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This thesis offers an in-depth, detailed analysis of the European Union (EU)'s normative power and the effectiveness of its norm diffusion in relation to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) between 2007 and 2018. Specifically, this thesis will explore dialogues and collaborations on trade and security between the EU and ASEAN to answer the main research question: "is the EU an effective normative power in relation to ASEAN, and why?" In doing so, the thesis aims to address the shortcomings of existing research, which primarily adopts an EU-exceptionalist view of normative power or has predominantly focused on regions in the EU's immediate neighbourhood. Drawing on concepts and analytical tools from Normative Power Europe (NPE) literature and diffusion theory, this thesis seeks to transcend the conventional division between the disciplines of EU studies and international relations. To this end, the study will contribute to the current debate on the nature of the EU's power in global politics. Meanwhile, it aims to make a contribution to the discussion on norm and policy diffusion in international relations, a subject which has not been fully investigated in the context of interregional relationships. The study will investigate the interregional relations and cooperation instruments between the EU and ASEAN. It draws on case studies from the EU-ASEAN cooperation in two specific policy fields-trade and security- in order to observe and analyze the EU's projection of normative power and the process of norm diffusion.

This thesis seeks to account for variation in the robustness of EU crisis responses, assessing why the Union took robust action in some cases, while responding only in a weak manner in others. The thesis carries out a comparative assessment of the explanations for variation in robustness suggested by three of the main theoretical approaches in International Relations: realism, in the form of structural realism; liberalism, in the form of liberal intergovernmentalism; and constructivism, in the form of sociological institutionalism. Structural realism argues that the most powerful member states’ security concerns determine the robustness of EU responses, and that the most powerful states can shape responses in ways that go against the preferences of other member states. Liberal intergovernmentalism argues that the domestic interests of the most powerful member states are the key variable shaping the robustness of EU responses, and that because each member state has a veto, the Union’s responses cannot go beyond the lowest common denominator of what all member states are willing to accept. Sociological institutionalism contends that the robustness of EU responses is extensively shaped by the Union’s norms, such as respect for human rights and international law, and that member states converge on common responses. The empirical analysis tests hypotheses derived from the theories in three case studies of recent EU crisis responses: to the migration crisis, to Russia’s intervention in Ukraine,and to the conflict in Libya. No single theory can fully account for variation in the robustness of EU responses. Instead, each theory guides our attention towards one of the causes of variation: the security concerns of the most powerful member states, their domestic interests, and EU norms. Variation in robustness depended on the context-specific intensity and interaction of the three variables. The more each of the three pointed towards a robust response, the likelier that the EU would respond robustly to a crisis. The thesis adds to our understanding of the EU’s responses to three ongoing crises on which there is relatively limited existing scholarship. It contributes to the study of EU foreign policy by providing a theoretically driven empirical account of the causes of variation in the robustness of the Union’s responses. More broadly, it adds to the debate on the role of the most powerful member states, institutional actors, and other member states in shaping EU foreign policy. Finally, it also feeds into wider debates in International Relations on the respective influence of security concerns, domestic interests, and norms on foreign policy.

Over the past decades, the European Union (EU) has projected itself as an international actor that, among its aims, considers the resolution of conflicts in its neighborhood as a very important portion of its foreign policy. And yet, this organisation continues to encounter great resistance by several actors in the international arena. This thesis examines the strategies of conflict resolution put in place by the EU in Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014): this is to understand what tools the Union adopted, why, and what factors hampered the organisation's exercise of its actorness. The thesis does so by adopting the liberal-institutional approach to international relations, and especially its focus on interdependence and non-military strategies to conflict resolution. This theoretical approach rests on the classification of the Georgian and Ukrainian conflicts as hybrid wars. In fact, these wars, it is argued, respond negatively to coercive means of diplomacy. For this reason the thesis argues that the EU is particularly well situated, ideologically and structurally, to address them. Through the methodological lenses of comparative analysis, qualitative content analysis, and elite interviews, the thesis focuses on both factual realities and narratives to understand the crucial role of the EU's missions in Georgia and Ukraine. The comparative moment of the thesis aims at identifying the overall approach of the European Union to conflicts arising in its neighborhood and the main obstacles that hampered it. This thesis focuses especially on the initial moment of the EU's engagement in the two scenarios, exemplified by the fact that the analysis of the deployment of the EUMM and EUAM missions focuses on the first 12 to 18 months of operations. This decision was made in order to isolate the initial rational process that led to the formulation of specific policies in the two contexts by the EU, as well as indicating what factors delegitimised the Union from the beginning. The findings of the analysis indicate that the EU has adopted similar strategies in Georgia and Ukraine. These have included various tools of soft diplomacy, such as the European Neighborhood Policy, the EU Monitoring Mission and EU Advisory Mission, and the development of programs of financial aid in the two countries. These strategies are, on one side, in line with the liberal-institutionalist approach to conflict resolution that focuses on the creation of spaces of intersubjective dialogue among parties and on the promotion of incentives for the cessation of hostilities. On the other, they reflect the normative nature of the EU that, despite the various interests of its members in Georgia and Ukraine, operated as an actor tasked with the spread of values associated with liberal-institutionalism as an ideology. In this sense, the thesis confirms the idea that the EU is an international normative actor that attempts at keeping peace in its neighborhood through means of softdiplomacy. However, the thesis finds that the ability of the European Union to deliver on these prospects has been greatly hampered by two factors: first, while the EU enjoyed horizontal coherence in the two scenarios (for example, the policies implemented did not contradict one the other), it lacked vertical coherence. This means that the different positions of its members, mainly related to their economic ties with Georgia and Ukraine and to their stances towards an expansionist Russia, undermined the EU's actorness in foreign policy. Second, the Union itself has, through its diplomatic tools, antagonised Russia. This led the Kremlin to perceive the organization as a threat and de facto impeded the creation of a truly comprehensive dialogue among all the parties involved in the Georgian and Ukrainian conflicts.

Cooperation in foreign, security and defence affairs has become an increasingly crucial topic with the growing number of crises and conflicts that the Euro-Atlantic community faces. Since their origins, the EU and NATO have gone through different phases of interactions, and recent events in their security environment on the Eastern and Southern borders have demanded greater collaboration. Their interactions and cooperation have experienced multiple challenges internally as well as externally. This dissertation analyses the EU-NATO interorganisational relationship and takes a special focus on the role of member states. States pursue different goals and objectives, and thus takes a different position in international organisations as well as in interorganisational relationships. This research investigates the interactions between organisations in overlapping policy areas, and more specifically in the field of security and defence, by establishing the theoretical framework of interorganisational interaction. It argues that both member states and international organisations play decisive roles in shaping the preferences, designs and institutional settings of interorganisational relations, and seek to pursue their own interests through multiple channels and forums. Based on the findings and insights from the theoretical framework two typologies are developed: a typology of interorganisational interaction and a typology of member states' positions in interorganisational interaction. The typology of interorganisational interaction is based on a set of indicators that include the network density of international organisations, functional overlap, the level of formalisation, frequency, intensity, and membership overlap. The typology of member states consists of advocates, blockers, balancers and neutrals of interorganisational interaction. Both typologies help to explain and understand the diverging behaviours, strategies and positions of member states. The theoretical framework with the typology of member states in interorganisational relations is applied to the analysis of the role of member states in the relationship between the EU and NATO. The empirical part analyses each type by considering and categorising all member states to illustrate their different contributions, interactions and approaches to shaping EU-NATO cooperation. This research takes a mixed methods approach by collecting data through the conduct of interviews with representatives from the EU, NATO and selected member states, the analysis of key national security and defence documents from member states, and the use of descriptive statistics which compile member states' contributions to EU-led and NATO-led military operations as well as their cooperation on the institutional and operational levels. With the development of the theoretical framework including the indicators of interorganisational interaction and the typology of member states, and the findings from the empirical analysis, this inquiry enhances the scholarship of interorganisational relations. It adds a new angle by analysing the perspective of member states and further contributes to the empirical examination of the EU-NATO relationship in security and defence affairs.

