ABSTRACT
The previous chapter provided an overview of the primary actors involved in EU foreign policy and argued that while pressures and inputs may arise from several sites, the decision-making power firmly resides in the hands of the Council of the EU and national representatives. But how does the decisionmaking process work in the CFSP/CSDP? Who and following what logic makes decisions? How are positions defined and divergences settled? More often than not, the abundant literature on EU foreign policy does not directly address these questions, despite delivering implicit interpretations of them. The focus of many studies may be on civilian missions or military operations, on the construction of the EU as a global actor, on the imposition of sanctions or the promotion of human rights. These studies are indeed generally interested in answering an entirely different set of questions such as evaluating the effectiveness or consistency of the EU’s actions in certain regions, or assessing the type of power (normative, economic, military, civilian, marginal, etc.) that the EU produces. Yet they all presuppose a certain understanding of the CFSP/CSDP decision-making process, of the relationships between the various actors and of the logic governing these relationships. This chapter aims to clarify these aspects by conceptualizing the making of
EU foreign and defence policy. Broadly speaking, there are two primary ideal-types of the CFSP/CSDP decision-making process: an ‘intergovernmental’ and an ‘institutional’ image (Lewis 1998), which refer to the wider debates between rationalism and constructivism in international relations. A clear dividing line separates those who understand the CFSP/CSDP policyprocess as an intergovernmental arena, where self-interested actors exchange their exogenously determined positions and those who see it as a jointly defined enterprise, influenced by common identities and a strong cooperative spirit. These two perspectives explicitly or implicitly infuse many of the analyses of EU (foreign and defence) policy. As a result, this chapter is devoted to specifying all the mechanisms (which are usually left implicit or not elaborated on at all) behind the logic of the two approaches. The various conceptual steps are carefully reconstructed in each case – from the preparation
of the national position to the CFSP/CSDP outputs including the decisionmaking logics and tactics. In this vein, it also provides a conceptual framework within which the more specific research questions (and the following four empirical chapters) are situated and developed. Three points need to be noted. First, the intergovernmental and the insti-
tutional perspectives are wide families that comprise several different models. For example, log-rolling, competitive or cooperative bargaining all fit within the rationalist camp, whereas Brusselization, Europeanization and collective identity formation belong to the constructivist camp (Thomas and Tonra 2012). In the following, all of these models are discussed and their differences and commonalities delineated. Importantly, their relationship with the two over-arching intergovernmental and institutional paradigms (and logics) allows for clarifying some of the conceptual aspects and boundaries of the various models. Second, the two paradigms have to be understood as ideal types. In reality, their differences are not so sharp and the divide between them can become blurred. In addition, some aspects (e.g. diffuse reciprocity) are compatible with both a rationalist and a constructivist reading of decision-making processes, and it is not easy to empirically distinguish between them. Third, intergovernmentalism and institutionalism are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but can coexist or intersect; for instance, they can apply under different conditions. If this book attempts to find some possible forms of joint application, the predominant goal is to identify the patterns and approaches that recur most often.
