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481. Germany, Multilateralism,and the Eastern Enlargement of the EU

Author:
Claus Hofhansel
Publication Date:
10-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Since World War II, the most distinctive characteristic of German foreign policy has been its commitment to multilateralism. This commitment has served German material interests, but it has a normative basis as well. This paper analyzes German domestic support for multilateralist policies, defined in terms of the principles of indivisibility, generalized principles of conduct, and diffuse reciprocity, in the context of negotiations on the EU's eastern enlargement. Empirically, the paper focuses on the policy areas of freedom of movement for workers and agriculture. The main theoretical argument is that domestic support for multilateralist policies depends on the distributional consequences of such policies and the ability of political institutions to manage distributional conflicts. Distributional conflict undermines support for multilateralist policies. In the case of Germany, distributional conflicts among different sectors and regions of the German economy have become more severe partly, but not exclusively, due to German unification. Furthermore, German political institutions are less able to resolve such conflicts than in the past. The evidence presented here shows more intense domestic distributional conflicts on the free movement of labor issue than over agriculture, and, as expected, we see more explicitly bilateral and less multilateralist demands by unions and employers.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Government
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, and Germany

482. National Role Conceptions and Foreign Policies:France and Germany Compared

Author:
Ulrich Krotz
Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
In spite of domestic and international political changes, French and German foreign policies have displayed high degrees of continuity between the late 1950s and the mid-1990s. Over the same time period, the directions of the two states' foreign policies have also continued to differ from each other. Why do states similar in many respects often part ways in what they want and do? This article argues that the French and German national role conceptions (NRCs) account for both of these continuities. NRCs are domestically shared understandings regarding the proper role and purpose of one's own state as a social collectivity in the international arena. As internal reference systems, they affect national interests and foreign policies. This article reestablishes the NRC concept, empirically codes it for France and Germany for the time period under consideration, and demonstrates comparatively how different NRCs lead to varying interests and policies across the major policy areas in security, defense, and armament.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe, France, and Germany

483. CERI: New Perspectives on EU-Member State Relationships

Author:
Simon Bulmer and Christian Lequesne
Publication Date:
01-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
This paper aims to review the "state of the art" for examining EU-member state relations. It recognises first of all that EU-member state relationships are interactive. Member states are key actors in making EU policy, and their role in this process is central to policy-making studies. However, European integration has an important impact upon the member states: the phenomenon that has come to be termed Europeanization. We review the literatures concerned with these two directions of flow: the analytical issues raised and the theoretical perspectives deployed. We then turn to the empirical literature on EU-member state relationships, and how it operationalises the theoretical literatures (if at all). This empirical literature tends to be organised in two ways: individual or comparative studies of member states' relationships with the EU; or studies of the impact of the EU on types of political actor/institution or on policy areas/sectors. We review both these literatures. On the basis of the identified strengths and weaknesses in the different literatures examined, we suggest a research agenda for future theoretical and empirical work.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe

484. From Pre-Bush to Bush to Post-Sep-11-Bush: Changes In Transatlantic Relations —The Particular Case of Germany

Author:
Michaela Hertkorn
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Columbia International Affairs Online
Abstract:
"There is the perception that, while France is a complicated country, but not posing a problem, Germany is not a complicated case, but can pose a problem." "America and Germany will never drift apart. We have never been closer. Any tensions are simply due to 'Reibungsverluste durch Nähe'. It is a relationship of grown up kids with their parents.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

485. Human Rights and Foreign Policy Discourse in Today's Russia: Romantic Realism and Securitisation of Identity

Author:
Viatcheslav Morozov
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Most people writing on the subject recognise that within the Russian discourse, the concept of human rights is used somewhat differently compared to Western Europe or the United States. However, the nature of these differences is yet to be properly studied. It is not enough just to say that 'the Western notions of human rights undergo certain transformations when transplanted to the Russian soil. At a superficial glance, the post-Soviet notions of human rights are identical [to the Western ones], but upon a more curious consideration their content turns out to be somewhat different' (Chugrov 2001:3). The essentialist concept of 'the Russian soil' as different from the Western one is of little help since it takes cultural differences as given, and thus all the researcher has to do is to register the differences in political practice, while the explanations are known in advance. More sophisticated essentialist approaches do no more than provide labels for the cultural features (e.g. 'nominalism' of the Western culture and 'collectivism' of the East –see Panarin 1999), but are unable to account for the interaction of these two fundamental principles in the Russian political process. As far as foreign policy studies are concerned, there is also the handy realist option of reducing the differences to an assumed national interest, which, of course, in itself is a social construct that is to be studied, and not a conceptual tool for research of other matters.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, and Nationalism
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

