III. CAPÍTULO 3: RESULTADOS Y DISCUSIÓN
3.3 La interfaz gráfica
An approach that considers the system of multilevel governance in the EU’s
external relations assumes that each level of governance is characterised by
specific actors, identities, interests, decision-making rules and policy
preferences. The combination of these factors generally determines the policy
output at each level. However, in order to simplify the complexity of this system
and identify a single independent variable which can be considered for a
scientific approach, this thesis proposes to concentrate on the member states as
the unit basis in a liberal intergovernmental perspective.
The importance of liberal intergovernmentalism in the study of the EU’s
external relations derives from studies on European integration. Moving away
from realists’ and neorealists’ insistence on systemic approaches, liberal
intergovernmentalists, while maintaining the primacy of the member states in
the integration process, have articulated their explanations by opening the
member states’ ‘black boxes’. Starting from positivist assumptions on the
rationality of states, intergovernmentalists describe the European integration
process as a bargain made between state governments.
This approach rests on the assumption that state behaviours reflects the
rational actions of governments constrained at home by societal pressure and
abroad by their strategic environment. In the importance given to domestic or
societal pressures on state governments, intergovernmentalists of liberal and
neoliberal inspiration distance themselves from realist and neorealist accounts.
They do not consider states as having fixed preferences for wealth, security or
power, but assume that states formulate their goals and objectives in response to
If this theoretical assumption concerns the formation of interests and policy
preferences, the second theoretical assumption that is shared by
intergovernmentalists is that within an international regime to which the EU can
be broadly likened, state governments engage in a bargaining process, which
can be described through the existence of the relative bargaining power of
governments and the creation of coalitions, issue-linkages and side-payments.
Therefore what describes this process is a two-level game where national
governments serve as the crucial link between the domestic and the international
levels. As clearly explained by Andrew Moravsick, “the primary source of
integration lies in the interests of the states’ themselves and the relative power
each brings to Brussels”.40
In the study of the EU’s external relations, liberal intergovernmentalism is
largely used to explain the CFSP level. In this perspective the CFSP
deliberations are predicted to follow the lowest common denominator, given the
unanimity required. When this does not appear to be the case then the influence
of the biggest major players in the EU context, such as France, Germany and the
UK, or the possibility of issue-linkages and side-payments are considered as
possible variants.
Liberal intergovernmentalism is also applied to analyse the field of the
European Community policy, which falls into the domain of the Commission.
Although this level is often referred to as the supranational one, in reality the
Commission is under the strict supervision of the member states through their
representatives at the Council and through the possibility of sharing
competences in certain policy fields not yet supranationalised, such as
40
Andrew Moravcsik, ‘Negotiating the Single European Act’, in Robert Kehoane and Stanley Hoffmann (eds.), The New European Community: Decision-making and Institutional Change, Boulder, Westview Press, 1991, p. 75.
development assistance. What emerges from member state-centred accounts is
that the Commission’s activities reflect the interests and policy preferences of
the most influential member states, although the Commission may at times
strategically use divisions among them to acquire further competences and
promote its own bureaucratic interests.
Finally, liberal intergovernmentalism applies to the study of the member
states’ bilateral activities. Within the system of multilevel governance in the
EU’s external relations, member states maintain ample room to manoeuvre in
devising their own external relations as well as in defining their positions within
the EU institutions. According to liberal intergovernmental perspectives the
bilateral activities of the member states still respond to long ingrained national,
rather than European, beliefs, identities and interests. This is testified by the
little coordination that appears to exist among the member states in the
formulation and implementation of their external relations.41
A liberal intergovernmental approach differs from sociological
institutionalist and constructivist approaches, which highlight the affirmation of
norms of political cooperation in the EU and have inspired the recent works on
the EU’s value-driven foreign policy. For these authors, shared European
identity and norms would reorient the member states towards a logic of
appropriate behaviour, as opposed to a bargaining style of decision making, in
the EU’s external relations. In particular, sociological institutionalist approaches
insist on the socialising effects of institutions in the member states’ elaboration
of the EU’s external relations, while constructivist approaches tend to explain
the EU’s behaviour on the basis of its identity and normative basis.
