Anand Menon

Still Not Pushing Back Why the European Union Is Not Balancing the United States

A recent wave of scholarly literature has argued forcibly that the European Union’s European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) represents an attempt on the part of the EU to “balance” against the United States. According to such analyses, the EU is reacting to American global preeminence by building up its military capacities to enhance its own ability to play a significant, autonomous role in international affairs. This article takes issue with such claims. It points, first, to significant theoretical and methodological shortcomings inherent in the work of the “soft balancers.” Second, and more fundamentally, it subjects this work to careful empirical scrutiny and illustrates how the soft balancers have fundamentally misunderstood ESDP. Finally, it illustrates how such misinterpretations result from a failure to appreciate the profound impact that institutional structures wield over substantive outcomes in international security affairs.

European Defence Policy from Lisbon to Libya

The EUs inactivity in the face of a crisis with obvious security implications for its member states has led to anguished soul searching.

The EU and Ukraine

EU members did not take long-standing Russian positions seriously, assumed any neighbour would be eager to sign up for ‘more Europe’, and have failed to generate a viable reply to Moscows intervention.

From independence to cooperation: France, NATO and European security

The end of the Cold War necessarily called into question the role of Europes security institutions, and the attitudes of the major Western powers towards them. After 40 years of monotonous stability, reform became a necessity. Yet whereas its partners (notably Britain and the United States) pressed ahead with the reform of NATO structures in order to ensure the survival of the alliance after 1989, France, although having criticized the workings of the transatlantic security systemfor many years, was unable to stamp its influence on the shifting European security landscape. French policies towards European security institutions are, however, undergoing a major transformation. Although the roots of this change can, in part, be traced back to previous Socialist governments, it was under the Balladur government that it became most marked. Yet belated adjustment to the security imperatives ofpost-Cold War Europe has come too late to aid the realization of the French vision of an independent European defence identity emerging out of the ashes of the Cold War.*

Transnational Legitimacy in a Globalising World: How the European Union Rescues its States

This article addresses claims regarding the limited legitimacy of international institutions. It argues that the two original appointed supranational institutions of the European Union play a crucial, if systematically underestimated, role not merely in providing legitimacy for the Union itself, but also in shoring up that of its constituent member states. We illustrate that supranationalism enhances national legitimacy in functional, political and administrative terms. It does so by helping member states produce outputs they otherwise could not (particularly by enabling them to deal with transboundary policy problems they would struggle to confront if acting in isolation) and by embedding within national political and administrative systems legally enforceable obligations to respect the interests of actors whose voice is excluded or muffled (de jure or de facto) within purely national political processes. The article contends that the claims to legitimacy made by the EU and its member states are of distinctive character but interdependent and mutually reinforcing.

Power, Institutions and the CSDP: The Promise of Institutionalist Theory

The common security and defence policy (CSDP) represents an institutionalized attempt on the part of European Union Member States to respond to the security challenges they confront. As such, it is perhaps self-evident that theoretical approaches that focus on the role of institutions in shaping social life should have something to say about its nature, role and impact. This article argues that not only can institutionalist approaches enhance our understanding of CSDP, but using it as a case study can illustrate some of the strengths and weaknesses of institutionalism. In particular, it can indicate the importance of combining insights into the importance of institutional structures in shaping politics and policy with the crucial role power plays in mitigating some institutional effects. This argument is pursued via consideration of the evolution and workings of CSDP.

Instruments and Intentionality: Civilian Crisis Management and Enlargement Conditionality in EU Security Policy

This article applies a public policy instrumentation approach to two instruments of EU security policy – civilian crisis management and enlargement conditionality. Both have come to be portrayed, by policy-makers and observers alike, as deliberate and efficient responses to specific policy challenges. Our analysis of the processes behind their adoption challenges such claims. In a complex institution like the EU, and in a sensitive sector like security, the development of new policy instruments requires negotiation within dense institutional settings. The resulting instruments do not necessarily match the initial intentions of their creators. The focus on unanticipated – albeit in retrospect not necessarily undesired – consequences in the development of the instruments of EU security policy also contributes to the broader research agenda on policy instruments, which problematises the selection of policy instruments yet nevertheless tends to perceive them as part of a deliberate strategy of policy change.

Brexit: initial reflections

Even though the opinion polling before the British referendum on membership of the European Union showed a narrow gap between the two sides, the actual result-a vote to leave-on the morning of 24 June 2016 came as a surprise to many. Yet in truth both the referendum and its outcome had deep roots in British politics. In this article we cast an eye over the history of Britains relationship with the EU, which has long been marked by a mixture of awkwardness and successful influence. We trace the origins of the referendum in long-run tensions between, and within, the political parties, and in the lukewarm public support for European integration. We also examine more contingent, short-term factors relating to the referendum campaign itself. We conclude by commenting on the divisions exposed by the vote along lines of geography, education, class and wealth, and suggest that reconciling these with the continuing tensions in the party landscape make a clean and speedy exit from the EU unlikely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wider and Deeper? Enlargement and Integration in the European Union

ABSTRACT This contribution presents an institutionalist account of the conditions under which widening either impedes or encourages deepening. We argue that the impact of widening on deepening depends on the position of the enlargement state relative to the preference distributions of existing member states. Also, we argue that while expanding to a laggard may in some cases create short-term gridlock, it may also provide the impetus for institutional changes that facilitate deepening over the long-term. We assess our argument empirically drawing on the European Unions own history and data on federal systems and international organizations.

Wake up, Europe!

We live in a world of rapid transition. Yet while, in the United States, it is hard to escape discussions of the changing international system and its implications, such debates are largely absent in Europe. This is all the more serious in that Europe is both more vulnerable than the USA to the myriad new threats on the horizon and less well equipped to confront them. We outline the nature of the challenges confronting Europe, and suggest that the solution lies, first and foremost, in national capitals. Virtually all EU member states attach unwarranted importance to “sovereignty”, while fully aware that, alone, they count for nothing as foreign policy and security actors. It is only if the EU member states understand the nature of the threats they face and consent to tackle them collaboratively that Europe will be in a position to defend its interests effectively.