Eu Foreign Policy Beyond The Nation State

This work analyzes how the three pillar structure of the European Union influences decisions in the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The authors criticize traditional models of foreign policy analysis and go beyond existing state centric approaches. They employ three case studies - Bosnia, Chechnya and former Yugoslavia/Mostar - to test the quality and the type of decisions taken in foreign policy beyond the nation state.

EU Foreign Policy Beyond the Nation-State analyses how the 'three pillar' structure of the European Union influences decisions in the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The authors criticise traditional models of foreign policy analysis and go beyond existing state-centric approaches. They employ three case studies - Bosnia, Chechnya and former Yugoslavia/MOSTAR - to test the quality and the type of decisions taken in foreign policy beyond the nation-state.

This book explains the creation of the European Union's Security and Defence Policy - to this day the most ambitious project of peacetime military integration. Mérand explores the complex relations between the state, the military, and citizenship in today's Europe.

From the point of departure of international relations theory it is not an easy task to come to grips with the European integration process. We are faced with a situation where some of the world's oldest and traditionally most sovereignty-loving nations have surrendered essential parts of their power to a supranational institution. In order to make sense of this the book employs a constructivist framework. Empirically it focuses on the way in which the Community has transformed from a traditional international regime, based on classical international law, to a semi-federal polity where Community law and regulations trump national law and constitutions.

Foreign Policies of EU Member States provides a clear and current overview of the motivations and outcomes of EU Member States regarding their foreign policy-making within and beyond the EU. It provides an in-depth analysis of intra-EU policy-making and sheds light, in an innovative and understandable way, on the lesser-known aspects of the inter-EU and extra-EU foreign policies of the twenty-eight Member States. The text has an innovative method of thematic organisation in which case study state profiles emerge via dominant foreign policy themes. The text examines the three main policy challenges currently faced by the twenty-eight Member States: First, EU Member States must cooperate within the mechanisms of the EU, including the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Second, EU Member States continue to construct their own inter-EU foreign policies. Third, the sovereign prerogative exercised by all EU Member States is to construct their own foreign policies on everything from trade and defence with the rest of the world. This combination of clarity, thematic structure and empirical case studies make this an ideal textbook for all upper-level students of European foreign policy, comparative European politics and European studies.

This comparative analysis of the foreign policies of European Union member states includes comprehensive coverage of the post-Maastricht period and the three newest members of the EU. In the only comparative study of its kind since 1976, the book analyzes the dual impact of the Maastricht Treaty on the European Union, and the post-Cold War environment on the foreign policy processes of the EU’s member states. The book argues for a new approach to the foreign policy analysis of EU states that recognizes the fundamental changes that membership brings after the Cold War, but also acknowledges the diverse role of policies which states seek to retain or advance as being “special.”

Introducing new theoretical developments to the study of the European Union's international capacity, this book moves beyond the traditionally narrow focus on the Common Foreign and Security Policy, and instead considers the foreign policies of the Member States and processes such as enlargement as part of a broadly EU foreign policy. The book offers readers a theoretical map from which they can orient themselves and assess the comparative utility of various approaches to their own studies

Scholars and policymakers in EU foreign policy lament the EU's inability to assert itself on the world stage. This book explains this weakness by arguing that EU foreign policy is burdened by various internal functions, and systemizes the analysis of internal functionality, pushing the study beyond the concern with effectiveness.