Explaining EU Foreign Policy: Normative Institutionalism and Alternative Approaches

Abstract

This chapter analyses the making of EU foreign policy on discrete issues by deducing hypotheses from general theories of bargaining, negotiation and socialization in international relations and testing them with a standard empirical research methodology. To start, it introduces a Normative Institutionalist theory of EU foreign policy-making that highlights the effect of pre-existing EU norms and commitments on foreign policy negotiations among member states, specifying the observable expectations and scope conditions of two hypotheses derived from the theory. It then contrasts these hypotheses with three alternatives hypotheses highlighting the effects of veto threats, policy learning and normative suasion.KeywordsMember StateForeign PolicyPolicy PreferenceVeto PlayerNormative InstitutionalismThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.