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This thesis contributes to the debate regarding the EU’s inconsistent commitment to core values and principles. Whereas the EU has committed to conduct a value-based foreign policy, inter alia by promoting the respect for human rights abroad, values are not always followed consistently. The reason for such inconsistencies is often assumed to be that the EU sets its core values aside when they collide with the Union’s interests. This thesis re-examines this claim. Drawing on insights from recent constructivist research on the contestation of norms, the thesis argues that it is necessary to redirect the discussion on the characteristics of the EU’s external policies away from the stalemate of determining whether interests or normative concerns drive policies. Hypotheses of norm-driven action are often dismissed when norms are not followed consistently. However, just as ‘national interests’ come in different forms and may compete with each other, policy-makers may be confronted with different norms pointing them in different directions. The thesis contains three research articles that investigates whether norms always yield to interests in the EU’s development policy. The first article reflects on the researcher’s rolein determining the characteristics of an actor by discussing the methods we use to determine these characteristics. I identify a selection bias in the literature on the EU’s use of human rights sanctions that has resulted in interest-explanations being over-emphasised. The second article investigates why human rights sanctions were not invoked towards Rwanda in a number of episodes during the last decade. I find that EU policy-makers were confronted with a situation of norm collision. The concern for humanrights as well as free and fair elections collided with a concern over the negative impact a sanction could have on the social and economic conditions in the country. The main reason the EU did not sanction Rwanda should not be linked to interests but rather to norm collision and the choice to follow one of the colliding concerns. In the third article, I examine why the so-called like-minded member states were hesitant to participate in the EU’s common policy on donor coordination, despite coordination being an explicit goal for these countries. I find that the like-minded’s scepticism was connected to disagreements with other member states regarding substantive issues in the policy initiative, in particular regarding the extent to which the ownership-principle should be emphasised. Rather than seeking to maintain control over their policies for self-interested reasons, I find that these states argued over normative principles. But how can we account for the commitment to norms? This question has so far notfully been explored by second-generation constructivist scholars. In this thesis, I propose to do so by drawing on the concept of communicative rationality. Through the exchange of arguments, actors are able to assess the validity of normative claims and decide whether different values should be followed. The findings in this thesis could be interpreted in line with the idea of the EU as a value-based foreign policy actor. However, the thesis questions the assumption that a commitment to norms is a particular characteristic of the EU’s foreign policy. Norm evaluations are also an important factor in states’ policy-making processes. Hence, there is a need for a broader reconsideration of the basic assumptions underpinning analyses of foreign policy.

In this paper, Johanne Døhlie Saltnes recasts the story of the like-minded’s intermediate resistance and subsequent acceptance of the EU’s aid effectiveness reforms from one of competing interests and identities to one of contestation over normative principles. The paper draws on the GLOBUS conception of justice as impartiality to conceptualise central elements of the EU’s development policy, and further on the concepts of justice as mutual recognition and justice as non-domination to understand the like-minded’s resistance to the EU’s approach. The paper further highlights the usefulness of applying a global justice perspective when studying the EU’s development policy, as it facilitates a move beyond so-called ‘idealist motivations’ for aid and creates analytical standards that nuance our understanding of the competing normative claims that donors make in their aid policies.

The European Union (EU) is the world’s biggest donor of aid to developing countries. The provision of EU aid is conditional on respect for human rights and democratic principles in the recipient countries. This article questions to what extent norms always yield to interests in decisions over whether to sanction breaches of human rights and democracy. Building on a theory that allows the simultaneous consideration of different norms, the article suggests that rather than interests being the determining factor when the EU takes decisions on implementing sanctions, the weighing of various norms and the choice to follow one of them can explain why sanctions have been avoided in certain cases in Rwanda. The article shows that this weighing of different norms plays an important role in foreign policy decisions and can have concrete consequences with regard to sanctions. In so doing, it advances the literature on the EU’s global role by developing a theoretical account of the evaluation process and the ultimate decision to act in accordance with one norm in particular.