Christopher J. Bickerton

The New Intergovernmentalism: European Integration in the Post‐Maastricht Era

The post-Maastricht period is marked by an integration paradox. While the basic constitutional features of the European Union have remained stable, EU activity has expanded to an unprecedented degree. This form of integration without supranationalism is no exception or temporary deviation from traditional forms of European integration. Rather, it is a distinct phase of European integration, what is called ‘the new intergovernmentalism’ in this article. This approach to post-Maastricht integration challenges theories that associate integration with transfers of competences from national capitals to supranational institutions and those that reduce integration to traditional socioeconomic or security-driven interests. This article explains the integration paradox in terms of transformations in Europes political economy, changes in preference formation and the decline of the ‘permissive consensus’. It presents a set of six hypotheses that develop further the main claims of the new intergovernmentalism and that can be used as a basis for future research.

Towards a Social Theory of EU Foreign and Security Policy

This article argues that the study of EU foreign and security policy has been hampered by its conceptualization of the sovereign state. Realist and constructivist scholars share Stanley Hoffmanns formulation of states as either ‘obstinate or obsolete’. EU foreign and security policy is puzzling in this respect as it corresponds to neither. Drawing on two examples – the ECs role in the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) in 1973–75 and the contemporary workings of the Political and Security Committee (PSC) – this article suggests that we think of EU foreign and security policy as driven not by the obstinacy or the obsolescence of the nation‐state but rather by its transformation. In line with this claim, the article proposes a social theory of EU foreign and security policy with democracy and bureaucracy as two competing political forms within the framework of the modern state. It is the changing balance between these two political forms that drives forward closer foreign and security co‐operation in Europe.

Functionality in EU Foreign Policy: Towards a New Research Agenda?

Abstract The study of European Union (EU) foreign policy has hitherto been dominated by the question of effectiveness, i.e. does it work? This takes the external impact of the EU’s foreign policy as its analytical starting point. In addition to asking whether EU foreign policy works, we should also inquire into its functions. The article identifies three functions served by EU foreign policy: (1) the legitimization of inactivity at the national level; (2) as a site for the struggle over political power between different actors in the EU; (3) as a means for exploring ontological issues relating to the EU’s underlying purpose and its finalité politique. A common feature of each of these functions is their internal orientation. From this perspective, the study of EU foreign policy need not be limited to assessing the impact of the EU on the rest of the world. It can also tell us a great deal about the political dynamics and the ongoing search for meaning within the EU.

Legitimacy through norms: the political limits to Europe's normative power

This chapter analyses the idea of the European Union (EU) as a normative actor through the conceptual prism of legitimacy. It argues that the concept of ‘Normative Power Europe’ can be understood as part of a wider effort to find for the EU’s foreign policy a clear source of legitimacy, alongside the plethora of analogous qualifying adjectives such as ‘civilian’, ‘postmodern’ and ‘ethical’.1 A quick glance through the work on normative power makes clear the importance of this legitimizing function. In a recent special issue on ‘ethical power Europe’, Aggestam (2008: 1) explains that ‘the Union of 27 is in search of a new sense of collective purpose and legitimacy’ and that it has found such purpose in foreign policy. ‘This external role’, she continues, ‘is articulated in a discourse of universal ethics which defines the EU as a “power for good” and a “peacebuilder in the world”’. In another article in the same special issue, Mayer (2008: 61) explicitly states that his purpose is to develop ‘a new rhetoric, a more mature and responsible narrative by and for the EU on its future global role’. Mayer (2008: 61) argues that ‘a more responsible rhetoric would… allow for a more realistic translation of ethical principles and political goals into successful practical action’. A review of the recent literature also suggests that the debate around the idea of the EU as a normative power has itself crystallized around the question of legitimacy. One of the main concerns of scholars and policymakers at the present time is to identify the sources of legitimacy for the EU’s norms. From being a source of legitimacy, Normative Power Europe is today in search of its own legitimacy.

Populism and technocracy: opposites or complements?

Although populism and technocracy increasingly appear as the two organising poles of politics in contemporary Western democracies, the exact nature of their relationship has not been the focus of systematic attention. This article argues that whilst these two terms – and the political realities they refer to – are usually assumed to be irreducibly opposed to one another, there is also an important element of complementarity between them. This complementarity consists in the fact that both populism and technocracy are predicated upon an implicit critique of a specific political form, referred to in this article as ‘party democracy’. This is defined as a political regime based on two key features: the mediation of political conflicts through the institution of political parties and a procedural conception of political legitimacy according to which political outcomes are legitimate to the extent that they are the product of a set of democratic procedures revolving around the principles of parliamentary deliberation and electoral competition. This argument is made through a close analysis of works by Ernesto Laclau and Pierre Rosanvallon, chosen as exemplary manifestations of the contemporary cases for populism and technocracy, respectively.