The EU continues to assert for itself a role as an advocate and promoter of the rights of minorities in its external affairs. This thesis, however, demonstrates that when it comes to the EU's reform agenda in its relations with the Eastern Partnership ("EaP"), minority rights represent a normative blind spot. Drawing upon debates and empirical works centred around Manners' (2002) conceptualization of the EU as a 'Normative Power Europe', this thesis sets out to assess the extent to which Manners' inclusion of minority rights as one of the pillars of the EU's normative identity and its external affairs 'toolkit' is justified. The analytical framework created to make this assessment rests upon three core questions: a) do national minority rights and protections form part of the EU's external affairs role and EU identity; b) what does the manner in which the EU interacts with the EaP in this policy field reveal about the EU as a normative actor; and c) what impact does the EU have in the field of minority rights policy in the EaP. Utilising elite interviews on the ground in three EaP states (Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova - "the EaP3") and a documentary analysis of the key documents framing the EU's relations with each, this thesis argues that in its relations with the EaP3, the EU has largely replicated prior failings in this policy field identified in the scholarship focussed on its accession processes during the 2004, 2007 and 2013 enlargements. Moreover, where the EU claims to have addressed minority rights in its deepening relationships with the EaP3, it has restricted itself to a conceptualisation of minority rights at odds with both its prior practice in accession negotiations as well as in wider, European and international understandings of such rights. In effect, despite its own claims to the contrary, the EU has marginalised national minority rights in its relations with the EaP3.

The thesis addresses the puzzle of the differential integration of former communist states in the Euro-Atlantic community of nations between 1989 and 2000. Notwithstanding the predominant universalist-rationalist assumption that the adoption of an institutional-administrative blueprint for reform could lead to convergence between East and West, countries such as Poland, Bulgaria and Russia did not converge similarly (or at all) on the West European normative model and framework of international relations. To account for this divergence, the thesis examines the impact of the culturally-historically informed, Polish, Bulgarian and Russian identities and conceptions of 'Europe' (as opposed to the formal-institutional transition from one system to another) on the process of foreign policy transformation. The doctoral research employs Constructivism, Social Psychological insights and an interpretivist methodology, drawing on 75 elite interviews. The main argument states that differential Europeanisation can be understood on the basis of differentiated levels of inclusion and establishment of relations of mutual recognition and belongingness - substantiated by a differentiated extent of ideational affinity (i.e., normative compatibility), which are (re)enacted in the interactive, mutually constitutive process of identification between Self and Other (i.e., between Poland, Bulgaria and Russia and (Western) Europe). Three propositions of 'thick', 'ambivalent' and 'thin' Europeanisation are derived from the argument (whereby the comparative benchmark of Europeanisation is an ideal-typical model of European-ness). Key contributions focus on the development of a refined Constructivist theory and a systematic empirical comparison of Polish, Bulgarian and Russian foreign policy identities. Also, the study's conclusions reinvigorate and reconfirm the importance of the continuity (rather than just constant flux) of culturally-historically shaped patterns of group self-understandings and sub-regional identifications as well as Constructivism's greater plausibility in accounting for the research puzzle than (Neoclassical) Realism through the stipulation of a mutually constitutive relationship between international and domestic factors and between ideational and interest-based considerations.

Based on Foucault's work on the rationalities of government (governmentality) and Bourdieu's study of practices (philosophy of action), this thesis seeks to examine the case of cross-border mobility by way of analysing knowledge-production, instruments of governing and practices in the EU's relations with the states of the Eastern Partnership (EaP). The thesis shows that EU attempts at governing cross-border mobility do not merely aim to foster regulated mobility between the EU and its neighbours, but are also inherently linked to the EU's efforts to shape the EaP states to its own standards and practices of governing. Using the case studies of i) border management capacity-building, ii) facilitation of short-term travel and iii) labour migration, the study argues that while the EU's rationalities of governing remain largely controlling and disciplinary, the study of the microcosm of daily practices reveals some emergent rationalities of 'governing at a distance', which increasingly draw on the interplay of both the EU's interests and partners' needs. To this end, it does not merely present issues of cross-border mobility from the perspective of either 'inclusion' or 'imposition of constraints', but rather by way of seeking to govern the external space by making the Other 'capable of bearing a kind of regulated freedom' (Rose & Miller; 2008: 53). The thesis' key contributions are (i) conceptual involving ontological examination of the wider changes in the EU management of (in)security, and focus of a paradigmatic shift from the EU directly-controlling 'governance' to a more nuanced form of diffused 'governmentality', or governing at distance, and its effectiveness; and (ii) methodological, combining the study of knowledge-production and instruments of governing with daily practices, hitherto applied separately, but in this research proving instrumental for understanding the EU management of insecurities and its sustainability. Empirically (iii), the thesis provides new data on the three case studies, particularly, highlighting the extent to which the EU's attempts at governing are transposed to the micro-level of daily practices. In the context of the on-going migration crisis, the eastern neighbourhood provides some important lesson-drawing for the management of cross-border mobility in the wider neighbourhood and beyond.

The Lisbon Treaty introduced one of the most far reaching reforms of the EU foreign policy system. This has been particularly noticeable in the example of the rotating Presidency of the EU Council. By transferring the functions formerly associated with the Presidency to the newly established actors, the President of the European Council and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the Presidency’s role has been severely limited. Yet with only limited formal provisions, the practical arrangements were to be clarified in due course of the implication phase. This thesis explores this phase by tracing the processes of the implementation and informal adaptation of the Treaty’s provisions in the post-Lisbon context of EU foreign policy making. The analytical framework incorporating new institutionalist and role-based insights aims to capture the institutional development of the Presidency’s role as an outcome of the institutional feedback and particular role making of the first Member States in the chair. The proposed model of role institutionalisation is argued to explore mechanisms of institutional change in a more in-depth manner as a constitutive process at the structural and agential levels. The concept of role making is used to capture and explore the influence of Spain, Belgium, Hungary and Poland on the inter-institutional positioning and functional scope of the post-Lisbon Presidency. At the national level of analysis, the individual role enactment of these countries reflects their national preferences towards both the system of European foreign policy and national role conceptions. At the same time, however, their individual role making is both enabled and/or constrained by the emerging system of the post-Lisbon foreign policy making (institutional feedback), and by a set of factors at the national, European and international levels. Consequently, the analysis confirms the added value of applying role theory while studying the Presidency, as well as highlights its analytical usefulness in exploring the process of institutional change.

This thesis argues that the limited application of postcolonial perspectives in European Union (EU) enlargement studies, and especially in studying power relations, has led to a failure to properly identify and examine the extent to which the EU produces unequal power relations. Current studies of enlargement are largely based on mainstream positivist theories and thus overlook the importance of a post-positivist, critical and interpretivist research framework in understanding the EU and power relations. In contrast, by adopting postcolonialist perspectives and applying them to the case of the Romanian enlargement, the thesis presents a critical discourse analysis of the EU enlargement monitoring reports and interviews with officials of the EU and Romanian negotiating teams in order to demonstrate the extent to which the EU produces unequal power relations through instances of subalternity, orientalism and mimicry that have so far been identified and discussed by postcolonial scholars. Each of these three perspectives has so far been obscured to a large extent from the enlargement literature, as a result of the limited application of postcolonial approaches in EU studies. This thesis aims therefore to address this gap and advance the postcolonial research on the EU and unequal power relations.

Constructivist accounts of the EU’s emergence as a security actor typically focus on changing conceptions of the Union’s role within a European context, at both national and EU levels. But few studies have analysed how significant Others in the international system understand the EU’s evolving role, which is assumed to play an important role in EU identity construction. This thesis analyses the nature of the US elite’s discourse on the EU, assessing the relative influence of factors - internal and external to the elite - in shaping its evaluations of EU security action. The study adopts a discursive institutionalist approach exploring how differing ideas about the EU are expressed and modifying this framework to examine how agents purposefully shape discourse in line with their preferences. By adapting the framework to focus on competing elite sub-groups, the project seeks to analyse discursive attempts at institutional change in greater detail. The study employed a qualitative content analysis of more than 100 texts produced by an ideologically and institutionally representative group of American foreign policy analysts and officials, in two cases: common foreign and security policy (CFSP) and counter terrorism cooperation. Public and classified official texts in the public domain were analysed to compare coordinative and communicative discourse. The findings indicate that ideological cleavages are mirrored in distinct narrative accounts of EU, which cross cut the Union’s differing security policy competence levels. While perceptions of European disunity and weakness dominated both conservative and liberal accounts, conservative analysts continued to portray EU security integration as threatening to US interests, a theme which has declined in importance in mainstream official discourse since the early 2000s. Empirically, the thesis provides a rich analysis of discourse on the EU in a context with significance both for scholars and policymakers concerned with external perceptions of the EU as a security actor. It provides a novel assessment of how American officials’ assessments of the EU differ in public and in private. By analysing the discursive tactics of influential elite sub-groups, it reveals an arena for competing accounts of the EU in which the Union’s differing policy competences are overshadowed by the elite’s ideological cleavages.

