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This contribution examines how the roles of the European Union (EU) in the governance of the atmosphere – the global ozone and climate regimes – as a contested Global Space have evolved over time. To do so, it first combines theoretical considerations regarding foreign policy roles and global justice. It then traces EU role conceptions and role performance in these regimes from their inception until today. The article argues that, as the two regimes have matured, the EU has increasingly been adopting the role of a 'spacifier', pursuing a substantive justice position dedicated to fully protecting the atmosphere ('leaving the space in peace') while actively striving to reconcile other actors' positions. This role embodies the EU's simultaneous quest for embracing the European Green Deal's socio-ecological transformation agenda while becoming a geopolitical actor. It can be interpreted as an expression of 'principled pragmatism' under the conditions of the Anthropocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) has increasingly become a foreign policy actor in its own right, sparking the emergence of EU External Action Studies (EU EAS). Although this thriving field at the intersection of EU Studies and International Relations has gradually matured, the interaction of EU EAS with Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) has so far remained limited. This contribution discusses whether concepts and approaches from EU EAS hold valuable theoretical insights for FPA, and how these could be exploited. It argues that there is a largely untapped potential for cross-fertilization between the two fields. This claim is illustrated with several examples as well as two short instructive cases that show how the approach to studying the EU's "external effectiveness" helps addressing FPA's blind spot regarding foreign policy impacts, and how the critical agenda on "decentering" EU external action directs much-needed attention to the "foreign" in FPA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Science diplomacy represents a relatively novel field of EU external action. This contribution provides a better understanding of the under‐researched development of this policy domain, asking how and why the EU has extended the scope of its external activities in the scientific area. To answer these questions, it conducts an analysis of EU policy‐makers' discourses on external science policies inspired by role theory. It finds that EU role conceptions in this domain take the forms of ‘science for diplomacy’ or ‘diplomacy for science’, and that they correspond either to an image of normative or market power Europe. These findings are confirmed by a study of the EU's recent external science policies. The article argues that the ambiguity of rationales invoked for introducing a genuine science diplomacy in the EU helps to appeal to different constituencies. This, in turn, enhances the Union's chances for successfully expanding the scope of its activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introductory article to the special issue on major powers in shared neighbourhoods sets the scenery by introducing the research objectives, situating them in the relevant academic context with references to the literatures on great power dynamics, regionalism and foreign policy analysis. It presents a conceptual framework for the study of ‘major powers’, understood as regional leaders, and their different forms of interaction in shared neighbourhoods, before providing an overview of the key insights of the individual contributions. The article concludes by identifying the main factors explaining the shape of the relationship between major powers in their shared region and outlining a research agenda on comparative neighbourhood policy studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the discipline of European Union foreign policy analysis, quite a number of debates have focussed on determining what type of actor the EU is in international affairs (e.g. a normative power). While intellectually stimulating, these debates have regularly been held at too high a level of aggregation. Breaking the question about the EU's clout in international affairs down to the micro-level, this contribution takes up a conceptual and methodological challenge that is currently unaddressed in the discipline: developing a method suited for studying the EU's concrete foreign policy activities and their effects so as to assess its actual influence on global politics. Importing insights on the concept of influence from public policy analysis, it designs an analytical framework that allows for statements about whether, how, to what extent and - ultimately - under what conditions the EU exerts influence in one important arena of international affairs, namely international regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]