conducted by Sini Haara, a final year Undergraduate student in
International Relations at Loughborough University, for my dissertation. I am being
supervised by Dr Helen Drake from the Politics, History and International Relations
department in the University.
Once I take part, can I change my mind?
Yes. After you have read this information and asked any questions you will be asked to
complete an Informed Consent Form, however if at any time, before, during or after the
sessions you wish to withdraw from the study, or withdraw comments made in the interview,
please just contact the main investigator. You can withdraw at any time, for any reason and
you will not be asked to explain your reasons for withdrawing.
How long will it take?
The interview is designed to last for a maximum of one hour.
Is there anything I need to do before the sessions?
Questions for the semi-structured interview will be sent to you before the interview and it
would be good if you could read these before the interview.
What will I be asked to do?
You will be asked questions in regards to your research area in a semi-structured interview
setting. The interview will be recorded.
What personal information will be required from me?
Your name will be used in conjunction with the information/views you provide and the
interview will be cited in the project’s bibliography. As such, the information you provide will
not be confidential
What will happen to the results of the study?
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The results of this study will be included in the main investigator’s dissertation.
I have some more questions who should I contact?
If you have any more questions, please contact me; Sini at [email protected]
What if I am not happy with how the research was conducted?
If you are displeased with how the research is conducted then please access the following
link:
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/admin/committees/ethical/Whistleblowing(2).htm.
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Appendix B: Michael H. Smith Semi-Structured
Interview
1. Many authors argue that since the end of the Cold War there has been the
emergence of a ‘new world order’. What do you believe are the key features of the
current world order and what have been the most significant changes to the world
arena in the post-Cold War period?
a. Do you believe these changes result in the need to re-conceptualize the
concept of power and if so, why?
2. Robert Kagan argued in his book Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in
the New World Order that Europe and America have diverging perspectives of
power. How would you describe Europe’s conception of power in contrast to that
of America’s?
a. Is one of these conceptualizations a more accurate description of the role of
power in the 21st century?
3. Those who adopt traditional conceptions of power in their analysis of the
contemporary world arena tend to depict the United States as a superpower. In
your view, is the US a superpower or is the US experiencing a decline of its power?
a. How do you believe recent developments like the financial crisis and the US’s
failures in the Middle East have affected its power position in the international
arena?
4. Joseph Nye argues that soft power – getting others to want the outcomes that you
want – is the means to success in world politics today. What soft power
capabilities do you believe the EU has?
a. Does the EU have better/stronger soft power capabilities than the US?
b. If US soft power capabilities are declining, as some argue, does this give
space for the EU to emerge as a ‘new kind of superpower’?
c.
Is ‘soft power’ enough in the 21st century or is ‘hard power’ still necessary?
5. Many authors have characterized the European Union as a ‘civilian power’ but with
for example the defense developments in the Lisbon Treaty, do you believe the EU
is still a ‘civilian’ power?
a. Is US military strength compelling the EU to develop its military strength?
b. Should the EU keep developing its military capabilities or could this
undermine the values that it upholds? Or can it be said that the EU’s military
capabilities and actions are in fact of a ‘civilian’ nature?
c.
Will there ever be a ‘Euro-Army’?
d. Is the role of military power declining in world politics or does the EU exercise
power via largely ‘civilian’ means merely because it does not have the
capacity to exercise military power, as Kagan argues?
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e. If it is, does it allow for the EU to enhance its power position in world politics?
6. The European Union has been described by many as an economic superpower. Is
the EU an economic superpower?
a. What do you believe is the most compelling example of the EU wielding its
economic power?
b. Will the financial crisis undermine the EU’s economic power in world politics?
7. What are the main factors that limit the European Union’s power in the world
politics today?
8. Is the European Union a superpower or does it have the potential to become one?
a. Should the concept of ‘superpower’ be applied to the European Union, which
is often described as a sui generis actor?
b. John McCormick has argued that the European Union is a post-modern
superpower. How would you describe the European Union as an actor in
international politics?
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Appendix C: Lee Miles and David J. Allen SemiStructured Interview
1. Many authors argue that since the end of the Cold War there has been the
emergence of a ‘new world order’. What do you believe are the key features of
the current world arena and what have been the most significant changes to
the in the post-Cold War period?
2. There have been various re-conceptualizations of power since the end of the
Cold War; from Joseph Nye’s ‘soft power’, to Ian Manners’ ‘normative power’.
c. Is the European Union a ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ power?
d. What re-conceptualization best describes the European Union as an
actor/power?
e. What type of power is most important in the contemporary world arena and
how important is ‘soft power’?
3. The European Union has been described by many as an economic superpower.
Is the EU an economic superpower?
f.
What do you believe is the most compelling example of the EU wielding its
economic power?
g. Will the financial crisis undermine the EU’s economic power in world politics
or might it even lead to the break up of the Union?
4. Those who adopt traditional conceptions of power in their analysis of the
contemporary world arena tend to depict the United States as a superpower. Is
the US a superpower or is the US experiencing a decline of its power?
5. What are the main factors that limit the European Union’s power in the world
politics today?
6. What makes an actor a superpower?
7. Is the European Union a superpower or does it have the potential to become
one?
h. Should the concept of ‘superpower’ be applied to the European Union, which
is often described as a sui generis actor?
8. Is the concept ‘superpower’ applicable in world politics today?
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Appendix D: Consent Form262
A 21st Century Superpower – An analysis of the European Union’s power in the 21st
century
INFORMED CONSENT FORM
(to be completed after Participant Information Sheet has been read)
The purpose and details of this study have been explained to me. I understand that this study
is designed to further scientific knowledge and that all procedures have been approved by the
Loughborough University Ethical Advisory Committee.
I have read and understood the information sheet and this consent form.
I have had an opportunity to ask questions about my participation.
I understand that I am under no obligation to take part in the study.
I understand that I have the right to withdraw from this study at any stage for any reason, and
that I will not be required to explain my reasons for withdrawing.
I understand that all the information I provide will be used in conjunction with my name and
the information provided in the interview will be used to further the analysis of the research
proposal. Thus I understand and accept that information I provide will not be kept confidential.
I consent to the fact that the interview is audio recorded.
I agree to participate in this study.
Your name
Your signature
Signature of investigator
Date
262
NB! All participants gave consent.
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