This thesis is a history of the international settlement of the Lithuanian-Polish dispute over Vilnius, focusing on the involvement of Britain, France, Soviet Russia and the League of Nations. As its theoretical point of departure, the thesis considers that alongside motivations of the balance of power and the national interest in international relations, there exist more salient and less visible unspoken assumptions and mentalités that lay down the intellectual framework in which those realist considerations take place, and that can sway judgments and shape concrete policy decisions. The thesis traces the emergence of 'didactic' and 'romantic' traditions of historiography on the fall of 'Poland' in the eighteenth century and shows how they shaped the way in which Poland's claim to Vilnius, as well as its geopolitical role in general, was imagined in the making of the new Europe after the Great War. The thesis also demonstrates how assumptions about Lithuanian backwardness and civilizational inferiority conditioned the settlement of the dispute. By presenting a thorough account of the settlement of the Vilnius dispute under the auspices of the League, this study enriches the League of Nations scholarship with a hitherto neglected episode of inaugural importance in the League's history. Focusing on the bargaining between the intergovernmental Council and the international Secretariat, the work sheds light on the 'league temperament', or the inter -nationalist mindedness, in the most 'realist' of the League's policy avenues - that of international dispute settlement. In parallel, the thesis analyses the efforts of the dispute unsettlement by Soviet Russia. Focusing on the work of Soviet diplomats in Lithuania, the thesis reconstructs Soviet attempts to derail the dispute settlement in the League and beyond, shedding light on the period of 'peaceful coexistence' and of consolidation of power in early Soviet diplomacy.

The post-conflict territories of the Western Balkans have been subjected to an unprecedented level of international attention since the mid-1990s. The EU, NATO and OSCE in particular converged on the region intent on redefining their image - if not purpose - in the first major crisis of the post-Cold War era. Responding to the horrific inter-ethnic violence that defined conflict in the region, International Organisations continually emphasised the importance of upholding standards regarding the protection of, and respect for, ethnic minorities. While literature acknowledges that military forces were deployed to establish and maintain a safe and secure environment for post-conflict peacebuilding to emerge, few scholars have explored the substance of the military role beyond the separation of former warring factions and provision of a secure humanitarian space. This research demonstrates that military actors adapted their approaches to contribute across the spectrum of the peacebuilding effort, including on rights based issues; specifically ethnic minority returns and participation. On the basis of case studies in Kosovo and Bosnia Herzegovina, the thesis adopts an empirical approach to exploring the reasons for military engagement on these issues and their respective successes and failures. It examines the sources that projected ideas on ethnic minority issues – international policy development, peace treaty composition, and domestic acceptance – and how they influenced military decision making processes. Through post-conflict phases it analyses the domestic footprint of international intervention – international administration and civil-military actors – and discusses thematically the means of military engagement, the receptiveness of domestic actors at multiple levels and the nature of compliance. Acknowledging the overarching civilian framework for intervention, where from the outset the prospective of NATO and EU membership were held forth as the 'prize' for a successful return to 'a Europe of integration, democracy and ethnic pluralism', it establishes the utility of strategic mechanisms – conditionality and normative pressure – in military hands acknowledging the potential for linkage to enlargement frameworks. It argues that in spite of principled objections, military operations can and do have influence in delivering policy on rights based issues.

This thesis analyses cooperation between France, Germany and the United Kingdom (the ‘EU-3’) throughout different episodes of the 2011 uprisings in Libya. Focusing on (i) the provision humanitarian assistance and consular support, (ii) measures taken in the realm of border protection and migration management, (iii) the use of restrictive measures, (iv) the diplomatic recognition of the Libyan opposition, and (v) the decision to intervene (or not) militarily, the study provides the first overview of the activities of the three most influential member states at the time. Drawing on a large set of original empirical material from primary and secondary sources, including 77 semi-structured interviews with foreign policy elites and experts in Berlin, Paris, London and Brussels, the thesis applies a novel two-step explanatory framework to account for decision-makers’ actions. This approach first identifies those normative factors which influenced the way in which decision-makers constructed their respective state’s interests, and subsequently demonstrates how these interests helped to form their interpretations of a given situation in light of the costs and benefits of the various options available to them. The study thus contributes to the growing body of literature that underlines the added value of ideabased research in foreign and security policies, and to crisis response in particular.

My dissertation develops Georealism, a theory to explain how great powers behave in international relations. The dissertation has two main goals. One is that it aims to create a uniform theory of international relations, particularly balancing, bandwagoning, alliances, and war. The other is that it intends to explain the behaviour of individual great powers in detail, rather than just systemic outcomes. The basic premise of Georealism is that states face a threat both from their neighbours and from potential hegemons. In four chapters, I explore the implications of this insight on great power behaviour. First, I explain why continental states choose balancing or bandwagoning when faced with a potential hegemon. Second, I look at how offshore states behave towards the continental states to maximize their security. Third, I create a theory of the alliance choices of great power. Last, I explain which great powers go to war with each other and when. All the theoretical implications are well supported by quantitative and qualitative tests taken from various cases of European great power politics from 1683 to 1913. Georealism can indeed predict the behaviour and motivations of individual states with great accuracy on a variety of topics.

This thesis explores the advocacy strategies and influence of interest groups in EU foreign policy. It examines in particular the impact of institutional factors on the strategies and lobbying outcomes. Conceptually, it contributes to the literature on interest groups and lobbying in the EU and to the study of non-state actor participation in international organisations. Conceptualising EU foreign policy as multi-level and multi-pillar, the study inquires into the relationship between policy regime (ranging from the Community method to the intergovernmental method, as these predominate in different areas of EU external relations) and the degree and type of interest group influence. To this end the thesis compares three examples of EU foreign policy: visa liberalisation towards the Eastern neighbours; sanctions towards Belarus; and CSDP missions in Georgia and Palestine. The research reveals that interest groups engage in multi-level lobbying even in those policy areas that are ruled by the intergovernmental method. Intergovernmentalism limits formal access to policymakers, but groups and policymakers build channels for informal access. To some extent contrary to the predications of established theories, this allows interest groups to exert some degree of influence even on policy dossiers in which intergovernmental arrangements prevail. In such policy domains, groups opposing change do not always succeed, despite the veto opportunities that intergovernmentalism provides. While this is a significant finding, the thesis also notes how interest group influence is most commonly exerted upon relatively technical issues and at later stages of the policy cycle. Moreover, the study emphasises that institutional structures are not the only relevant factor in explaining group influence. Group-level characteristics, including material resources, condition groups’ ability to adapt to complex decision-making in EU foreign policy. The thesis concludes that a combination of factors is required to capture the influence of interest groups over EU foreign policy.

The European Union (EU) deployed its first police mission in 2003. Since then, the EU has deployed thirty-four missions around the world. Considering the great financial burden to the EU budget and the budget of contributing Member States (MS), as well as the fact that the realm of defence is one of the most overdue areas of the European integration project, this thesis asks the general but multifaceted question of where EU missions come from. To address this question the thesis explores the historic origins of EU missions, conceptualises them in view of the conceptual and theoretical developments in the literature and policy practice, and develops a model for the analysis of the decision-making process behind the deployment of EU missions. The model is tested on three case studies, namely the three EU missions deployed in the Horn of Africa European Union Naval Force (EUNAVFOR) Atalanta, European Union Training Mission (EUTM) Somalia and European Union Capacity Building Mission (EUCAP) Nestor. The findings of the analysis reveal a gradual evolution of EU crisis management after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty and the establishment of the European External Action Service. The analysis indicates that EUNAVFOR Atalanta was primarily deployed due to French impetus at the level of the Political and Security Committee (PSC), but also due to a convincing call of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to the international community to act against the significant increase of piracy activity in the Gulf of Aden in 2008. The EUTM Somalia mission was primarily deployed due to a convincing strategy from the strategic planners at the EEAS, as well as the commitment of the United States (US) to a partnership with the EU to train recruits of the Somali Security Forces (SSF). Finally, the analysis of the third case study reveals even greater impact from the strategic planners at the EEAS and the acceptance at all levels of the EU s Comprehensive Approach to crisis management, and in particular due to the influential Strategic Framework for the Horn of Africa document. The overall interpretation of the findings conclude that the foreign policy of the EU is a moving target, constantly changing, as is exemplified by both the historic overview and the analysis of the three case studies, and that the analysts of EU foreign policy must remain open to these changes when choosing modes of studying EU foreign policy.

