National And European Foreign Policy

This book presents a ground-breaking comparative study of the bilateral relations of all 27 EU member states with Russia and an assessment of their impact on the EU’s efforts to conduct a coherent and effective policy towards its most important neighbour. While there has been a lot of research on European foreign policy, there has been much less on the role that national foreign policies play in it. Based on a common analytical framework, this book offers a detailed analysis of ‘national perspectives on Russia’ and how they interact with and affect policymaking at the EU-level. The authors provide deep insights into the relationship between individual states and Russia looking at a range of policy areas: economics, trade, energy, security, culture and education. They are not only interested in examining policy failure but also probing the possibilities of seeing national foreign policies and the bilateralism with third parties that they often entail as a potentially positive resource for the European Union. As Russia is an example of a particularly hard case for EU foreign policy, this book yields important insights concerning the possibilities as well as limits of developing a common EU policy in the future. It will be of interest to students and scholars of European politics, EU Studies, Russian politics, foreign policy studies and international politics.

Examines how national foreign policies in the EU affect common EU positions in international politics.

National and European Foreign Policy explores the processes of interaction between the national and the European levels in foreign policy making in European Union states. The volume also assesses the mutual influence which the Member States exert on each other, independent of the EU institutions, thus tracing the extent to which Member State foreign policies are being Europeanized into more convergent, coordinated policies. With chapters examining France, Germany, Italy, UK, Denmark, Greece, Spain, Finland, Poland and Slovenia, the overarching questions the volume addresses centre on the nature of the relationship between the foreign policies of the Member States and ‘European’ foreign policy. Engaging with ‘Europeanization’ with theoretical rigour, the contributors to this volume examine the EU’s impact on the foreign policies of Member States old and new, the impact of the Member States on the EU’s external relations, and the influence of the Member States on each other’s foreign policies. Providing interesting detail on changes in foreign policy thinking and national policies using the concept of Europeanization, National and European Foreign Policy will be of interest to students and scholars of European politics and policy formation, foreign policy and International Relations.

During the last two decades the study of European foreign policy has experienced remarkable growth, presumably reflecting a more significant international role of the European Union. The Union has significantly expanded its policy portfolio and though empty symbolic politics still exists, the Union’s international relations have become more substantial and its foreign policy more focused. European foreign policy has become a dynamic policy area, being adapted to changing challenges and environments, such as the Arab Spring, new emerging economies/powers; the crisis of multilateralism and much more. The SAGE Handbook of European Foreign Policy, Two-Volume set, is a major reference work for Foreign Policy Programmes around the world. The Handbook is designed to be accessible to graduate and postgraduate students in a wide variety of disciplines across the humanities and social sciences. Both volumes are structured to address areas of critical concern to scholars at the cutting edge of all major dimensions of foreign policy. The volumes are composed of original chapters written specifically to the following themes: · Research traditions and historical experience · Theoretical perspectives · EU actors · State actors · Societal actors · The politics of European foreign policy · Bilateral relations · Relations with multilateral institutions · Individual policies · Transnational challenges The Handbook will be an essential reference for both advanced students and scholars.

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.”

This text reviews a variety of approaches to the study of the European Union's foreign policy. Much analysis of EU foreign policy contains implicit theoretical assumptions about the nature of the EU and its member states, their inter-relationships, the international system in which they operate and the nature and direction of European integration. In many instances such assumptions, given that they are not discussed openly, curtail rather than facilitate debate. The purpose of this book is to open up this field of enquiry so that students, observers and analysts of EU foreign policy can review a broad range of tools and theoretical templates from which the development and the trajectory of the EU's foreign policy can be studied.

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: 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. -- from back cover.

A novel explanation of how EU member states overcome their divergent preferences to reach agreement on common foreign policies, with fourteen in-depth case studies covering diplomatic and security issues, enlargement, trade, development and environmental protection.