Energy as an issue area in the European Union and the United States foreign policy-making: oscillating between independence and interdependence

Abstract

Energy is an increasingly politicised commodity which, however, retains its particular technical and economic characteristics, thus complicating the work of foreign policy-makers. The article draws on the contribution of the cognitive approach to the analysis of foreign policy-making and investigates the energy–foreign policy nexus in the EU and the US through the lens of the different cognitive structures used by actors to understand the world energy scenery. In this conceptual framework, it examines how the energy–foreign policy linkage has evolved in the EU and the US, to what extent energy is still perceived as a useful instrument serving foreign policy objectives, and in reverse, how far energy policy objectives are integrated in foreign policy-making. Through this comparative exercise, it concludes by identifying differences and potential patterns of convergence between the EU and the US.