This thesis contributes to a growing body of literature on the role of transparency in public life. Analysing EU transparency through three levels of analysis, the thesis investigates how and why the expert advice proffered to EU policy makers is made transparent to EU citizens. At the institutional level, the study compares the transparency provided through the online registers to assess the extent of compliance with the rules and guidelines on the provision of information. It shows significant errors and gaps in the publicly available data, and demonstrates that these inaccuracies are the result of poor quality assurance at the institutions. At the group/actor level, the study draws on data from a series of elite interviews with policy-makers to consider the purpose of EU transparency. It shows that, whilst individual actors overwhelmingly frame transparency in wholly positive terms, collectively they bestow it with multiple attributes. The thesis posits that the EU has multiple transparencies and that the transparency tools - intended to improve citizen trust in the EU institutions - are frequently used by groups to undermine this trust. The process level of analysis examines the nature of the expertise used in the policy process in two distinct areas. It shows that, overwhelmingly, individuals apply to join an expert group following an informal approach from officials at the relevant Directorate General, and that those appointed in a personal capacity are likely to be already known to the Commission official responsible for the appointment. The study argues that, for the Commission’s expert group appointments, the non-transparent nature of these informal processes undermines the Commission’s rules and guidelines on transparency. Finally, the thesis recommends a number of specific and low cost measures to improve the transparency of the expertise used in the EU’s policy-making process.

Since the end of the Cold War, the European Union (EU) has become a prominent sender of international sanctions. Most of its sanctions regimes have been imposed to address human rights violations and democratic shortcomings in autocratic regimes. While these developments have attracted an increased attention by academics and practitioners alike, not much is known about the underlying factors that trigger the EU’s decision to impose sanctions in the very first place. Using a new database of EU democratic sanctions between 1989 and 2010, this thesis develops a theoretical model that shows that the imposition of sanctions is the result of a strategic bargaining process between a sender and a target country. I argue that sanctions are only one possible outcome of this process, and claim that the likelihood that sanctions are imposed depends, to a large extent, on the target country’s decision to comply with the sender before sanctions are imposed or, alternatively, on its determination to ignore the sender’s threat of sanctions and resist its pressure. I show that the target’s decision to comply or resist is the result of an endogenous policy formation process, which is determined by the target regime’s domestic institutional setting. Different types of institutions (regime types) impose varying degrees of constraints on the ruler’s margin of manoeuvre and shape her policy choices vis-à-vis the threat and imposition of sanctions. I demonstrate that regimes that face no domestic constraints and rely on a small winning coalition of supporters are likely to be strong and willing to resist the sender’s pressure, thereby “self-selecting” themselves into sanctions. By the same token, regimes that face many domestic constraints are vulnerable to sanctions, and face incentives to comply with the sender before sanctions are imposed. My thesis makes several contributions to the literature. First, it provides a theoretical explanation of how domestic institutions matter in the imposition of sanctions, and identifies a set of conditions under which sanctions are more likely (not) to be imposed. Second, it empirically demonstrates the presence of selection effects in the study of sanctions imposition, and shows that these are channelled through the target regime’s domestic institutions. Finally, my findings have relevant policy implications, as they suggest that sanctions are more likely to be effective against certain types of targets. I show that sanctions are more likely to succeed against politically constrained regimes at the threat stage or early during a sanctions episode, whilst they are likely to fail against highly authoritarian regimes which rule free of domestic constraints.

This thesis explores the conditions under which incumbent regimes in the Eastern Neighbourhood cooperate effectively with CSDP missions by adhering to and adopting the objectives set out by their mandates. In establishing whether and under what circumstances CSDP missions successfully cooperate with third country governments by inducing the acceptance of and adherence to their mandates, this thesis reclaims a focus on the local dimension of EU partner countries in order to explore the extent to which domestic stakeholders display agency in their relations with the EU and are able to constrain and/or facilitate its foreign policy. It thus asks: under what conditions do incumbent regimes in host countries embrace EU-driven strategies and reforms? The thesis examines two CSDP functions – rule transfer and confidence-building – across three CSDP missions in the Eastern Neighbourhood: the EUJUST Themis rule of law mission to Georgia, the European Union Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine (EUBAM) and the European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM) to Georgia. Drawing on rational-choice assumptions and recent academic contributions to the Eastern Neighbourhood literature, this thesis starts from the premise that the sine qua non condition for effective cooperation between CSDP missions and incumbent regimes in the Eastern Neighbourhood is the compatibility between EU objectives and the incumbent regimes’ intrinsic preference for gaining and/or maintaining political power. Defined as preferential fit, the ‘match’ between the goals of EU missions – as highlighted by their mandates – and the political agendas of national governments in ENP countries emerges as the necessary condition that facilitates effective EU-ENP cooperation. In addition to confirming the centrality of the agency-oriented concept of ‘preferential fit’ for the development of effective cooperation between the EU and its Eastern neighbours, the findings outlined in the four empirical-analytical chapters also identify the conditions which shape the cost-benefit calculations of national governments: 1. The competing strategies of domestic veto players; 2. The potential for alternative coalitions (Russia, US other international organisations); 3. The cost-effectiveness of threats and side-payments (i.e. EU policy-specific conditionality; and EU capacity-building).

The role of national parliaments in the European Union (EU) has gained prominence in the last decade among academics and practitioners alike in relation to the alleged democratic deficit of the EU. The existing literature has largely focused on the formal powers of national parliaments. However, the formally strongest parliaments are not necessarily the most active, and vice versa. This thesis argues that this divergence between formal rights and actual activity exists because not formal scrutiny powers, but public Euroscepticism, the presence of parties for which Europe is salient and which care deeply about Europe (‘issue entrepreneurs’) as well as internal party cohesion on the EU are the most important factors influencing activity. Public Euroscepticism leads to more debate and resolutions when issue entrepreneurs are present and when parties have a coherent position on Europe. Recent measures and future plans to further increase the formal powers of national parliaments might not lead to more activity and might thus not help to ameliorate the democratic deficit. Methodologically, this thesis relies on computer-assisted content analysis, multilevel models as well as elite interviews. Each of the three papers focuses on a different aspect of parliamentary activity. The first paper focuses on the ‘communication function’ of parliaments and presents an analysis of parliamentary debates in EU affairs. The second paper quantitatively analyses the determinants of parliamentary activity in the form of resolutions, relating to the government control or ‘scrutiny function’. The third paper investigates parliamentary scrutiny activity in-depth in a case study of the ‘Fiscal Compact’. The thesis argues that national parliaments should mostly concentrate on their communication function in EU affairs, while other functions might best be carried out by the European Parliament. It thus suggests that different parliamentary functions can best be fulfilled by different institutions in the EU multilevel system.

The establishment of the European External Action Service (EEAS) was the latest organisational innovation aimed at bridging the disjuncture between EU external relations and foreign policy structures. Almost immediately after its creation, it attracted wide-spread criticism of its functioning by the very same actors who had created it. This thesis develops a three-stage bureaucratic-institutionalist framework in order to explore the political contestation of this new organisation and its impact on the organisation and functioning of the EEAS. Inception, establishment and consolidation are the three phases of the organisation s life cycle under scrutiny. The thesis begins with the inception of the EEAS during the Convention on the Future of Europe from 2002-2003. Through the lens of rational choice historical institutionalism it analyses the positions of various actors in the Convention and the options that were considered during this phase. It then shows how disagreements between integrationist and more sceptical groups led to a vague compromise on the EEAS and its organisational design. The thesis continues with an analysis of the establishment phase, i.e. the negotiation process leading to the EEAS decision of 2010, throughout which the political conflict continued between the EU institutions on central design elements of the service such as status, scope and staffing. Theoretically, this conflict is captured through the politics of Eurocratic structure approach. In the final consolidation phase, the EEAS started to operate as a new administrative actor, but was heavily influenced by political and bureaucratic contestation. Bureaucracy theory helps to predict the organisational behaviour of the EEAS to a degree, but the thesis shows how the organisation was also shaped by bureaucratic politics between EU institutions and member states. The thesis concludes that a bureaucratic-institutionalist approach explains why the EEAS is a strongly contested bureaucracy and how the processes of contestation at the EU level hindered institutional design throughout the organisation s life cycle of inception, establishment and consolidation. It reveals limitations of this approach, such as the persistence of actors, the weight of decision precedent and the permeability of organisational development phases.