41
See the early works of Christopher Hill, The Actors in Europe’s Foreign Policy, London, Routledge, 1996 and the more recent work by Ian Manners and Richard Whitman (eds.), The Foreign Policies of European Union Member States, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2000.
However rather than openly contrasting liberal intergovernmentalism,
sociological institutionalist and constructivist approaches generally accept the
liberal intergovernmental assumptions on the agency of the member states.
Sociological institutionalist and constructivist approaches do not replace liberal
intergovernmental approaches but rather add to them the influence that
institutions and ideas play, as it emerges in the analysis of some specific case
studies.
For example, Frank Schimmelfennig’s famous concept of ‘rhetorical
entrapment’ rests on the assumption that the member states do not share the
same identities, interests and policy preferences. A rhetorical entrapment only
occurs when some EU institutions and member states make strategic use of the
EU’s identity through rhetorical action.42 Similarly, an EU interest does not
exist tout court, but it is rather the combination of discreet negotiations among
the member states within the EU institutions. For sociological institutionalists
and constructivists, the EU’s identity and norms only create an enabling
environment where the use of rhetorical action by the EU institutions and the
member states can lead to the adoption of policies in line with such a common
identity and interest.
If the agency of the member states is important to explain the policy output at
CFSP and EC levels, this is also true at the bilateral levels. Sociological
institutionalist and constructivist approaches have proposed paying more
attention to processes of Europeanization, which show how national foreign
42
Frank Schimmelfennig, ‘The Community Trap: Liberal Norms, Rhetorical Action, and the Eastern Enlargement of the European Union’, International Organizations, Vol. 55, No. 1, 2001, p. 59.
policies are impacted by the EU’s institutions.43 These may merely refer to
changes in domestic structures and institutions, as in the case of ministries of
foreign affairs being reshaped in their bureaucratic structures. But they can also
touch upon an adaptation, Brusselisation or externalisation of certain foreign
policy prerogatives to the EU level.
However these processes largely depend on the issues that are at stake, as is
often also claimed by sociological institutionalists and constructivists. Historical
traditions, special relations, specific identities, international role conceptions
and national economic interests often determine the EU and the member states’
positions on specific issues. Similarly, the member states’ adaptation can also
conceal a strategic calculation. The member states can use the EU level to
delegate foreign policy responsibilities and to shield themselves from third
countries’ criticism. Finally the member states can use the EU level to increase
the impact of their policy preferences and thus reaching politics of scale.
Therefore, while sociological institutionalism and constructivism can offer
significant insights for the study of some specific cases and issues, liberal
intergovernmentalism maintains its broad explanatory power in the study of the
EU’s external relations. Besides, liberal intergovernmentalism allows for
considerations of how the EU institutions may contribute to the socialisation of
negative norms as well as positive norms, depending on the orientations of the
most influential member states in the elaboration of the policies. This is one of
the major shortcomings of sociological institutionalist and constructivist
approaches, which often tend to overlook the cases of negative socialisation,
43
For a discussion of Europeanisation theories see Reuben Wong, ‘The Europeanization of Foreign Policy’, in Christopher Hill and Michael Smith, International Relations and the European Union, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 134-153.
where the EU’s normative policies respond more to the strategic and economic
interests of some member states rather than to the EU’s identity and norms.
As shown in the previous Chapter, recent studies on the EU’s promotion of
norms demonstrate that the alleged normative EU policies conceal strategic and
economic interests. While these policies are difficult to explain by sociological
institutionalist and constructivist approaches, an intergovernmental approach
can make sense of them by considering the interaction of the EU institutions and
the member states’ interests. In a liberal intergovernmental perspective the
materially-informed approaches of the most influential member states may find
the support of the EU’s institutions to affirm European normative policies which
conceal strategic and economic concerns.
For this reason this thesis employs a liberal intergovernmental approach for
the analysis of the policy output of the system of multilevel governance in the
EU’s external relations. A liberal intergovernmental approach allows taking into
account the complexity of the EU’s external relations system where several,
often contrasting, identities and interests coexist and interact within a system of
multilevel governance in the EU’s external relations. The next section discusses
the application of the theoretical analytical tools developed in this section with
reference to the concepts of consistency and coordination in the promotion of
human rights within the system of multilevel governance in the EU’s external
relations.