Normative institutionalism and EU foreign policy in comparative perspective

Abstract

Normative Institutionalism has proven to be a robust theory of EU decision-making on foreign policy and external relations whose entrapment and cooperative bargaining explanations for the policy-making process and outcome are generally (though not universally) superior to those of competing theories. This conclusion emerges from 14 case studies across a broad range of policy areas and institutional settings, all of which exhibited clear differences in the initial policy preferences of member states. Only two of the cases offered clear support for Intergovernmentalism’s competitive bargaining hypothesis, while none of the case studies conforms to either the normative suasion or policy learning hypotheses, which posit distinctive mechanisms of policy agreement based on preference convergence. Cross-case analysis identifies the relative importance of five conditions hypothesized to affect the likelihood of entrapment and cooperative bargaining: determinacy, relevance, publicity, precedent and forum. Finally, we discuss the implications of this special issue for future research and for EU policy-making.