This study argues that the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy is a constrained agent of Europe’s foreign policy. The 2009 Lisbon Treaty reform created the remodelled version of the High Representative of the Union as a potentially powerful agent to represent and coordinate Europe’s foreign policy. However, the analysis shows how and why the member states granted only limited discretion to the new foreign policy actor during the first years of the post’s existence. The aim of the study is to reveal the conditions of discretion of the High Representative. With the use of a principal-agent (PA) approach, the study shows that conflicting preferences of the member states, tight control mechanisms, as well as inadequate cooperation with the European Commission limited the High Representative’s room for manoeuvre. The findings suggest that the PA approach can be developed further in the future in order to better explain limited discretion of agents in matters of foreign policy. Based on the findings, the study also puts forward a number of characteristics of a ‘constrained agent’. It is suggested that the post of High Representative has the potential to emancipate from its status of a constrained agent over time, and to gain credibility as a foreign policy actor.

With lessons learned from the 1999 Kosovo intervention as a point of departure, this thesis addresses the question of whether the development of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) doctrine and the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) actually made a difference in determining whether and how Europe responded to subsequent mass atrocities in its neighbourhood. Viewing the RtoP as an emerging international norm, a social constructivist framework is applied to explore the influence of norms on European foreign policy-making. It is argued that even an emerging international norm can be influential if it is considered a legitimate behavioural claim. The influence of the RtoP will be assessed by gauging the extent to which it is distinctively used to justify foreign policy decisions and to communicate the basis for those choices to a wider audience. The development of the RtoP and the CSDP from 1999-2011 in theory and practice paves the way for an in-depth case study analysis. Focusing on the UN, the EU as well as French, German and British discourses, the question of whether the RtoP has actually made a difference will be answered by scrutinizing European responses to the Libyan crisis (March – October 2011) and the Syrian crisis (March 2011 – September 2013). Ultimately, light is shed not only on the relevance of the RtoP for Europe but also on the role of the EU as a security actor in its neighbourhood.

The thesis tests the efficacy of Principal-Agent (PA) theory in explaining the creation and development of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). As such, the thesis is subject as well as theory-driven. Empirically, the focal point is how the interaction between the EU member states and the European Commission affected the development of the ENP. It is a theme which is largely overlooked in the ENP literature. In terms of theory, the ENP represents a fascinating case study for PA analysis not only because it has rarely been applied to the field of EU foreign policy but also because PA has seldom been used for studying the evolution of a policy (both pre and post-delegation). Conceptualising EU member states as principals and the European Commission as agent, the thesis examines PA dynamics through the following three ENP policy stages: formulation (2002-2004), finalisation (2004-2006), and implementation (2007-2009). Three hypotheses are tested for each stage of the ENP. Two hypotheses are rooted in PA scholarship, and address the influence of the agent as an informal agenda-setter, while the third distinguishes the agent's influence between different stages of the policy development. Methodologically, the research design is based on within-case process-tracing while the empirical data is drawn from a triangulation of official documents, secondary sources and elite interviews. The thesis findings show that during the initial stages of the policy, the Commission took advantage of its favourable position (e.g. informational asymmetries and uncertainty among the member states) to establish itself as the key actor in the ENP. As the ENP evolved, the Commission’s influence has diminished while the member states, collectively and individually, became more engaged in determining the course of the policy. However, contrary to PA assumptions, member states' increased oversight over the Commission did not come as a response to disobedient behaviour. Based on the empirical data, the Commission, as an agent, was in fact trying to implement the ENP following the guidelines which were previously agreed by its principals. Thus, in the case of the ENP, my PA analysis shifts from the traditional inquiry of how principals control opportunistic agents, to examining how principals could hinder the work of the agent. This phenomenon, broadly defined by Thompson (2007) as the ‘principal problem’, is an anomaly in existing PA literature dominated by an agency-biased standpoint and has previously not been analysed in the context of the European Union. Finally, the wider implication of this thesis is that there is still room for broadening the scope of PA analysis while highlighting the necessity to keep a watchful eye on both the principals and the agent.

The argument advanced in this thesis is that analysis of international relations would benefit from greater consideration of how material and ideational forces coexist in foreign policy. All too often academic studies seek to assert how material or ideational forces 'trump' one another, to the detriment of their analysis. In this light we test the hypothesis that the EU's policies towards the Middle East and North Africa are best explained by a joint dynamic between principled beliefs (pertaining to democracy and human rights) and materialist self-interest. As a causal mechanism to connect these variables to EU behaviour our hypothesis points to the causal beliefs of foreign policy elites, which influence the strategies chosen to pursue objectives. In this manner we propose a theoretical perspective with substantive ideational and material elements, rooted in the 'soft rationalist' approach advanced by Goldstein and Keohane (1993). Our engagement with the empirical data reveals a number of challenges that point towards future theoretical refinement, as it is shown that in light of persistent difficulties the EU progressively yielded to short-term pressures in which it was more difficult to trace our independent variables. Yet our main conclusion is that, as hypothesised, EU foreign policy towards the Mediterranean was neither an example of how norms and values lead to the transcendence of self-interests nor a case of disingenuous normative packaging. Thus, the analysis presented in this thesis strengthens the case for a synthesised perspective, suggesting that EU policy towards the MENA has for the most part evinced a marriage of material and ideational drivers under the explicit causal belief that they can be pursued in conjunction with one another. On this basis we formulate a number of recommendations for further theorising on ideational-material interaction in international relations scholarship.

Prior to the EU’s Eastern enlargement in 2004 there was much academic speculation about its repercussions for EU foreign policy. Although scholars agreed that the eight newcomers from Central and Eastern Europe would have an impact on the EU’s foreign policy, it remained unclear how and to what extent they would do so. This thesis identifies and evaluates the impact of the CEECs on the substance of EU foreign policy in three areas including development cooperation, neighbourhood policy and energy security. It analyses why the CEECs have sometimes succeeded in having an impact and at other times not. It differentiates between three categories of the CEECs' impact (defensive, divisive and innovative) as well as three aspects of policy substance (regional coverage, policy objectives and principles and policy instruments). The CEECs' impact varies along the three areas and the different stages of the policymaking process. In long-standing traditional areas such as development cooperation, it has been largely defensive and limited to soft law instruments while in regional or emerging areas such as neighbourhood policy and energy security the CEECs’ impact has been higher as well as innovative and/or divisive. To analyse why the CEECs' impact varies from case to case, the thesis draws on insights from the literature on EU (foreign) policy-making and on small states in EU foreign policy. Three sources of impact (material, institutional and ideational) are systematically applied to selected in-depth case studies in each of the three EU foreign policy areas. The thesis concludes that ideational and/or institutional factors are crucial for member states’ impact at the agenda setting stage whereas at the decision-making stage material sources of impact prevail. In order to have impact at the decision-making stage the CEECs need the support of at least two large 'old' EU member states.

This thesis examines the emergence of EU-level rules in defence industrial matters within the context of European integration and inter-state cooperation more generally. This is a remarkable development, as the defence industrial policy area has been viewed as a core of nation state sovereignty and appeared impervious to injections of “more Europe.” At the centre of this nascent policy regime is the increasingly institutionalised European Defence Equipment Market (EDEM). The first and most significant elements of EDEM to date have been the 2009 Defence Procurement Directive issued by the European Commission and the voluntary Code of Conduct on Defence Procurement launched by the European Defence Agency (EDA) in 2006. These sets of rules have materialised despite EU member states’ resistance to meaningful constraints of national autonomy in defence procurement, and a distaste for the involvement of the European Commission in particular. An analytical puzzle thus emerges: why have member states acquiesced to binding regulation in the shape of the Directive, having already enacted a soft cooperation mechanism represented by the Code? The thesis answers this question by pursuing three lines of inquiry, which correspond to three hypotheses and specify clear pathways whereby external adaptation pressures, such as the Euro-Atlantic defence budgetary trends, may result in states’ acceptance of particular constraints. Firstly, the project examines the lobbying activity of the EU’s major transnational defence firms in pursuit of a larger, more integrated “home” defence equipment market. In addition, this thesis evaluates the success of the European Commission as a determined “policy entrepreneur” in securing member states’ acquiescence to unprecedentedly binding defence procurement rules. Finally, the development of an EU security and defence policy as a source of “vital policy rationale” for an EU defence equipment market is also investigated. The tension between the supranational and intergovernmental modes of organising the defence industrial field constitutes a central theme of this thesis, while the “policy cycle” framework is used to order the causal significance of each hypothesis.