Europe's Neo-Madisonians: Rethinking the Legitimacy of Limited Power in a Multi-level Polity

Debates about the legitimacy of political orders have long turned on the question of how political power should be limited. In the debate about the legitimacy of the European Union (EU), a ‘neo-Madisonian’ vision has emerged that identifies in the multi-level nature of the EU a contemporary version of Madisons argument about the separation of powers and checks and balances. The article situates this account of the EUs legitimacy within the wider trajectory of European integration and argues that these neo-Madisonian scholars make the mistakes of presuming that all limits upon the exercise of power are legitimate and of treating sovereignty and legitimacy as oppositional concepts. By returning to Madisons argument in the Federalist Papers, the article highlights the connection between legitimacy, limited power and the principle of popular sovereignty and the implications of this for how we should think about the EUs legitimacy in the future.

‘Oh bugger, they're in the tent’: British responses to French reintegration into NATO

Abstract This article looks at the British response to the French decision to re-integrate into the military structures of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance. It outlines the official Whitehall position, expressed by officials within the British Ministry of Defence, that welcomes the decision as a sign that France has strategically converged onto the British position as outlined in the UK 1997/8 Strategic Defence Review. An alternative view, set out by prominent members of the British establishment and supported by the work of think tanks, notes that the most striking feature is the lack of any coherent British response. This view emphasises the ad hoc nature of contemporary British defence policy, its lack of strategic reflection and the prominence of many unanswered questions vis-à-vis British defence policy more generally. The article ends by suggesting that contemporary Franco-British defence cooperation is likely to be dictated more by the pragmatic requirements of budgetary stringency than power political considerations.

‘Techno-populism’ as a new party family: the case of the Five Star Movement and Podemos

ABSTRACT Democratic politics in Southern Europe have been shaken by the emergence of the Five Star Movement (M5S) in Italy and Podemos in Spain. Initially dismissed as protest movements, both point to broader structural transformations taking place within the region’s political systems. Focusing on three dominant notions in the literature, ‘anti-system’, ‘anti-establishment’ and ‘populist’ party types, this article critically discusses each of these conceptual categories. It finds that none of them captures the originality of these movements, namely their combination of ‘populist’ and ‘technocratic’ conceptions of politics and modes of presentation. Revisiting the term ‘techno-populism,’ this article recasts it as a new party family. As well as shedding light on the distinctive nature of the M5S and Podemos, this article aims to contribute to defining a broader ‘ideal-type’ of techno-populism, which can serve as the basis for a new research agenda combining work on technocracy, populism and political parties.

Saving the Union? EU Foreign Policy and the Democratic Deficit

This chapter connects the preceding discussion about the functions of EU foreign policy with that of the democratic deficit. It does this because one important — though more contingent — function of EU foreign policy is to mitigate some of the EU’s legitimacy problems, namely its ‘democratic deficit’. Though foreign policy is rarely cited as an agent of internal democratization, arguments about the need for consistency between internal and external policy suggest that there is a relationship between foreign policy and the EU’s internal political development. This is the suggestion of Nicolaidis and Howse, for whom the EU’s tendency towards idealistic hubris in its foreign policy can serve as a useful lightning rod for internal reform. In their words, ‘the goals that the EU sets itself externally need in turn to constitute the main benchmarks for internal policies. Ultimately, the EU would need to model itself on the Utopia that it seeks to project on to the rest of the world’ (2002, p. 788).

The Politics of Performance: ‘Turf Wars’ in Common Security and Defence Policy

In the EU’s CSDP,1 much has been made of the uniqueness of the EU’s contribution to international affairs. For those enthusiasts of closer foreign and security cooperation in Europe, what matters most is that the EU is particularly well-suited to meeting the demands of the early twenty-first century. At a time when many analysts focus on non-conventional security threats, and when military security has been replaced by a broader notion of human security, the EU’s own identity as a post-Westphalian actor is well-regarded: as one that eschews the conventions of power politics, the EU is ideally placed for meeting contemporary security threats. In 2005, Javier Solana argued that ‘we have moved from a state-based security paradigm to one where, increasingly, non-state actors present the greatest threat to our security and where solutions mostly transcend the power of the state’ (Solana, 2006c, p. 17). For Solana, the EU is perfectly suited to dealing with ‘a borderless and chaotic world’ (Solana, 2006b, p. 114). Solana’s successor, Baroness Ashton, has made identical arguments. In an article in the Wall Street Journal explaining to readers the significance of the new External Action Service (EAS), Ashton justified the service precisely in terms of its promise to provide integrated solutions to complex security problems.