486. The United States: The Empire of Force or the Force of Empire?

Author:
Pierre Hassner
Publication Date:
09-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
There is no society or policy that does not have its contradictions, but some have more than others, and that is certainly true of the United States. Raymond Aron evoked a classic paradox in giving his book on the United States the title The Imperial Republic. That paradox has two aspects. Firstly, are the republic's institutions (which are designed to guarantee citizens' rights and a separation of powers) suited to the running of an empire, or are they prejudicial to the decision-making ability and continuity that that implies? Conversely, does not the expenditure on empire, in terms of resources and time, and in particular the methods used to acquire and preserve it, affect the economic, political and moral health of the republican homeland? These dilemmas are made even more acute since, on the one hand, this is not a classic empire, like that of Rome, but rather a bourgeois, individualist one based on the acquisition of wealth rather than the winning of wars and, on the other hand, this is the first truly world-wide empire and has appeared at a moment when the threats facing humankind raise key questions on the interests of the international system and the planet itself, over and above those of the 'hyperpower'.
Topic:
Security and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

487. Enlargement and European Defence After 11 September

Author:
Pal Dunay, Jiri Sedivy, and Jacek Saryusz-Wolski
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
The jury is still out on the extent to which 11 September has changed the concept – let alone the perception – of security. All the more so for European security at large, whose contours are still quite blurred. As for the European Union proper, 11 September has triggered a prompt response in the field of internal security, while the military reaction has been either channelled through NATO and the UN or managed individually (and bilaterally with the United States) by both member and applicant states. More indirectly, 11 September has increased the pressure towards enlargement by pushing for a faster and broader accession of the current candidates in order to further stabilise the Union's immediate neighbourhood: a quintessential case of security policy by other means, one is tempted to say, in line with a long tradition in the European integration process. Moreover, for similar reasons, the Atlantic Alliance, too, is likely to enlarge more quickly and more extensively than previously envisaged. Key decisions in those directions are to be taken in Prague (NATO) and Copenhagen (EU) later this year. For the Union, anyway, the endgame has already started. With it, the enlargement process will have come almost full circle: 'from Copenhagen to Copenhagen', so to speak, in just under ten years.
Topic:
Security and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and United Nations

488. Terms of Engagement

Author:
Julian Lindley-French
Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
Sir Lew Grade comes from a long tradition of failed British film producers. In 1980 he produced a film that bankrupted him. Entitled Raise the Titanic, the film was a box office flop of appropriately Titanic proportions. When asked about his risky investment, he said that on reflection it would have been cheaper and easier to lower the Atlantic than raise the Titanic. Observers of transatlantic security relations could be forgiven for feeling pretty much the same about the state of American-European relations as the shock of 11 September is replaced by the search for coordinated policy. Not only do Americans and Europeans disagree about the means of international relations; they seem increasingly to bicker about the ends.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and NATO
Political Geography:
America and Europe

489. From Nice to Laeken, European Defence: Core Documents

Author:
Maartje Rutten
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
This Chaillot Paper is the second in our series of core documents on European security and defence. Unlike the first volume, which covered the whole period from St-Malo to Nice (December 1998 - December 2001), this volume and subsequent ones will recapitulate developments in European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) during the preceding year. As the whole world of defence and thus Europe and the ESDP were profoundly affected by the terrorist attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001, we have divided this Chaillot Paper into two parts. The first comprises documents on the further development and implementation of the ESDP. The second part contains those documents illustrating the EU's response to the terrorist attacks that we consider most relevant to the goal of this paper.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and NATO
Political Geography:
Europe

490. Evolution of Japan's Policy Toward Economic Integration

Author:
Naoko Munakata
Publication Date:
12-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
On October 22, 2000, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong agreed to formal negotiations for the Japan-Singapore Economic Agreement for a New Age Partnership (JSEPA) in January 2001, in light of the September 2000 report from the Japan-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (JSFTA) Joint Study Group. It was the first time Japan entered into negotiations concerning regional economic integration. With a strong emphasis on the need to address the new challenges globalization and technological progress pose; the Joint Study Group explored a possible .New Age FTA. between the two countries, which Prime Minister Goh proposed in December 1999. Thus, for Japan the JSEPA marked a major turning point in promoting regional economic integration.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Japan, China, Europe, Israel, and Asia