The issue of democratic deficit and crisis of legitimacy has been at the forefront of the development of the European project in the last twenty years. However, little attention has been directed towards analysing the way in which democratic legitimacy underlines the construction of the EU s foreign policy. This thesis draws on a broad understanding of democratic legitimacy which is seen to encompass various aspects: transparency, accountability, responsiveness and openness to public debate. It shows that the media had a positive effect (although in contrasting degrees) on the democratic legitimacy of the EU s foreign policy in two issue areas, highlighting the ways in which it achieved this. Drawing on insights from political theory, it argues that the European public sphere has the potential to foster the four characteristics highlighted above through the ability of the media to politicise foreign policy issues, which are commonly closed off from democratic scrutiny. Three types of interaction effects between the media and policymakers within the European public sphere are identified: indexing, bounding and agenda setting. Firstly, indexing captures the ability of policymakers to influence and shape media discourse in order to aid their interests and goals by communicating in a favourable manner their policies to the general public. Secondly, through bounding the media can have a constraining or limiting effect on the range of policies and their effectiveness that policymakers can pursue, even if the latter are not aware of or willing to engage with the frames constructed by journalists. Finally, agenda setting captures the ability of the media to purposively influence decision-making processes through its discourse. Empirically two distinct areas of EU foreign policy are explored: the EU s approach to global climate change and its policy towards Russia. Hence, the study makes a significant contribution to the understanding of EU foreign policy and to its international actorness. Secondly, it extends in a comprehensive manner the debate regarding the crisis of legitimacy and democratic deficit in the EU to the realm of foreign policy. Finally, it also contributes to the literature on Foreign Policy Analysis which engages with the issue of democratic legitimacy.

The study seeks to understand the nature and development of the relationship between the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) in peacekeeping using the case of the peacekeeping operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) between 2003 and 2008. The EU deployment in 2003 of an Interim Emergency Multinational Force (IEMF) in DR Congo represented an important shift in the role of regional organisations, as it was deployed outside its geographical setting for peacekeeping reasons. Furthermore, the co-deployment of EU and UN forces highlighted the changing pattern in peacekeeping, as regional organisations were starting to play an important role in burden sharing with the UN, thereby enhancing the notion of effective multilateralism. However the seemingly positive rhetoric emanating from the EU and UN about the partnership did not necessarily reflect the reality of the relationship. Fundamental to the study are issues concerning the involvement of regional actors outside their geographical spheres. Key questions are raised regarding the motives of regional organisations and the UN. Such questions concern, for instance, the motives behind the UN calling for EU involvement in DR Congo (at the expense of the African Union and nations) and factors that persuaded the EU to answer the call. The dynamics of the EU-UN cooperation are analysed from a political and operational dimension. Key components of the operational cooperation are essentially command and control, logistics and communication. The political cooperation components include the course taken by actors while using the structures set up to aid the partnership and the already existing departments within both organisations that facilitated the initial interaction. Further questions arise concerning cooperation between the UN and EU from the political and operational level. These include questions concerning the informal and formal mechanisms put into place to resolve the divergences between the missions. In addition, perceptions of the recipient people and the neighbouring states are examined in order to assess if this partnership is working or not. The results of the research which entailed a number of interviews and an analysis of primary and secondary data show that the motives of the EU and UN, plus the dynamics of their cooperation can be analysed in a multi-layered paradigm involving the following levels of interaction: i) Operational level — MONUC and EUFOR RD Congo, IEMF, EUPOL and EUSEC ii) Political level — local and national actors iii) Political level — regional and international actors. For instance, from an operational perspective the UN considered EU deployment as suitable especially for the provision of resources. The EU on the other hand viewed the deployment in DR Congo as an opportunity to become a global actor especially in the aftermath of the fallout from the US and its allies’ invasion of Iraq. The local, national and regional viewed the motivation for the involvement of the EU alongside the UN with suspicion. This was mainly based on the fact that key players like Belgium and France had vested interests in the DR Congo. There was dissatisfaction regarding the marginal military role given to the regional and continental powers yet the conflict was in their backyard. The nature of the path of the cooperation, especially from an operational perspective, was not smooth. This can be attributed to the different organisational cultures and motivations between the organisations. The internal dynamics of individual organisations played a role in determining the level of cooperation between the two organisations. In light of the above, the research came to several conclusions which included the fact that, due to the complex motives and differing aims of the actors, cooperation at the political level does not necessarily dovetail with cooperation at the operational level. Although the organisations have set up a system of collaboration through the declarations of 2003 and 2007, it has not been fully utilized. National and organisational interests and organisational culture among others can hinder cooperation. Nevertheless, despite a divide between the political and operational aspects of the missions, actors in the field have found ways of addressing operational problems, though significant issues remain concerning the viability of the methods used to address them in the long run.

This thesis challenges the consensual scholarly expectation of low EU impact in Central Asia. In particular, it claims that by focusing predominantly on narrow, micro-level factors, the prevailing theoretical perspectives risk overlooking less obvious aspects of the EU?s power, including structural aspects, and thus tend to underestimate the EU?s leverage in the region. Therefore, the thesis argues that a more structurally integrative and holistic approach is needed to understand the EU?s power in the region. In responding to this need, the thesis introduces a conceptual tool, which it terms „transnational power over? (TNPO). Inspired by debates in IPE, in particular new realist and critical IPE perspectives, and combining these views with insights from neorealist, neo-institutionalist and constructivist approaches to EU external relations, the concept of TNPO is an analytically eclectic notion, which helps to assess the degree to which, in today?s globalised and interdependent world, the EU?s power over third countries derives from its control over a combination of material, institutional and ideational structures, making it difficult for the EU?s partners to resist the EU?s initiatives or to reject its offers. In order to trace and assess the mechanisms of EU impact across these three structures, the thesis constructs a toolbox, which centres on four analytical distinctions: (i) EU-driven versus domestically driven mechanisms, (ii) mechanisms based on rationalist logics of action versus mechanisms following constructivist logics of action, (iii) agent-based versus purely structural mechanisms of TNPO, and (iv) transnational and intergovernmental mechanisms of EU impact. Using qualitative research methodology, the thesis then applies the conceptual model to the case of EU-Central Asia. It finds that the EU?s power over Central Asia effectively derives from its control over a combination of material, institutional and ideational structures, including its position as a leader in trade and investment in the region, its (geo)strategic and security-related capabilities vis-à-vis Central Asia, as well as the relatively dense level of institutionalisation of its relations with the five countries and the positive image of the EU in Central Asia as a more neutral actor.

This thesis aims at analysing the Europeanization of British and French foreign, security and defence policies through a moderate constmctivist approach, with a view to question its utility. It uses case studies, process-tracing, and interviews, covering the period from the estabhshment of Common Foreign and Security Policy until 2007. However, in order to provide provide the background to the cases under investigation, analysis of the period before has been included where necessary.

Practitioners and academics clearly established that participation in the EU system of foreign policy-making transforms national foreign policies. Whilst there have been detailed studies of the impact of participation in EU foreign policy on the original fifteen member states there are, as yet, few academic studies that have thoroughly investigated the impact of progressive integration in the area of EU foreign and security policy on the new (i.e. those who joined since 2004) member states. This thesis aims to address this deficit by focusing on the impact of Poland's participation in the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). It examines the processes of 'downloading', as it is argued here that involvement in CFSP has had a direct effect on both the procedures of foreign policy-making in the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and, on the substance of Polish foreign policy as well as the impact of 'uploading' from member states to the EU level and 'crossloading' between EU member states. The thesis addresses the relevant conceptual issues and provides an outline of the academic debate regarding Europeanisation and foreign policy. It identifies three mechanisms that are responsible for change: conditionality, socialisation and learning. It suggests that a member state first adapts its national foreign policy to bring it in line with the EU's acquis politique and introduces basic changes in its institutional procedures in order to effectively participate in the EU's CFSP. Only later, does socialisation and learning result in changes to how national foreign policy is made, which then facilitates both changes to the substance of national policy and the uploading of national preferences to the EU level. A two-phase model of change is introduced which identifies April 2003, when Poland first became an active observer within the EU, as the date when Europeanisation began. The thesis provides a brief explanation of the transformation of Polish foreign policy after 1989, in order to provide contextual background for the four substantive chapters which follow: one procedural on the changes in the Polish MFA and three related to policy substance. The latter three chapters examine the Europeanisation of policy towards Poland's East European neighbours in general and policies towards Ukraine and Belarus in particular. The thesis concludes with a set of methodological and conceptual observations followed by analysis of the empirical findings.

The beginning of the twenty-first century will witness an unprecedented expansion of the European Union, with ten new members joining in 2004 and more seeking to follow. Compared to past expansions, the current and forthcoming enlargements possess a number of sui generis characteristics. Of these, it is noticeable that a majority of new member countries are small. In addition, the economic, political and historical backgrounds of new small member states are very different from those of the current EU membership. In this context, there is a conventional wisdom that the accession of a large number of new small member states has the potential to create challenges to the future development of the enlarged EU. These challenges will be manifested in the decision-making process of the EU, the implementation of a wide range of its policies, and the governance of its institutions. However, this thesis will attempt to argue that this conventional view may not necessarily be correct. Thus, focusing on new small member countries, this thesis will identify, isolate and analyse the implications of their accession for the future development of the EU. The likely economic effects will first be addressed from two perspectives. The regional policy of the EU and its CAP will be examined in order to make sense of the immediate economic impact and, then, in order to take a more comprehensive view, three other areas - the internal market, monetary union and trade policy - will also be included in this study. While the main business of the EU remains predominantly in the economic sphere, nevertheless, there are a number of non-economic issues that also require our attention. This is primarily due to the argument that these are areas where challenges are also expected as a result of the accession of a large number of new small member states. We will thus focus on the future development of the CFSP and the future governance of EU institutions. This research will apply an (implied) model of small states' behaviour and reactions to specific situations namely, various aspects of EU policy-making, the implementation of its policies and the governance of its institutions. The model will be built on the basis of the general and distinctive characteristics of small states, and has served to identify the possible implications for the future integration process of the EU. The theoretical framework will be built by adopting intergovernmentalism as the core theory, but other integration theories will also be referred to with a view to complementing this core theory with some refinements. With this in mind, this study will develop the contention that the current and upcoming enlargements which embrace a large number of new small member states should not necessarily be viewed as negative to the future development of the EU, as the conventional wisdom presumes. This is because taking full account of the position of new small state members, and their likely behaviour within the environment which EU membership imposes upon them, leads to the conclusion that the conventional view is not the only possible outcome.

This thesis is an attempt to analyse, in legal terms, the theory and implementation in practice of an "ethical foreign policy" by the European Union. It focuses on relations between the Union and certain developing States. The thesis is primarily composed of two distinct substantive parts. The first substantive part is composed of two chapters. This part firstly investigates which international legal rules authorise or oblige the Union, the European Community or the Member States to promote certain values in third States or in certain circumstances take action. It further examines the legal limits which under international law constrain such policies. It then goes on to examine policy and practice from a Union/Community law perspective. Here the thesis analyses: the relationship between the Union and Community pillars; the instruments available to the Union and Community in the pursuance of foreign policy objectives; and the scope of the Community and Union's competence in implementing an ethical foreign policy. The second substantive part of thesis examines practice. It analyses the importance attached to ethical values and their relationship with other priorities and objectives. Chapter Four examines relations with Myanmar, Nigeria and Pakistan. Chapter Five looks at relations with the Palestinian Authority and Israel in the overall context of the Middle East Peace Process. Chapter Six examines the Union's policy of humanitarian and emergency aid. The thesis finally attempts to draw some conclusions, as to the efficacy of the policies and instruments utilised and the approaches adopted in practice. It is argued that the Union should concentrate its efforts on certain specific rights and territories and abandon the all-encompassing policy it is currently attempting to implement.

In this thesis, I explore the prospects for trust in international relations. I advance an agency-centred model that paradoxically emphasises both vigilance and vulnerability between states. I argue that trust is created through the dual diplomatic pursuits of risk management (e.g. monitoring and securing individual state interests) and relationship management (e.g. promoting shared goals, institutions and values). This model is then employed to evaluate the evolution of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) into the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), 1972-2002. Despite a recent surge in the study of trust in the social sciences, trust has not been explored comprehensively in the discipline of international relations (IR). In particular, the work done in IR has neglected the kernel of trust that distinguishes it from other concepts such as prediction and cooperation; that is, the dynamic of suspension, originally elucidated by the sociologist Georg Simmel, which permits the leap from uncertainty (and unacceptable risk) to positive expectation. Rather than 'reasonable doubt', trust involves giving another 'the benefit of the doubt.' The trust model is capable of providing a novel interpretation of the history, normative declarations and activities of the CSCE during the late Cold War; and the OSCE's post-Cold War role in conflict prevention, conflict resolution and post-conflict rehabilitation among its member states. For example, the OSCE's absent military capacity (e.g. vis-a-vis NATO) restricts its 'thick' risk management competence. The OSCE's limited legal capacity (e.g. vis-a-vis the EU) likewise restricts its 'thick' relationship management competence. Nevertheless, the OSCE's confidence-building activities, combined with its role as a forum for interstate dialogue explicitly linking security with international norms-especially democracy and human rights-fosters a 'propensity to trust' upon which member states are increasingly seeking to give each other the benefit of the doubt.

The aim of the thesis is to provide an understanding of the practical and conceptual significance of foreign, security and defence policies within the changing epistemology of the state, and the impact of the development of such policies upon the process of European integration. In order to achieve this analysis the thesis proceeds by examining the linkage made in traditional International Relations and Strategic Studies discourse between the state and security before considering alternative concepts whereby the state is becoming detached from its role as the primary provider of security in the international system. This is followed by an examination and assessment of the man theories of integration International Relations. An historical bridging chapter then highlights the relationship between foreign and security policy and the process of European integration. The two core empirical chapters focus upon the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the European Security and Defence Identity (ESDI) and are linked by a short chapter assessing the significant of the second Treaty on European Union, concluded at Amsterdam. The former traces factors leading to the inclusion of CFSP into the Treaty on European Union (TEU) at Maastricht followed by an outline of the institutional structures established and an assessment of CFSP in operation. The latter considers the factors promoting and preventing the EU’s acquisition of a defence capability. In particular attention is drawn to the significance of reform within the Atlantic Alliance, the future of the Western European Union (WEU) and the national positions of the British and French governments. The content of these chapters has required constant updating as circumstances change. A great deal of information for these chapters is, therefore, based two series of elite interviews, the first with British officials and Members of the European Parliament conducted during the summer of 1997; the second with personnel from EU, WEU and NATO institutions, conducted in March 1999. Finally a conclusion is reached as to the significance of such developments in assessing the nature of the European Union.

This research aims to unravel whether joint policies and supranational solutions can be forged within the sui generis 'laboratory' of the European Parliament (EP). enabling a European collective identity to emerge rather than simply the sum of national sentiments, preferences and ambitions. In particular, it intends to ascertain whether vested national interests expressed by the various Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have been overcome within their respective political groups, on the way to becoming effective and cohesive parties at European level. In order to validate or refute the above hypothesis, foreign policy, traditionally regarded as a sacred domain and stronghold of the nation state, is taken as a yardstick. Whilst bearing in mind the EP's limited competence in this field, the question at the heart of the thesis is whether the European Parliament is likely to become a genuine international actor or whether it is likely to remain a forum for discussion, functioning as the 'voice of conscience' and 'dissent' of the Community and its member states. As such, the research explores the parliamentary dynamics behind the definition of a common position vis-a-vis two major events of the 1990s: the Gulf and the Yugoslav crises. A qualitative investigation into the role of the political groups combined with a quantitative analysis of MEP voting behaviour is carried out in order to assess the interactions within and between the political alignments of the polychromatic Europarliamentary spectrum with respect to the aforementioned cases. Whereas the political groups reached a level of internal cohesion vis-a-vis these crises, the views of the European Parliament appeared rather ambiguous due to intergroup divergences. It is the contention of this thesis that the political groups have come to constitute embryonic transnational political parties which are deemed to play an increasingly important role in the development of the European Parliament, in the evolution of party politics at European level as well as in the European Union's policy-making.

The First Permanent Ottoman-Turkish Embassy in Europe: The Embassy of Yusuf Agah Efendi to London (1793-1797) One of the reforms of the Nizam-i Cedid (New order) concerned diplomatic practice and this thesis examines the establishment of the first permanent Ottoman embassy to London and the work of the first permanent ambassador Yusuf Agah Efendi from 1793 to 1797. The work discusses the style of the reports submitted by Ottoman ambassadors before the establishment of the permanent embassy to London. The preparations for the embassy and the discussions between the Reis Efendi and the British ambassador about its establishment are also studied. In addition, the journey to London, the early days of the embassy in London and the conduct of the embassy are analysed. The diplomatic activities of Yusuf Agah indicate that he was responsible for protecting his country's interests against Russian propaganda. Another concern was the intermittent clashes between the French and British warships inside Ottoman territorial waters; namely the Mikonos and Nemesis affairs. His reports on the Anglo-Russian treaty, and on Denmark and Sweden are analysed. Yusuf Agah's remarks on Francis Jackson's appointment as ambassador to Istanbul and on the Tunisian envoy are also studied. As ambassador he was principal defender of Ottoman subjects' commercial interests and was also responsible for protecting their rights according to international law and treaty agreements between the Ottoman empire and Britain. He was also charged by the Sultan to recruit military experts from Britain for service in the Ottoman empire. He also introduced to the British people Ottoman- Turkish customs. His public inauguration in 1795 was one of the greatest ceremonial events in Britain in the last decade of the eighteenth century. The press paid an enormous amount of attention to him and everything concerned with his embassy. The thesis also analyses the end of his mission and his return to Istanbul. The thesis examines in detail the reports of Yusuf Agah (Havadisname-i ingiltere and the account of his secretary, Mahmud Raif, in which each describes his, views and impressions of Britain and British institutions it, particular the military, financial, political organisations. Both Turkish and British sources agree that the Ottoman state adhered to European diplomatic regulations and understood the importance of reciprocal diplomacy between states in the late eighteenth century.

We have seen what high hopes were cherished in Britain of the future of United Germany. How were they fulfilled? There were not wanting already sinister indications. In 1870 Morier had been startled to find his old friends, the German Liberals developing qualities which he had not known they possessed. The disillusionment was great; but he was too honest not to face it. "I never dreamt," he wrote,'that ... the dangers civilisation would face within three years after the conclusion of peace, be directly traceable to Germany's having learnt and exaggerated the besetting vice of the people she had conquered. For there is no denying that the malady under which Europe is at present suffering is caused by German Chauvinism, a new and far more formidable type of the disease than the French, because instead of being spasmodical and undisciplined, it is methodical, calculating, cold-blooded, and self-contained." For German Liberalism there was no future. That party had given whole-hearted support to Bismarck in 1870, and the years that followed saw their final collapse as a living factor in German politics. In 1877, several assassination plots, chiefly forded by extreme socialists, against Bismarck and the King, aroused general indignation. The Chancellor had long wished for an opportunity of passing repressive laws against the socialists. Since 1866 he had relied an an alliance with the Liberals to carry on the government, but now he was sufficiently assured of his position to be able to dispense with their support, and for some years he had been tending to a reconciliation with his old friends the Conservatives. The Liberal party was sensible of the growing weakness of their position. To obtain a dominating power for Germany in Europe, they had sacrificed many of their principles, and the result had been a continuous loss of moral strength and independence. They now consented to pass the laws against the socialists, and it was the signal for their dissolution. The powers thus placed in the hands of the government were the negation of freedom of thought in Germany. Within one month, 135 socialist associations, 35 journals, and 100 books and pamphlets, had been suppressed. The Liberal party did not survive this exhibition of moral weakness. It split in two, one part being assimilated by the Progressists, while the majority followed Bismarck to the Right. Bennigsen retired; there was nothing else left for him to do. The Liberals had failed far more disastrously than in 1848: then they had only shown that they lacked constructive faculty; now, that they lacked moral strength. With the opposition so maimed, the expected development of English constitutionalism in Germany was not likely to appear. Far from progressing in the direction of responsible self-government, Germany appeared to have resigned herself to remain under the old system. The constitution of the new German empire was a slightly modified version of that of the late North German Confederation. The Reichstag had not been allowed to have any real say in this matter, for before the debates began Bismarck had induced the Liberal leaders to consent to his plans. The Constitution was drawn up on principles strange to English politics. The Emperor held the Presidency; his coadjutors were the Federal Council and the Reichstag. The summoning and dissolution of the Reichstag, the making of war and peace and treaties, were in his hands. His consent was not necessary, however, to (federal) legislation or taxation, which were handled by Council and Reichstag. The Council was formed of delegates from the various states, which voted as units; Prussia held 17 votes, and so controlled the voting, as rejection by 14 votes vetoed any constitutional change. The proceedings, of the Council were secret. They initiated laws, and could reject those passed by the Reichstag. The Council had also considerable executive powers. The Reichstag, chosen by manhood suffrage, gave an illusion of democratic control. Its consent was necessary to all legislation, but its powers were really very limited. Its function was rather to assent to than to initiate legislation, its control was as imperfect'as that of an assembly elected by universal suffrage must ever be, and its voting had little real effect on the government, because there was no ministerial responsibility. The Chancellor, who held a somewhat ill-defined position, was the connecting link between the three parts. He was head of the Council. He could only be appointed and dismissed by the Emperor, and was responsible only to him. He might thus hold office for an indefinite period, and there was no such thing as party government. The constitutions of the individual states dealt with their personal affairs. Some of the southern states devised liberal and enlightened systems; but that of Prussia was as like a despotism as a constitutional state could well be, and Prussia, as we have seen, really dominated the federal government. Those who regret that in many cases constitutional rights have been obtained by revolution and the use of force, might find consolation in observing Prussia: her constitution was Octroye, the free gift of her king; and she was not allowed to forget it. Equal disappointment awaited those who had hoped that Germany, once securely established, would become one of the pillars of European peace. Far from reducing her forces in 1871, Germany increased them. The Government succeeded in keeping the military expenditure practically under its own control, and by one "temporary" arrangement after another, the peace strength of the. army was added to, till in 1888 Sir Charles Dilke estimated, from the official statements of the German gencral staff, that in case of war Germany would be able to place 7,000,000 troops in the field. By maintaining her army in such strength in time of peace, Germany forced her neighbours in self-defence to adopt a similar policy. Even Belgium began to strengthen her defences. It was the beginning of that wasteful and pernicious system. of great armaments, which was to strain the resources of great powers like Britain, and almost ruin weaker powers like Italy. Whether Germany was likely to be pacific in international affairs - whether this armament was meant only for purposes of defence - was demonstrated by the War Scare of 1875, the Schnaebele incident, and the other War Scare of 1887. Germany, it was seen, was ready to bully and browbeat her weaker neighbours, to use her strength to enforce unjust demands, and to make war without provocation, whenever she found It convenient, if she were not restrained by the intervention of other great powers. At the scene time she had failed to justify her earlier wars and forcible annexations by reconciling the conquered populations through a wise and sympathetic rule. Alsace and Lorraine continued to preserve their loyalty to France notwithstanding an advance in material wealth which .night have served to compensate them for the change. Had the provinces been constituted a German state, a full member of the Empire, they might have been reconciled: but Bisrnarck and the general staff regarded the new acquisition from a military point of view. Alsace-Lorraine was prepared as a base for a future war, and an elaborate system of fortification at once commenced. For this the provinces mast be absolutely under the control of the central government, and they were therefore constituted as an imperial Territory (Reichsland). Later they were given 15 seats in the Reichstag, and were to be administered by a governor. One of the governors attempted a conciliatory policy, but without success, and in general a system of repression was followed, in which incidents of brutality occurred frequently enough to transform the first indignation into a steady and enduring hatred of the-new "Fatherland". The management of Alsace might be dictated by a fear of France attempting to reccver her lost provinces; but the possession of Slesvig was perfectly secure, for Denmark was no more likely to attack Germany than a mouse would attack a tiger. Yet, in spite of persistent propaganda and several attempts at jerrymandering, North Slesvig continued to return two Danish candidates to make their ineffectual protests in the Reichstag, and indeed the number of "Danish" votes actually increased with time.